Nihilists are the only ones who are truly in touch with their inner selves, mostly because of their fond habit of putting their finger in their butt holes and making epistemologists smell their finger.
Dude, a Galon is 4.4 litres, americans pay way less for gas, in fact since me n my family live near the borders we often go fill our cars in the U.S., even if its a 1 hour ride its still worth the money.
The price of gasoline rtises every year for Memorial day as it denotes the summer season, then in the fall as people slow down the price drops a little and everyone is grateful, but then comes the holiday season and the price rises again.
It happens every year, why is this a surprise to so many of you?
P.S. There’s a big sale on Expeditions and Yukons next week.
just read all the way down. lots of garbled junk from low I.Q. types trying to seem intelligent. no political flame war due to lack of intellect. I just hope for the sake of the planet that they are as young as they seem. I’m not holding my breath though.
Actually, both ‘spelt’ and ‘spelled’ are acceptable, but spelt is mainly used in British English, and I would assume the person that wrote it is British, since they corrected the American spelling of ‘liter’ to the British ‘litre.’
A quart is not the same as a litre/liter. A quart is 1/4 of a gallon in the US this would be less than a litre as a US gallon is 3.79 litres. However an imperial or true gallon is 4.5 litres so an imperial quart is larger than a litre.
Yes, James, that was kind of my point – in the US, we don’t generally have one-liter (or litre) containers; if you poured a liter of liquid into the nearest equivalent US container, one quart, you’d spill some on the floor, because a liter is a greater volume.
I was trying to be laconic, not pedantic, but if you insist…
Wow this is a fail on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin. Should I begin with the stupid conservatives who get their political facts wrong, or the dumba** who thought a liter was bigger than a gallon? Ya know what I’m just gonna leave it at that and ponder over how little faith I have in humanity at this moment.
Youse twoo’es timmin’es mee I fort I wassa getting alles yurres tack’s dullarse’es……jibble yuose hand bakkes twoouse mee all dee monnee’es yu gottes offa MANdud ‘s….
Drongo, I think you worte something above this, but its to flippin hard to read. *smokes weed and crack mixed with lsd and monkey faces finger*…….okay. NOW I get it.
If only I had some bleach to share with you all, of course paid by for by hard working ppls taxes.
You’re new here, aren’t you. Believe it or not, Drongo is our comptroller, and a good one at that. So keep your records straight and keep your receipts or he’ll be dragging his club your way.
Okay, do you have kids?
If the answer is no then you contribute to the graying of the population. Giving my generation a longer workspan.
If the answer is yes, you’re probably getting child support and helping ruining the earth.
i don’t want to partake of this bullsh*t, but i can’t resist…
Raising the Price of gasoline gives an incentive for shipping companies, which has a very large percentage of America’s gasoline consumption, to switch to more fuel efficient vehicles, which will increase supply by a significant amount, decreasing cost and therefore benefiting the average Joe in the long run.
I’d rather not refute your understanding of economics but, In the short run the cost of everthing will increase. The incentive of freight carriers is profit. Please get over it. increasing the operating costs of transportation providers is a disincentive to growth, expansion and yes hiring people.
You say switch to more fuel efficient vehicles like it’s just that simple. Those who transport cargo for a living are already maiximizing profit to make money. If there were a more fuel efficent vehicle, they would have already adopted its use because this would lower the operating cost and increase PROFIT – which is Revenue – minus cost.
As operatiing costs decrease, more companies can enter the market place and existing participants can expand.
Oh, you think a company running with a minimal profit margin has the cash to buy completely new trucks for all drivers; but won’t raise prices? Or raising prices helps the “average Joe”?
If your plan to “help” me is to make my commute, food, and all other prices more expensive… QUIT HELPING.
Seriously liberals; quit it… I can’t afford any more of your “help”.
He said “long run,” ertdfg. In the short run, prices will rise because we’re running out of oil, which isn’t the fault of liberals. If we ween our dependence off it, we’ll be better of in the long run.
Silly Europeans. Using commas in places commas oughtn’t be used. Pronouncing far too many vowels and h’s. Dragging our clueless and naive president into Libya. Having stupid, ostentatious royal weddings.
Oooh, poor, little, E, do, we, use, too, many, commas, in, your, opinion? In, my, opinion, you, should, use, way, more, it’s, fun.
And we are so sorry that we are bullying your poor president into invading a country. America is so peaceful, it would never even think about doing such a thing without terrible peer pressure.
Yup. It’s Obama’s fault gas prices are going up. It’s his fault that America has a car-centered culture and that fat a$$ed obese suburbanites have to use the drive-thru ATM, the drive-thru fast-food, and drive to the corner store. Start walking a little, you pigs! You’ll be healthier and richer.
Oh and to anyone who owns a SUV, you have forfeited the right to complain about gas prices the moment you even considered buying that gas-guzzling monster you drive around.
Uhhhh. But it wasn’t Bush’s fault, either, when the gas prices went up, right? He didn’t have all those oil companies in his back pocket either! And Cheney wasn’t benefiting at all!
Oh, no, wait, it was, if you remember correctly. For those. . . Let me think. Oh, yeah, exact reasons.
If you want to whine and complain about whoever’s in office, at least be *fair* about it, for crikey’s sake.
1. We get a new president in office with new promises, new ideals, change is on the horizon! Everyone feels a sense of hope and renewal.
2. A couple years down the road, the president screws the country, messes everything up, pisses off all our allies, and is like “f*ck you america, I’m the president, get use to it. oh btw, you guys gonna be payin me a fortune every year AFTER my term is over lolololol”
3. The election process begins, everyone is relieved that the previous president is finally gonna be pushed out of office.
4. We get a new president in office with new promises…….
I’m not sure I believe #2 completely. I think people like to blame the president or congress for whatever the current economic situation is — especially when the president doesn’t belong to the same party as whoever is complaining.
Reality is, the economy and the large-scale markets are cyclical in nature. They go naturally go through peaks and valleys. Especially during the valleys, Presidents and Congresses try to tweak economic policies in order to “fix” everything, but it never amounts to much. Tip-of-the-iceberg changes, so to speak.
So if things don’t get better soon enough, the opposing party now gets to blame whoever is currently in charge.
What’s even funnier about this discussion is that Republicans are generally opposed to government interfering in business — but now they’re complaining that the president hasn’t stepped in to fix gas prices? Didn’t some of the big oil companies already pay $0 in taxes last year?
There doesn’t seem to be any real discourse in the US. These days it’s all about us vs them. If Obama came out tomorrow and completely reversed many of his policies, his opponents would still find a way to be opposed to it.
The country is in a terrible state and Obama didn’t cause it. In fact, if people looked at the facts, he has made the country slightly better than when Bush left office. When Obama entered office, we went into a repression; where the hell did that go? Obama kicked its ass. I will say that it isn’t an ideal condition, but at least we aren’t in a state of emergency.
Also, Trump for President is like… Trump for President. It’s not even a good joke.
“Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”
Your “kicked it’s ass” doesn’t seem to have gotten the economy, or jobs, or the GDP, or earnings back up… maybe ending a recession means something different now. Most people aren’t impressed when you still have employment numbers lower than when you started.
i do agree with you, but i honestly think Obama didnt realize what he was getting himself into. i really think he thought he would be ‘different.’ dont get me wrong i voted 3rd party because anything else is too mainstream (im half joking dont worry), but the poor kid never had a chance
These people ought to come to Norway on their next vacation and travel around a bit. We’re paying $11 per gallon of gas now. I wonder how they figure any president is going to be able to change the market rates on a limited commodity like gas, the availability of which is also diminishing. And I wonder why they think that a president who believes in the power of the market above all would even try. Huh.
My mam and dad lived in Oslo for a few months eight years before I was born. They have legislation that requires snow tyres on all cars in the winter months, and the ploughs make barries of snow on the pavements four feet high!!
Llets see, the President has blocked drilling in the Gulf since the BP spill (for reasons so poor the courts are looking to hold the Executive Branch in contempt)… which lowers supply.
But lowering supply in the face of increased demand doesn’t raise prices? Raising supply won’t reduce prices? Can I see your economics book, mine seems to say different stuff here.
The Executive branch blocking drilling can’t be adjusted by having a new lead of the Executive Branch? Are you sure on this, I think the Politics works too…
Considering the Gulf oil was largely for export and the creation of plastics, the fact that the US isn’t drilling for oil doesn’t change the available supply of the oil the country consumes for transportation.
