>>Most of the cost of fuel is tax. We should be boycotting >>Gordon Brown ;-)
>>teabelly
Yes most of it is tax but boycotting fuel companies is alot easier than Gorden Brown. Anyhow the fuel companies are not that honest or they would not be selling unleaded for 71.9p/l in one part of the country and 78.9p/l in another part of the country and distribution costs do not come into it, just pure GREED.
chris
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The theory is that if the public put pressure on the major petrol companies by boycotting them, the petrol companies will soon start to put the required pressure onto Gordon Brown.
I would love to see it happen but I am not holding my breath.
Rgds, Pete.
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Trouble is, people WON'T stick together fo a boycott, a few will do it but most won't, because Esso or whatever is their nearest garage. Until people REALLY get together and work together, nothing will ever change.
HF
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As the war clouds gather, complaints of the rising price of petrol remind me of Phillip Zec's WW2 cartoon. For those not familiar with it depeticts a shipwrecked sailor in heaving seas with the caption "The price of petrol has been increased by 1d - official"
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As some recently published statistics show, fuel now is as cheap as it has ever been in real terms - which is why so many of us can afford to use so much of it, and have evolved lifestyles where we commute SILLY distances to work instead of moving as people used to. In effect it has become an addiction. Despite fuel being so cheap, some people will drive a few extra miles to save a small sum where fuel is 1 or 2p less per litre, neglecting the cost of the extra distance (or sometimes the quality of the fuel).
As I am not obliged to travel large distances, I don't mind much if unpleasant market forces work against for a change, instead of bringing prices down as they often do (or are claimed to). A company-directed boycott is just a bit daft.
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I couldn't believe the number of people who hand-delivered Christmas cards this year, despite living 3 - 4 miles across town...stamps are still cheap aren't they?
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As far as tax is concerned, can you imagine the Americans, or the French, tolerating being trampled over by their governments in the way