He’s apparently one of the leading contenders. I’ll say this, if you vote him into Presidency you lose all rights to complain when/if he takes your money and then gives it to himself and doesn’t do anything else with the country.
haha maybe if they were a little more like Europe they wouldn’t be so stpuid, A) who doesn’t know the difference between a litre and a gallon? and B) rublicans wrecked the country and left if to Obama to fix,
Yes, stpuid people… first we should be more like Europe… which includes the population density. We need the entire country to move to Texas (then some of the oil/transportation policies the Dems promote would be cost effective).
Then we can have more Obama “fixes”… another trillion or more in spending, employment a percentage of population still falling, lower tax base, lower GDP, and higher debt… did we redefine “fix”?
How or why would the Pres. be controlling the price of gas aside from the abominably stupid idea of using the gas reserves to drop gas prices 10 cents a gallon?
I love people putting party politics (Palitics?) over country.
Best way to see if someone is full of sh!t is to simply do the substitution game.
When ____ was President, everything was great! Then ______ came along and ruined everything! ______ is so expensive now and we never had ______ either? And now _____ is getting so out of control we’ll have to _________ and _______ to get out of it!
You can fill that in with any number of President’s, markets like Wall Street, oil, gas prices, etc.
The sad thing is there really is so few things a president and congress can do to actually improve things. When things improve, it’s a slow, sometimes painful process. Gas prices skyrocket fast. then they very slowly go down. It’s just how things work.
I don’t blame Obama for high gas prices, but I do blame him for increasing our budget debt well beyond what we can afford. He promised that if we passed the Economic Stimulus plan, unemployment wouldn’t go above 8%. Well, we went WELL above that and still haven’t recovered that far. He can point to tiny, marginal increases, but so much of the recovery has just been consumer confidence, not rebuilt roads, billions to green energy firms (like Solyndra which closed shop and moved to China this year) and other boondoggles. Everyone complaining that GE paid $0 in taxes, of course at the same time Obama appoints GE CEO Jeff Imelt to his cabinet. Hmm… nope. No conflict of interest there. (GE paid no taxes under both Bush and Obama by the way, so don’t bother bringing that up).
So really, enough of this idol worship. I wish more people understood how both parties have completely sold us out for their special interests.
High gas prices are something we’re going to have to get used to.
And don’t let the high unemployment rate fool you, there are still PLENTY of people who can shell out the cash for a fuel efficient car.
The rich are richer and the poor are screwed.
But, Republicans should face Obama being a two term president if Trump and Palin are the best they can do.
You can still use it in a lot of cities. I take a bus to my university (subsidized pass FTW!). If I drove, I’d go through a tank every three days. When I drive to a bus station, it takes me 9 to 11 days to go through a tank.
I don’t bus everywhere because yes, mass transit sucks in the US, especially in suburbia, but making my straight-shot commutes by bus saves a lot of gas.
We don’t have the population density of Europe. Taking a bus on your 40 – 50 mile commute in the middle of Kansas/Nebraska/Colorado/Oklahoma/Missouri/etc. (where the Bus would have more stops than passengers and run mostly empty, at a loss) isn’t really much of a plan.
Public transportation requires a certain population density to be efficient or effective.
But if we’d force everyone in the country to move to Texas; we’d have enough density to make it work (comparable to Europe).
Do we suck because we’re spread out? Because we won’t waste money on an inefficient plan? Or because you’re bad at math?
Well, Rebecca Black *tried* to take the bus, but then her stupid friends showed up with a car, and made her brain hurt trying to decide which seat she should take, and drove down the highway, crusin’ so fast she wanted time to fly…
Republican politics: Obama says get used to it! Sorry, can’t find a quote though, not even one I can pull out of context. =(
Reality: White House to launch probe investigating spiking gas prices.
I think the liter/gallons part was for the off chance that the rest of us didn’t realize how stupid they were in the first place.
Whatever your position I wish we could all agree on this.
Poor and rich is a state of mind.
Being “Broke” or having cash is a temporary situation.
If you are poor and you think you are a victim then you will be poor your whole life. You can even win the lottery and you will blow all the money and be poor again.
I started out poor, my mom sent me to the store when I was a little kid with food stamps or 41 pennies to buy a roll of toilet paper.
At some point in life I started working hard (long hours, multiple jobs) and now I have a 6 figure job and lots of things I never thought I would have as a kid. It all came from hard work and maturity. Which I admit I did not have when I was in my early 20s.
When I was a kid my Grandmother said, “when I was little my mom told me that Democrats were for the poor and Republicans were for the rich so I voted Democrat my whole life” I was about 6 and I replied, “but I want to be rich.”
GE did not pay federal income tax and neither did 48% of Americans. A good portion of those 48% that did not pay, want tax increases on the “Rich”. They have no skin in the game. It is like me making rules for a game I do not play or follow.
Both sides are buried in special interest, the President has nothing to do with gas prices until he works on anti-speculation legislation. Which I do not even support personally.
The truth is, the government has lots of tax incentives (breaks) to facilitate less peak and valleys in the gas prices. Now when those companies pay less taxes, or GE uses all of the Wind Credits that Obama sold we vilify them. In reality we pushed them into doing these things and complained when we got the bill.
Trust me, tax breaks for corporations to encourage behavior has a cost, until America gets a fair tax code we are all sliding into a Greek tragedy.
A fair tax code. Lower than our regular tax code. No write offs, or very select, personal basis write offs. That would do so much to give a more steady, regular tax revenue base it’s not even funny.
Well, then both parties wouldn’t be able to give special hand outs to their buddies.
You do know poor people have iPhones and Cable TV and lots of other things they do not “need” but want and that type of mentality keeps them poor. People trade food stamps on the black market for beer and cigs, they go on trips they cannot afford, yet they want the government to do more for them because they are poor. You do not have to stay poor in America, that is the beauty of the country.
I knew a Russian who came to the US with a family of 4 and $2000 and did not speak English. Within a few years, he owned a house in a town I could never afford to live in, owned a new $30000 car, and did it all with painting and moving furniture. That was in 1997.
His kids went on to both break 1500 on the SATs. All from hard work.
You do know that not all poor people are as you described. That “just work harder to get more money” mentality is a nice bedtime story, but the reality is that the people who work the hardest get paid the least. Case in point: the janitor at my office works his ass off all day long, but he makes far less than the engineers. Before anyone goes off on a rant about the engineers being paid for their education, consider who would be missed more if they just stopped showing up to work.
It isn’t nearly that black and white as Jason makes it out to be. I know because I have been in both sets of shoes. When I was in college, I worked four jobs, plus I sold my plasma twice a week and redeemed aluminum cans to supplement my income. Still, the only way I could afford college was the 50% off tuition I received because one of my jobs was at the university. It took a while, but I achieved both my B.A. and M.A. with honors.
Does this make me better than someone who works days at Taco Bell and nights at a convenience store? Hell no. But I have maintained my empathy for folks in that position. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a job at the college they want to attend. Even if they do, it might not benefit them tuition-wise. Or maybe that money goes to support their ailing parents or siblings. (I know a bit of that, too, having moved to my current location to care for my elderly mother until she died.) Or maybe they don’t qualify for any grants or scholarships.
Or maybe they can afford college if they work three jobs, but the college is too far away for them to make any of the classes that happen to be scheduled when they’re not working. (I know a bit about this as well. After I graduated, I taught night classes at three different local colleges before landing a full-time gig.)
Teal deer: To cavalierly pronounce that hard work is all it takes is to deny the myriad of factors –not the least of which is a bit of luck – that come into play when someone attempts to elevate him- or herself above poverty.
That’s because we live in the age of the supermarket. Before greengrocers, butchers and bakers were within walking distance and there was a sense of community. Now because of the cheap, mass produced, convenience of the supermarket they’re slowly going out of business. Instead of being friends with your butcher we now have passionless, spotty teenagers with poor social skills who won’t even give you the time of day handling our shopping. So dump your gas guzzling cars which are using up the worlds resources and take your family of four to your local shops. Get them some well needed exercise and do something as a family even if it is just grocery shopping.
I manage just fine and there’s 8 of us.
Then again if your local businesses have already gone under and you’re an unfortunate American with poor public transport and a country that believe more in convenience than health then good luck. You’re going to need it
Because it’s not safe or practical in many communities.
I live in suburbia – not only is it an uphill five mile trek through winding roads to the nearest grocery store, that’s my shortest commute. I watch how people drive on these streets: visibility is about twenty feet, and people still try to go 30mph. I have a high probability of being hit by a car (definitely more than $2k for the medical bills).
Second, I go to school 30mi from where I live. Even if I was to bike to the nearest bus station, it would be around 10mi. I drive it, then switch to bus.
Bikes only work in certain very-urban scenarios. I think bikes/mass transit are a good supplement to cars, but in a world constructed on cars, it’s hard to tell people “just bike everywhere”.
I live in western Washington state. We have these things called “mountains” here – not those piddly thousand-foot hills folks in the Midwest call “mountains”, but real, fourteen-thousand-foot volcanic monsters. That leads to a lot of hills – tall, steep hills. It also leads to a lot of rain, as the prevailing winds off the Pacific blow moisture-laden air up against those mountains, forming clouds, which then have to drop their moisture as rain as they are forced to higher altitudes by the mountains.
I for one don’t relish riding a bicycle 30 miles to work, across multiple steep hills, in the rain, especially when it’s a bit cold (so far this year, the local temperatures have exceeded 55 degrees exactly twice – not at all this month).
And public transit never was that great in this region, and has been suffering even more in the wake of professional initiative writer Tim Eyman’s multiple tax-limitation and fee-limitation initiatives, which leave the transit system with no funding. So, essentially, there’s no buses or trains to take to get places. (Technically, I could take a bus to work – but I’d have to leave the house around 4 am, and drive ten miles to the nearest park-and-ride lot [again, bicycle is out of the question, in this case due to road conditions - when these roads were built, this was farming country, and nobody anticipated the use of bikes on them], then ride multiple buses in order to arrive at work around 7:30 am, then wait until the business opens at 8 in order to go inside and wait another hour for my shift to start. The next such linkage wouldn’t get me there until half an hour after my shift starts…)
I’d like to get a bike, but I get veeery nervous cycling on a road with all the cars passing me. ‘Tis a shame, I liked my cycling proficiency lessons in Year 6 and the few instances of mountain biking I had. The last time I was on a bike was two years ago, methinks – in a village in the Netherlands, and they have bikes with no brakes; one hat to pedal backwards to stop. Didn’t like the cars then either.
Right, which would work in America, if we just crammed the entire population of the country into Texas to get enough population density ofr public transportation to be efficient.
The NHS is awesome in theory but worse in practice. *sigh* I wish they could fix it. At least our local surgery is small and efficient, you just have to call early for an appointment. And I can get my prescriptions free, avoiding that £7-odd charge per item.
As for petrol, I think I read on the BBC website that around 60% of our costs is tax?
Whatever anyone thinks about Trump being a nutbag birther, I REALLY hopes he runs third party. I’d love to see him cone out and say whatever the hell he wants, political decorum be damned. I wish our politicians were fiery, intelligent, and spirited. Instead we get a cowboy in Bush, and a calm, boring zombie like Obama.
Every now and then we hear a clip of Bush and Obama talking off mic (or so they thought). They actually sound like human beings… I actually perk up and start listening. Instead, if I hear Obama say “Let me be clear” again I’m going to live my life normally but slightly more irritated.
Than we would have no presidents. People are never going to get used to the idea that a) things we have had for a long time (like gas) can and do run out and b) Presidents are high level bureaucrats, not wizards. (Ohh, yeah and even though it has been 222 years since our government was put in place people still haven’t gotten over the old monarchial dependance on “the guy at the top” and realized that Congress is actually the most influential and powerful branch of government, so when s*** goes bad complain to your senator and your rep!)
I was told 4 or 5 years ago in my history class that the judicial branch is currently the most powerful branch of government. I doubt it changed in only a few years.
Ummm, the UK has had a constutional monarch for hundreds of years, so we were well over the guy at the top before the first civil war in North America. However, the whole call for independence was because the Britisg government told American businessmen that if they want to steal native lands they would need to raise the money for the troops through local taxes. The US has NEVER been democratic and was built on a platform of corruption. You get what you sow
Actually, the basis of the American Revolution came when, in the wake of the lowered tea tariffs that made the East India Company competitive with smugglers, representatives of the colonies went to London to complain that they were being denied their right under the Magna Carta to representation in Parliament. George III told them that as colonists, they had no Magna Carta rights – which caused the colonists to begin to wonder, if they weren’t really British, why were they paying tribute to the Crown? The rest followed from there…
In norway 95 octane unleaded is 14,85 Norwegian krone pr liter, and diesel 14,05, and we are one of the worlds richest countrys and one of the biggest oil produsing contries, dam yankes do the mat from liter and norwegian krones to dollar and gallon and stop complaining…
Yeah. Only that drilling in the Gulf has resumed since long ago. It’s not the president’s fault that oil companies are too greedy and too stupid to take proper precautions that might have prevented the latest oil spill. And if you pay close attention, the gas prices are totally decoupled from supply and demand. They are mostly the result of speculation.
Just for the heck of it, i did some calculations on the Norwegian gas prices. Currently here it is at 13.99 NOK/l. So, calculated to USD, that is 2.59$/l. Converting that to gallons makes the price per gallon of gas 9.80$. around 70% of that are taxes. Our salary tax is around 35-40% as well. And we are ranked the best country to live in. We have virtually no state debt. Our healthcare is free, we get paid when ill. So quit b*tching and take a look at how the world works…
Oh, and by the way, among the wars fought around the world contributing to the rise in fuel prices, we are all involved. Yes, you too. We are virtually shooting ourselves in both legs then. Happy easter!
many american cities are not designed for walking (or even cycling, for that matter.) car culture was so powerful in the 20th centure that our city layouts reflect it. as in, suburbs. and nobody wants to pay for good public transit.
it’s a shame, but that’s how it is.
We can walk plenty of places. My job is 8 miles away though, and the only direct route is freeway, so walking/biking is out.
I also don’t want to sit in hobo pee for two hours so the bus is out too.
Instead I drive. It uses 1/4 a gallon of gas and I get there in 12 minutes.
I frequently walk to a drugstore and grocery store just two blocks away, but where I live is almost entirely residential, so there’s little to walk to.
America is too big to walk or bike in most of the country. They do not have the public transportation infrastructure either. Many Americans and when I say many I mean 200,000,000 of them have to move via automobile to get anywhere. Europe has options, America doesn’t. Also Americans like to move on their own schedule. I bought my house 1.7 miles from work, I put gas in my car once every 25-30 days.
I used to have a real commute and I love hypermiling. I was getting 3-4mpg over EPA.
I like dynamite and gunpowder… and gasoline. And do you know what all these things have in common… they’re cheap!
Now really, fuel is running out. It’s natural that the price increases. Not even Superobama can change that. Whining won’t help and searching for scapegoats won’t, either.
Today (April 22nd) we pay €1.751 per liter of regular petrol here in The Netherlands.
One gallon is 3.7854 liters, so that’s € 6.6282354 per gallon.
With € 1.00 being $ 1.45 at the moment, that makes petrol $ 9.64 per gallon.
Luckily, I live close to the border, so I drive to Belgium, where petrol is only € 1.59 per liter (only $ 8.74 per gallon).
what do people expect him to do? fix the global price of oil? snap his fingers and put more in the planet? it would be $5/gallon no matter who was president. except captain planet. he’d have us all on sustainable energy by now.
$5/gal – yeah, we see that in Alaska every winter. In Anchorage right now we are paying $4.10/gallon. For the cheap stuff. In some villages, they are paying $8-9/gallon. That is normal for them in the winter time because it is hard to get gas to them during the winter months. It will drop to about $6/gallon for the summer. In Anchorage though, if rates continue, we will see $5/gallon about 3 months before YOU in the continental US do. Funny thing is – we drill for oil, we have natural gas fields (that our own government won’t allow us to drill for), have refineries in state, and we still can’t use our own produce. We have to have it shipped from elsewhere because our country insists that we shouldn’t be allowed to use AMERICAN oil/gas.
The massive petrol price hike has already left an impact on my very European city. Roads are clearer than they used to be this time of the year, and more and more people are seen getting around on bikes.
Of course, as some mentioned before, it’s different for European cities – we do have options, usually better public transport, smaller distances… but I think it’s high time for Americans to accept that the age of cheap oil is over. As light crude oil sources are running out, and we are reaching for heavier, deeper, harder-to-extract sources, oil prices are only expected to rise in the long run.
As much as I understand how the US is built with lots of open space and cheap and effective transportation in mind, I think it’s time to see that the emblematic “change” in the way Americans are handling the question of personal transport.
On the part of the government, this would involve building sidewalks and bike lanes on roads that were previously used exclusively for motorized transport; train/tram lines on major traffic veins, and better bus service everywhere. As a long-term investment, it would bring about a decrease in oil import, and better mobility for people who can’t afford just driving everywhere anymore. Heck, it would improve health conditions by encouraging people to get off their asses every once in a while.
omfg.. They’re STILL wrong.. I WISH it was like $8 a gallon over here!!
Its 135.9p per litre… there are 4.5 litres in a gallon… so £6.11.55 for a gallon (call it £6.12)… thats a whopping $10.08! And people are crying over $5 a gallon?!
MTFU.. seriously.. Stop driving cars that get 6 to the gallon :/
biodiesel, make it yourself from old cooking oil/grease, use it in a VW TDI, and be happy about the cheap fuel and great mileage.
Or allow industrial hemp to be grown as a feedstock source.
Or ride a bike.
wow this so proves my point. im german and i lived in america for a year. a lot of the people there didnt even know where europe was . i think its even more funny that the people commenting on here dont even know how much litres a gallon has (though its on every milk or orange juice gallon). its 3.78 litres in one gallon…check your fridge ;D
Nihilists are the only ones who are truly in touch with their inner selves, mostly because of their fond habit of putting their finger in their butt holes and making epistemologists smell their finger.
Hey MF, have you heard?
That dumb Amerikan joke?
No silly Sully…..
B-B-B-BIRD, BIRD B-B-B-B-B-BIRD. EVERYBODY’S HEARD THAT THE BIRD IS THE WORD!
HERD
int et hird
I needed that. Thank you.
You got the lyrics wrong. You sir are a disgrace!
Aww :’( Well, as long as it annoyed you my mission is complete.
8$/litre?? wtf here where i live is not even 2$ per litre …the most expensive type of gas in 1.88$/litre , wow sucks to be american ha!
Dude, a Galon is 4.4 litres, americans pay way less for gas, in fact since me n my family live near the borders we often go fill our cars in the U.S., even if its a 1 hour ride its still worth the money.
Exactly! It was $ 2,30/litre maximum today in Austria, and today was the beginning of the easter holidays which traditionally has higher gas prices.
Ah, no…wrong…last friday was the beginning of the easter holidays, today is the beginning of the easter weekend…
For a second I thought you were Drongo.
i’m his evil twin triangle
Heard that the Bird Is the Word!
you know what the say: “the early bird gets the word”
*they :/
*them
but the second mouse gets the Disease
i’ve missed you all day… we have some pseudo MF bullstuff goin on round here
Beverly is a baby and she said “ass”. She can’t even drive or vote yet.
┌∩┐(ò_ó)
A d!ck and breasts…?
^Awesome
The price of gasoline rtises every year for Memorial day as it denotes the summer season, then in the fall as people slow down the price drops a little and everyone is grateful, but then comes the holiday season and the price rises again.
It happens every year, why is this a surprise to so many of you?
P.S. There’s a big sale on Expeditions and Yukons next week.
Political Flame war Incoming!
just read all the way down. lots of garbled junk from low I.Q. types trying to seem intelligent. no political flame war due to lack of intellect. I just hope for the sake of the planet that they are as young as they seem. I’m not holding my breath though.
automatic troll is automatic?
This——————————————->
Penis
is…
pudding
Screw you frank
……..THE MOON HAS SPOKEN!!!!!!!
-_-’ goddamn it Lawerence.
Annoying wannabe troll is annoying.
Annoying Austrian is ashamed of his Country’s past.
A hamster
Not Sparta. FAIL!
*off teh Internetz
fail at metric it spelt litre
*its’
*spelled*
Actually, both ‘spelt’ and ‘spelled’ are acceptable, but spelt is mainly used in British English, and I would assume the person that wrote it is British, since they corrected the American spelling of ‘liter’ to the British ‘litre.’
DING DING DING
*1337-R
^ \/\/ | |\| !!
Dan, why you so funny?
Because he’s awesome.
Depends. Americans would spell it liter.
Amurrikan annede dee wurd spelttes inna sammes centance’es issa jokkes…
Most Americans would spell it “quart, and you spilled some there…”
A quart is not the same as a litre/liter. A quart is 1/4 of a gallon in the US this would be less than a litre as a US gallon is 3.79 litres. However an imperial or true gallon is 4.5 litres so an imperial quart is larger than a litre.
Yes, James, that was kind of my point – in the US, we don’t generally have one-liter (or litre) containers; if you poured a liter of liquid into the nearest equivalent US container, one quart, you’d spill some on the floor, because a liter is a greater volume.
I was trying to be laconic, not pedantic, but if you insist…
Not a Soda drinker are you?
win!
Fail. Bother litre and liter are acceptable spellings.
And it’s almost $9/gallon in Europe at the moment.
$10/gallon in Norway this easter.
Silly Europeans, In mother Russia we have many oilfields that provide us with 5 dollar a gallon oil. Cheapest in the world!…….Right?
In mother Russia, your incomes are so incredibly high that you actually have to work more for a gallon than Americans or Western Europeans.
Yeah, but you have to spend more gas running away from polar bears or Russian Mafia shootings.
WIN!
IN MY COUNTRY, MAFIA SHOOTINGS SOLVED WITH MORE MAFIA SHOOTINGS. EVERYTHING SETTLE OUT EVENTUALLY. IS GOOD. IS RUSSIA.
Yeah, but that’s only $2.25 a liter, which is only like 1.5 euro. cheap.
that is not cheap
It is. In Holland it’s 1.75 euro…
are we talking about Diesel or Benzine here? anyway, that is WAAAAY high man!
in our country its 1.2 for diesel and 1.3 for petrol
But 1.5 is small
Inches or centimeters?
Wow this is a fail on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin. Should I begin with the stupid conservatives who get their political facts wrong, or the dumba** who thought a liter was bigger than a gallon? Ya know what I’m just gonna leave it at that and ponder over how little faith I have in humanity at this moment.
ht tp://www.specialdefects.com/v2/
I can literally do this all day.
Because you live off my taxes
*chortle*
Comment of the day!
Youse twoo’es timmin’es mee I fort I wassa getting alles yurres tack’s dullarse’es……jibble yuose hand bakkes twoouse mee all dee monnee’es yu gottes offa MANdud ‘s….
Drongo, I think you worte something above this, but its to flippin hard to read. *smokes weed and crack mixed with lsd and monkey faces finger*…….okay. NOW I get it.
If only I had some bleach to share with you all, of course paid by for by hard working ppls taxes.
You’re new here, aren’t you. Believe it or not, Drongo is our comptroller, and a good one at that. So keep your records straight and keep your receipts or he’ll be dragging his club your way.
Nah. Not new. Just drink a lot of bleach and mod my phone so my name and avatar change. You know silly stuff like that….
*texas
Only ______ and ______ come from Texas.
Me first!
“Dan” and “lube”
“strippers” and “hoes”.
Holy crap. “Lvbe” <-replace v with u… is MODERATED. WTF?!? WHY?
LUBE!
********* < o.o our emails are moderated!!!
LOL! It wasn’t lube. It was F!RST!
Idiots
Me
=)
Still sitting in moderation… Anyway:
“Dan” and “lµbe”
what’s an l-mu-be ?
“Mexicans” and “W”
steers and queers
from full metal jacket my poor, ignorant lovelies
and u dont much look like a steer to me, so that kinda narrows it down!
Okay, do you have kids?
If the answer is no then you contribute to the graying of the population. Giving my generation a longer workspan.
If the answer is yes, you’re probably getting child support and helping ruining the earth.
OMG that is epic!
I <3 you. Now I can stay busy all the time.
*litreally*
What do you expect when they get their information from Glen Beck, Fox News and Donald Trump?
The SS USATitanic is sinking and everyone’s to busy pointing fingers to do anything about the problems.
*too
*two
*smelling
And that is why our metric system is awesome-r than the empirical one.
yes, but you have to measure your genitals in centimeters
Which makes it longer
What’s amatter with You’re face? What did You take man?
What’samatta you?
Gota no respect
Whaddyou think you do?
Why you looka so sad?
It’sa not so bad,
It’sa nicea place
Ah, shuddupayourface
I…. uh….. Sorry……
When the moon hits your eye
Like a big Pizza pie…
That’s A Moray!
We can use decameters too! Doesn’t make them longer, but it sounds awsomer
“empirical”?? REALLY?
You best watch your language, or the Empire will send some Empirical Stormtroopers your way.
haha! I hate these stupid chain updates… This just made my day!
ht tp://nickciske.com/tools/binary.php
I can literally do this all day.
Cause you are self employed?
ht tp://www.titane.ca/concordia/dfar251/igod/main.html
I can literally do this all day.
Cause you’re a douche with no life?
Enough about Yourself Skyman, we’re trying to Troll Jibble.
good luck with that. he’s like (a) rubber, you’re like lube, let’s all git together and f*ck something!
But we’re missing Dan!
Do you really feel the need to randomly capitalize words? Did Mother Russia teach you that it’s okay to randomly capitalize words?
Because it’s not. Only Mother Russia can capitalize You.
I didn’t capitalize any random words, you capitalize the first word of every sentence and names.
saeyyes whoo..
So “Troll” and “Yourself” are names?
………Yes?
Troll would be a verb in that case, I assume, and yourself is a pronoun, not a name.
01110011011101010110001101101011001000000110110101111001001000000110001001100001011011000110110001110011
http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp
I can literally do this all day
cause you are physically stuck to the computer?
America needs a new liter
i just laughed so hard i farted blood
(Submitter here) I like it. Freedom liters. Bigger than a gallon.
*brain explodes*
I did my avatar 3 times and it doesn’t show up. I get some goofy face. No offense to the rest of you.
You did your avatar? Giggity.
Next time your brain is about to explode, could you try to do it outside? These walls won’t clean themselves, you know.
I thought you were janitor…
I’m just asking for a little cooperation, that’s all!
he got promoted
to a fancier title.
^ el win
^el this
Thank god Europe isn’t like the US. Or else we’d all be lost!
now that’s what I call a deep and well-reasoned piece of commentary. go get invaded or something.
Mine’s better than yours.
What? Your set of @nal luv beads? I’m sure they’re better since no one else here has any. Now get back to your… uh… whatever you call that.
We already got, first by the Hunes, later by the mongols and now by a bunch of small guys from China, they fortunately bring hawt chicks too.
I suppose you mean Huns, um they didn’t invade Europe they are Europeans.
*penis
munching
blob
mongers
i don’t want to partake of this bullsh*t, but i can’t resist…
Raising the Price of gasoline gives an incentive for shipping companies, which has a very large percentage of America’s gasoline consumption, to switch to more fuel efficient vehicles, which will increase supply by a significant amount, decreasing cost and therefore benefiting the average Joe in the long run.
I’d rather not refute your understanding of economics but, In the short run the cost of everthing will increase. The incentive of freight carriers is profit. Please get over it. increasing the operating costs of transportation providers is a disincentive to growth, expansion and yes hiring people.
You say switch to more fuel efficient vehicles like it’s just that simple. Those who transport cargo for a living are already maiximizing profit to make money. If there were a more fuel efficent vehicle, they would have already adopted its use because this would lower the operating cost and increase PROFIT – which is Revenue – minus cost.
As operatiing costs decrease, more companies can enter the market place and existing participants can expand.
tl;dr
^tddr
*tr
Oh, you think a company running with a minimal profit margin has the cash to buy completely new trucks for all drivers; but won’t raise prices? Or raising prices helps the “average Joe”?
If your plan to “help” me is to make my commute, food, and all other prices more expensive… QUIT HELPING.
Seriously liberals; quit it… I can’t afford any more of your “help”.
He said “long run,” ertdfg. In the short run, prices will rise because we’re running out of oil, which isn’t the fault of liberals. If we ween our dependence off it, we’ll be better of in the long run.
WHO CARES?! In Germany, a liter of gas costs about 1,70€/liter, which is about 8,5$/gallon
Silly Europeans. Using commas in places commas oughtn’t be used. Pronouncing far too many vowels and h’s. Dragging our clueless and naive president into Libya. Having stupid, ostentatious royal weddings.
Who the hell do you people think you are, anyway?
im sorry but many of those apply to select countries in europe, and not even the same ones!
“Having stupid, ostentatious royal weddings.”
In my experience, Americans, Canadians and 60% of Northern Ireland are far more excited about that than we are in England.
Seeing as we gave birth to your country i’d say we are your parents, now go to bed!
Oooh, poor, little, E, do, we, use, too, many, commas, in, your, opinion? In, my, opinion, you, should, use, way, more, it’s, fun.
And we are so sorry that we are bullying your poor president into invading a country. America is so peaceful, it would never even think about doing such a thing without terrible peer pressure.
And Germany isn’t even participating in Libya.
In Europe, the comma in numbers signifies the decimal place, they use periods for thousands, millions, and so on.
Right, who cares if your family doesn’t have enough to eat; people are starving to death in North Korea…
What, that didn’t make your life better? You’re still hungry? Well it seems other people being screwed doesn’t make Americans less screwed… weird.
And yes, gas costs more in Europe, but the higher population density means Europeans drive less than Americans.
I don’t know about all of Europe, because I live in Italy, but, Italians drive just as much as Americans do.
Yup. It’s Obama’s fault gas prices are going up. It’s his fault that America has a car-centered culture and that fat a$$ed obese suburbanites have to use the drive-thru ATM, the drive-thru fast-food, and drive to the corner store. Start walking a little, you pigs! You’ll be healthier and richer.
Oh and to anyone who owns a SUV, you have forfeited the right to complain about gas prices the moment you even considered buying that gas-guzzling monster you drive around.
Yours truly,
TDtf
Uhhhh. But it wasn’t Bush’s fault, either, when the gas prices went up, right? He didn’t have all those oil companies in his back pocket either! And Cheney wasn’t benefiting at all!
Oh, no, wait, it was, if you remember correctly. For those. . . Let me think. Oh, yeah, exact reasons.
If you want to whine and complain about whoever’s in office, at least be *fair* about it, for crikey’s sake.
I think he was being sarcastic about the “Obama’s fault” part. Way to fail.
1. We get a new president in office with new promises, new ideals, change is on the horizon! Everyone feels a sense of hope and renewal.
2. A couple years down the road, the president screws the country, messes everything up, pisses off all our allies, and is like “f*ck you america, I’m the president, get use to it. oh btw, you guys gonna be payin me a fortune every year AFTER my term is over lolololol”
3. The election process begins, everyone is relieved that the previous president is finally gonna be pushed out of office.
4. We get a new president in office with new promises…….
That is so downright logical that I refuse to believe it.
I’m not sure I believe #2 completely. I think people like to blame the president or congress for whatever the current economic situation is — especially when the president doesn’t belong to the same party as whoever is complaining.
Reality is, the economy and the large-scale markets are cyclical in nature. They go naturally go through peaks and valleys. Especially during the valleys, Presidents and Congresses try to tweak economic policies in order to “fix” everything, but it never amounts to much. Tip-of-the-iceberg changes, so to speak.
So if things don’t get better soon enough, the opposing party now gets to blame whoever is currently in charge.
What’s even funnier about this discussion is that Republicans are generally opposed to government interfering in business — but now they’re complaining that the president hasn’t stepped in to fix gas prices? Didn’t some of the big oil companies already pay $0 in taxes last year?
There doesn’t seem to be any real discourse in the US. These days it’s all about us vs them. If Obama came out tomorrow and completely reversed many of his policies, his opponents would still find a way to be opposed to it.
The country is in a terrible state and Obama didn’t cause it. In fact, if people looked at the facts, he has made the country slightly better than when Bush left office. When Obama entered office, we went into a repression; where the hell did that go? Obama kicked its ass. I will say that it isn’t an ideal condition, but at least we aren’t in a state of emergency.
Also, Trump for President is like… Trump for President. It’s not even a good joke.
I forgot to mention that Obama has improved our relations with other countries. That’s why he’s magically in another country before we know it.
And I’m not praising Obama; I’m stating facts.
ht tp://poop.com/
I can literally do this all day (and night for that matter.)
It comes up with Cancer for your colons : <– Poor Little man Has Cancer
Right, look at unemployment. When Obama took office 60% of Americans were employed, but now we’re up to 58.5% of Americans being employed.
Slightly better, if you don’t like people having jobs.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
Oh, and a “repression”… hehe
“Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”
Your “kicked it’s ass” doesn’t seem to have gotten the economy, or jobs, or the GDP, or earnings back up… maybe ending a recession means something different now. Most people aren’t impressed when you still have employment numbers lower than when you started.
i do agree with you, but i honestly think Obama didnt realize what he was getting himself into. i really think he thought he would be ‘different.’ dont get me wrong i voted 3rd party because anything else is too mainstream (im half joking dont worry), but the poor kid never had a chance
Same thing happened in the UK at our last General Election…most damning of those was Clegg and university fees.
For comparison’s sake, could you tell me the annual fee for a university in the States?
These people ought to come to Norway on their next vacation and travel around a bit. We’re paying $11 per gallon of gas now. I wonder how they figure any president is going to be able to change the market rates on a limited commodity like gas, the availability of which is also diminishing. And I wonder why they think that a president who believes in the power of the market above all would even try. Huh.
So full of win
Clearly a good president would be invading Canada and Saudi Arabia to get at their oil.
Durr.
Yeah, but how many places are there to drive in Norway?
How many roads do you even have, like three? Are they all even paved yet?
I thought you people skiied or skated everywhere you went.
i ride a burro to work every day. it gets great mileage.
My mam and dad lived in Oslo for a few months eight years before I was born. They have legislation that requires snow tyres on all cars in the winter months, and the ploughs make barries of snow on the pavements four feet high!!
Llets see, the President has blocked drilling in the Gulf since the BP spill (for reasons so poor the courts are looking to hold the Executive Branch in contempt)… which lowers supply.
But lowering supply in the face of increased demand doesn’t raise prices? Raising supply won’t reduce prices? Can I see your economics book, mine seems to say different stuff here.
The Executive branch blocking drilling can’t be adjusted by having a new lead of the Executive Branch? Are you sure on this, I think the Politics works too…
Huh.
Considering the Gulf oil was largely for export and the creation of plastics, the fact that the US isn’t drilling for oil doesn’t change the available supply of the oil the country consumes for transportation.
Try again.
Good lord, Trump for president??? People are supporting him??
What has the world come to ;__;
The same world that’s supporting PALIN for president.
*barf*
He’s apparently one of the leading contenders. I’ll say this, if you vote him into Presidency you lose all rights to complain when/if he takes your money and then gives it to himself and doesn’t do anything else with the country.
Trump will just declare bankruptcy like he always does.
True, but still, if you vote for him, you lose all rights to complain.
haha maybe if they were a little more like Europe they wouldn’t be so stpuid, A) who doesn’t know the difference between a litre and a gallon? and B) rublicans wrecked the country and left if to Obama to fix,
At least Republicans can spell.
You’ve never met some of the ones I know.
Yes, stpuid people… first we should be more like Europe… which includes the population density. We need the entire country to move to Texas (then some of the oil/transportation policies the Dems promote would be cost effective).
Then we can have more Obama “fixes”… another trillion or more in spending, employment a percentage of population still falling, lower tax base, lower GDP, and higher debt… did we redefine “fix”?
less derp more facts.
Anyone know where I can find the direct quote from Obama? I find it hard to believe that he would say something so stupid.
It’s probably “not intended to be a factual statement”.
How or why would the Pres. be controlling the price of gas aside from the abominably stupid idea of using the gas reserves to drop gas prices 10 cents a gallon?
I love people putting party politics (Palitics?) over country.
Best way to see if someone is full of sh!t is to simply do the substitution game.
When ____ was President, everything was great! Then ______ came along and ruined everything! ______ is so expensive now and we never had ______ either? And now _____ is getting so out of control we’ll have to _________ and _______ to get out of it!
You can fill that in with any number of President’s, markets like Wall Street, oil, gas prices, etc.
The sad thing is there really is so few things a president and congress can do to actually improve things. When things improve, it’s a slow, sometimes painful process. Gas prices skyrocket fast. then they very slowly go down. It’s just how things work.
I don’t blame Obama for high gas prices, but I do blame him for increasing our budget debt well beyond what we can afford. He promised that if we passed the Economic Stimulus plan, unemployment wouldn’t go above 8%. Well, we went WELL above that and still haven’t recovered that far. He can point to tiny, marginal increases, but so much of the recovery has just been consumer confidence, not rebuilt roads, billions to green energy firms (like Solyndra which closed shop and moved to China this year) and other boondoggles. Everyone complaining that GE paid $0 in taxes, of course at the same time Obama appoints GE CEO Jeff Imelt to his cabinet. Hmm… nope. No conflict of interest there. (GE paid no taxes under both Bush and Obama by the way, so don’t bother bringing that up).
So really, enough of this idol worship. I wish more people understood how both parties have completely sold us out for their special interests.
Win!
High gas prices are something we’re going to have to get used to.
And don’t let the high unemployment rate fool you, there are still PLENTY of people who can shell out the cash for a fuel efficient car.
The rich are richer and the poor are screwed.
But, Republicans should face Obama being a two term president if Trump and Palin are the best they can do.
trummpett four preseident…palin fourres vise presstiedent..Yayyes gooo GO’P'eeee
AMERICA:
Y U NO TAKE THE BUS?
I’z on yer bus, cunsurvin yer gas
No bus in my town of 21,000 people.
We suck too much to put adequate public transportation into place (in most areas anyway).
You can still use it in a lot of cities. I take a bus to my university (subsidized pass FTW!). If I drove, I’d go through a tank every three days. When I drive to a bus station, it takes me 9 to 11 days to go through a tank.
I don’t bus everywhere because yes, mass transit sucks in the US, especially in suburbia, but making my straight-shot commutes by bus saves a lot of gas.
We don’t have the population density of Europe. Taking a bus on your 40 – 50 mile commute in the middle of Kansas/Nebraska/Colorado/Oklahoma/Missouri/etc. (where the Bus would have more stops than passengers and run mostly empty, at a loss) isn’t really much of a plan.
Public transportation requires a certain population density to be efficient or effective.
But if we’d force everyone in the country to move to Texas; we’d have enough density to make it work (comparable to Europe).
Do we suck because we’re spread out? Because we won’t waste money on an inefficient plan? Or because you’re bad at math?
Well, Rebecca Black *tried* to take the bus, but then her stupid friends showed up with a car, and made her brain hurt trying to decide which seat she should take, and drove down the highway, crusin’ so fast she wanted time to fly…
…It’s complicated.
conservatives are so dumb lol
We’re paying $5/gallon in Canada…and we’re still complaining.
Funny thing is we’re only paying 1.40 /gallon
(thats about $3.50)
Republican politics: Obama says get used to it! Sorry, can’t find a quote though, not even one I can pull out of context. =(
Reality: White House to launch probe investigating spiking gas prices.
I think the liter/gallons part was for the off chance that the rest of us didn’t realize how stupid they were in the first place.
Whatever your position I wish we could all agree on this.
Poor and rich is a state of mind.
Being “Broke” or having cash is a temporary situation.
If you are poor and you think you are a victim then you will be poor your whole life. You can even win the lottery and you will blow all the money and be poor again.
I started out poor, my mom sent me to the store when I was a little kid with food stamps or 41 pennies to buy a roll of toilet paper.
At some point in life I started working hard (long hours, multiple jobs) and now I have a 6 figure job and lots of things I never thought I would have as a kid. It all came from hard work and maturity. Which I admit I did not have when I was in my early 20s.
When I was a kid my Grandmother said, “when I was little my mom told me that Democrats were for the poor and Republicans were for the rich so I voted Democrat my whole life” I was about 6 and I replied, “but I want to be rich.”
GE did not pay federal income tax and neither did 48% of Americans. A good portion of those 48% that did not pay, want tax increases on the “Rich”. They have no skin in the game. It is like me making rules for a game I do not play or follow.
Both sides are buried in special interest, the President has nothing to do with gas prices until he works on anti-speculation legislation. Which I do not even support personally.
The truth is, the government has lots of tax incentives (breaks) to facilitate less peak and valleys in the gas prices. Now when those companies pay less taxes, or GE uses all of the Wind Credits that Obama sold we vilify them. In reality we pushed them into doing these things and complained when we got the bill.
Trust me, tax breaks for corporations to encourage behavior has a cost, until America gets a fair tax code we are all sliding into a Greek tragedy.
Just saying,
Jason
P.s. I am one of the 52%.
tl;dr
Shut up Chuck. Jason makes sense.
A fair tax code. Lower than our regular tax code. No write offs, or very select, personal basis write offs. That would do so much to give a more steady, regular tax revenue base it’s not even funny.
Well, then both parties wouldn’t be able to give special hand outs to their buddies.
You do know poor people have iPhones and Cable TV and lots of other things they do not “need” but want and that type of mentality keeps them poor. People trade food stamps on the black market for beer and cigs, they go on trips they cannot afford, yet they want the government to do more for them because they are poor. You do not have to stay poor in America, that is the beauty of the country.
I knew a Russian who came to the US with a family of 4 and $2000 and did not speak English. Within a few years, he owned a house in a town I could never afford to live in, owned a new $30000 car, and did it all with painting and moving furniture. That was in 1997.
His kids went on to both break 1500 on the SATs. All from hard work.
That is what america misses.
Hard work.
Thanks,
Jason
You do know that not all poor people are as you described. That “just work harder to get more money” mentality is a nice bedtime story, but the reality is that the people who work the hardest get paid the least. Case in point: the janitor at my office works his ass off all day long, but he makes far less than the engineers. Before anyone goes off on a rant about the engineers being paid for their education, consider who would be missed more if they just stopped showing up to work.
It isn’t nearly that black and white as Jason makes it out to be. I know because I have been in both sets of shoes. When I was in college, I worked four jobs, plus I sold my plasma twice a week and redeemed aluminum cans to supplement my income. Still, the only way I could afford college was the 50% off tuition I received because one of my jobs was at the university. It took a while, but I achieved both my B.A. and M.A. with honors.
Does this make me better than someone who works days at Taco Bell and nights at a convenience store? Hell no. But I have maintained my empathy for folks in that position. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a job at the college they want to attend. Even if they do, it might not benefit them tuition-wise. Or maybe that money goes to support their ailing parents or siblings. (I know a bit of that, too, having moved to my current location to care for my elderly mother until she died.) Or maybe they don’t qualify for any grants or scholarships.
Or maybe they can afford college if they work three jobs, but the college is too far away for them to make any of the classes that happen to be scheduled when they’re not working. (I know a bit about this as well. After I graduated, I taught night classes at three different local colleges before landing a full-time gig.)
Teal deer: To cavalierly pronounce that hard work is all it takes is to deny the myriad of factors –not the least of which is a bit of luck – that come into play when someone attempts to elevate him- or herself above poverty.
Kira and Woof for president.
Why doesn’t everybody buy a bike and use it? You pay once and you can get a whole decade out of it.
$300 for a really good bike. About $2000 a year for gas alone, plus registration, plus insurance, plus car payment.
because not everyone is a douchebag
Hard to bring home groceries for a family of four on a bike.
Also, I don’t think I would manage to well getting up an extra four hours earlier for the longer commute.
Hmm… I need to go to the store for 10 gallons of semigloss paint for the garage. Now, to get inside my car and… Ah f&$k!!
Time to get on my bike to get to work…oh f**k, im a F***ing parplegic
Why would you need a garage if you didn’t have a car?
That’s because we live in the age of the supermarket. Before greengrocers, butchers and bakers were within walking distance and there was a sense of community. Now because of the cheap, mass produced, convenience of the supermarket they’re slowly going out of business. Instead of being friends with your butcher we now have passionless, spotty teenagers with poor social skills who won’t even give you the time of day handling our shopping. So dump your gas guzzling cars which are using up the worlds resources and take your family of four to your local shops. Get them some well needed exercise and do something as a family even if it is just grocery shopping.
I manage just fine and there’s 8 of us.
Then again if your local businesses have already gone under and you’re an unfortunate American with poor public transport and a country that believe more in convenience than health then good luck. You’re going to need it
Riding a bike 34 miles for surgery would be fun too! Where I live many times you have to go to a bigger hospital.
$300 for a really good bike? you are kidding, right?
Because it’s not safe or practical in many communities.
I live in suburbia – not only is it an uphill five mile trek through winding roads to the nearest grocery store, that’s my shortest commute. I watch how people drive on these streets: visibility is about twenty feet, and people still try to go 30mph. I have a high probability of being hit by a car (definitely more than $2k for the medical bills).
Second, I go to school 30mi from where I live. Even if I was to bike to the nearest bus station, it would be around 10mi. I drive it, then switch to bus.
Bikes only work in certain very-urban scenarios. I think bikes/mass transit are a good supplement to cars, but in a world constructed on cars, it’s hard to tell people “just bike everywhere”.
I live in western Washington state. We have these things called “mountains” here – not those piddly thousand-foot hills folks in the Midwest call “mountains”, but real, fourteen-thousand-foot volcanic monsters. That leads to a lot of hills – tall, steep hills. It also leads to a lot of rain, as the prevailing winds off the Pacific blow moisture-laden air up against those mountains, forming clouds, which then have to drop their moisture as rain as they are forced to higher altitudes by the mountains.
I for one don’t relish riding a bicycle 30 miles to work, across multiple steep hills, in the rain, especially when it’s a bit cold (so far this year, the local temperatures have exceeded 55 degrees exactly twice – not at all this month).
And public transit never was that great in this region, and has been suffering even more in the wake of professional initiative writer Tim Eyman’s multiple tax-limitation and fee-limitation initiatives, which leave the transit system with no funding. So, essentially, there’s no buses or trains to take to get places. (Technically, I could take a bus to work – but I’d have to leave the house around 4 am, and drive ten miles to the nearest park-and-ride lot [again, bicycle is out of the question, in this case due to road conditions - when these roads were built, this was farming country, and nobody anticipated the use of bikes on them], then ride multiple buses in order to arrive at work around 7:30 am, then wait until the business opens at 8 in order to go inside and wait another hour for my shift to start. The next such linkage wouldn’t get me there until half an hour after my shift starts…)
Good god. One day off and everything spins out of control.
Spin out of control
Spin out of control
Treacher and lover will collide with each other
As we
Spin out of controooolllll
Hey!
Ho!
Hey!
I’d like to get a bike, but I get veeery nervous cycling on a road with all the cars passing me. ‘Tis a shame, I liked my cycling proficiency lessons in Year 6 and the few instances of mountain biking I had. The last time I was on a bike was two years ago, methinks – in a village in the Netherlands, and they have bikes with no brakes; one hat to pedal backwards to stop. Didn’t like the cars then either.
Gas is more expensive in Europe because they tax the fvck out of it (among other things) to pay for their “free” healthcare and 30-hour work weeks.
It’s not even comparing apples and oranges. It’s comparing apples and zebras.
at least when our poor get sick we don’t leave them to die…
With the lines, forced delays, and non-permitted procedures your claim is you “don’t” leave them to die?
Have you checked lately?
The lines happen because everyone gets treated.
The lines don’t happen for you because many people can’t afford to be in the line at all.
Everyone getting delayed treatment is better than some getting quick treatment while others get none.
And our cheap public transport system. In Europe, You can go nearly everywhere without a using a car at all.
Right, which would work in America, if we just crammed the entire population of the country into Texas to get enough population density ofr public transportation to be efficient.
The NHS is awesome in theory but worse in practice. *sigh* I wish they could fix it. At least our local surgery is small and efficient, you just have to call early for an appointment. And I can get my prescriptions free, avoiding that £7-odd charge per item.
As for petrol, I think I read on the BBC website that around 60% of our costs is tax?
At $5/gal petrol is equal to £0.80/litre. This is nothing compared to the £1.41/litre i currently pay in the UK.
Screw politics–they’re all liars!
The fail was the guy saying trump for president right?
Whatever anyone thinks about Trump being a nutbag birther, I REALLY hopes he runs third party. I’d love to see him cone out and say whatever the hell he wants, political decorum be damned. I wish our politicians were fiery, intelligent, and spirited. Instead we get a cowboy in Bush, and a calm, boring zombie like Obama.
Every now and then we hear a clip of Bush and Obama talking off mic (or so they thought). They actually sound like human beings… I actually perk up and start listening. Instead, if I hear Obama say “Let me be clear” again I’m going to live my life normally but slightly more irritated.
He’ll never run because presidential candidates must completely disclose their finances.
Has it occurred to any of you geniuses that Suzanne is obviously trolling?
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president, should on no account be allowed to do the job!
~ Douglas Adams.
Than we would have no presidents. People are never going to get used to the idea that a) things we have had for a long time (like gas) can and do run out and b) Presidents are high level bureaucrats, not wizards. (Ohh, yeah and even though it has been 222 years since our government was put in place people still haven’t gotten over the old monarchial dependance on “the guy at the top” and realized that Congress is actually the most influential and powerful branch of government, so when s*** goes bad complain to your senator and your rep!)
I was told 4 or 5 years ago in my history class that the judicial branch is currently the most powerful branch of government. I doubt it changed in only a few years.
Ummm, the UK has had a constutional monarch for hundreds of years, so we were well over the guy at the top before the first civil war in North America. However, the whole call for independence was because the Britisg government told American businessmen that if they want to steal native lands they would need to raise the money for the troops through local taxes. The US has NEVER been democratic and was built on a platform of corruption. You get what you sow
Actually, the basis of the American Revolution came when, in the wake of the lowered tea tariffs that made the East India Company competitive with smugglers, representatives of the colonies went to London to complain that they were being denied their right under the Magna Carta to representation in Parliament. George III told them that as colonists, they had no Magna Carta rights – which caused the colonists to begin to wonder, if they weren’t really British, why were they paying tribute to the Crown? The rest followed from there…
TL:DR; Obama can’t do s*** without approval from Congress.
And Congress can’t pass s*** without approval from the president…well, actually, there’s an exception to that….
In norway 95 octane unleaded is 14,85 Norwegian krone pr liter, and diesel 14,05, and we are one of the worlds richest countrys and one of the biggest oil produsing contries, dam yankes do the mat from liter and norwegian krones to dollar and gallon and stop complaining…
So, the party that is totally anti-government and totally pro market complains that the president doesn’t do anything about gas prices?
Repugnantlicans, you never fail to amaze me.
No, actually they’re complaining that he is doing something about them.
By using the power of the executive branch to prevent drilling in the Gulf (and many other areas) he’s reducing supply… which affects price.
Democrats… you haven’t amazed me yet.
Yeah. Only that drilling in the Gulf has resumed since long ago. It’s not the president’s fault that oil companies are too greedy and too stupid to take proper precautions that might have prevented the latest oil spill. And if you pay close attention, the gas prices are totally decoupled from supply and demand. They are mostly the result of speculation.
Right, its all those evil speciulator’s fault…
http://www.forbes.com/2011/04/19/oil-futures-prices.html
Forbes:
Are Speculators Gouging Us At The Pump?
They aren’t, so put away the torches and pitchforks.
But yeah, Forbes and I don’t pay attention; so explain it to us… since we’re wrong.
Pssh, complaining about 5$ to the gallon? In the uk it’s £1.30 a litre! Nearly $11 to the gallon
In some Places it is even £1.40 Per Litre
Just for the heck of it, i did some calculations on the Norwegian gas prices. Currently here it is at 13.99 NOK/l. So, calculated to USD, that is 2.59$/l. Converting that to gallons makes the price per gallon of gas 9.80$. around 70% of that are taxes. Our salary tax is around 35-40% as well. And we are ranked the best country to live in. We have virtually no state debt. Our healthcare is free, we get paid when ill. So quit b*tching and take a look at how the world works…
Oh, and by the way, among the wars fought around the world contributing to the rise in fuel prices, we are all involved. Yes, you too. We are virtually shooting ourselves in both legs then. Happy easter!
Our petrol is £1.39, glad I can (and do) walk for free everywhere!
That’s the problem the big fat yanks can’t walk anywhere, apart from people in NY i hear they walk everywhere…
many american cities are not designed for walking (or even cycling, for that matter.) car culture was so powerful in the 20th centure that our city layouts reflect it. as in, suburbs. and nobody wants to pay for good public transit.
it’s a shame, but that’s how it is.
lol love how this gets moderated, whereas if i call someone a f*cking twat, it goes right thru
We can walk plenty of places. My job is 8 miles away though, and the only direct route is freeway, so walking/biking is out.
I also don’t want to sit in hobo pee for two hours so the bus is out too.
Instead I drive. It uses 1/4 a gallon of gas and I get there in 12 minutes.
I frequently walk to a drugstore and grocery store just two blocks away, but where I live is almost entirely residential, so there’s little to walk to.
Big difference between here and New York.
Well in Ireland the price per litre is about €1.50 which as far as I know, is way to expensive compared to America
Tramp for president!
America is too big to walk or bike in most of the country. They do not have the public transportation infrastructure either. Many Americans and when I say many I mean 200,000,000 of them have to move via automobile to get anywhere. Europe has options, America doesn’t. Also Americans like to move on their own schedule. I bought my house 1.7 miles from work, I put gas in my car once every 25-30 days.
I used to have a real commute and I love hypermiling. I was getting 3-4mpg over EPA.
Jason
Actually they’re all stupid, it’s ‘litre’ not ‘liter’
Actually depending where you are from ‘litre’ and ‘liter’ are both correct, so correcting the spelling of ‘liter’ is showing stupidity.
Maybe he should work on the education system first 0.o
You may not want to be like us but your stupidity is hilarious to the rest of Europe.
I like dynamite and gunpowder… and gasoline. And do you know what all these things have in common… they’re cheap!
Now really, fuel is running out. It’s natural that the price increases. Not even Superobama can change that. Whining won’t help and searching for scapegoats won’t, either.
Use Vegetable Oil Or Bio-Diesel It is only £0.90 Per Litre
Today (April 22nd) we pay €1.751 per liter of regular petrol here in The Netherlands.
One gallon is 3.7854 liters, so that’s € 6.6282354 per gallon.
With € 1.00 being $ 1.45 at the moment, that makes petrol $ 9.64 per gallon.
Luckily, I live close to the border, so I drive to Belgium, where petrol is only € 1.59 per liter (only $ 8.74 per gallon).
FFS IT’S FRIDAY!!!! GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what do people expect him to do? fix the global price of oil? snap his fingers and put more in the planet? it would be $5/gallon no matter who was president. except captain planet. he’d have us all on sustainable energy by now.
$5/gal – yeah, we see that in Alaska every winter. In Anchorage right now we are paying $4.10/gallon. For the cheap stuff. In some villages, they are paying $8-9/gallon. That is normal for them in the winter time because it is hard to get gas to them during the winter months. It will drop to about $6/gallon for the summer. In Anchorage though, if rates continue, we will see $5/gallon about 3 months before YOU in the continental US do. Funny thing is – we drill for oil, we have natural gas fields (that our own government won’t allow us to drill for), have refineries in state, and we still can’t use our own produce. We have to have it shipped from elsewhere because our country insists that we shouldn’t be allowed to use AMERICAN oil/gas.
The massive petrol price hike has already left an impact on my very European city. Roads are clearer than they used to be this time of the year, and more and more people are seen getting around on bikes.
Of course, as some mentioned before, it’s different for European cities – we do have options, usually better public transport, smaller distances… but I think it’s high time for Americans to accept that the age of cheap oil is over. As light crude oil sources are running out, and we are reaching for heavier, deeper, harder-to-extract sources, oil prices are only expected to rise in the long run.
As much as I understand how the US is built with lots of open space and cheap and effective transportation in mind, I think it’s time to see that the emblematic “change” in the way Americans are handling the question of personal transport.
On the part of the government, this would involve building sidewalks and bike lanes on roads that were previously used exclusively for motorized transport; train/tram lines on major traffic veins, and better bus service everywhere. As a long-term investment, it would bring about a decrease in oil import, and better mobility for people who can’t afford just driving everywhere anymore. Heck, it would improve health conditions by encouraging people to get off their asses every once in a while.
GOD Americans are stupid.
also, in England we spell ‘liter’ litre.
omfg.. They’re STILL wrong.. I WISH it was like $8 a gallon over here!!
Its 135.9p per litre… there are 4.5 litres in a gallon… so £6.11.55 for a gallon (call it £6.12)… thats a whopping $10.08! And people are crying over $5 a gallon?!
MTFU.. seriously.. Stop driving cars that get 6 to the gallon :/
biodiesel, make it yourself from old cooking oil/grease, use it in a VW TDI, and be happy about the cheap fuel and great mileage.
Or allow industrial hemp to be grown as a feedstock source.
Or ride a bike.
Wow, so much stupid in that post! Haha I love it!
BTW, only around $2/ litre here in NZ
wow this so proves my point. im german and i lived in america for a year. a lot of the people there didnt even know where europe was
. i think its even more funny that the people commenting on here dont even know how much litres a gallon has (though its on every milk or orange juice gallon). its 3.78 litres in one gallon…check your fridge ;D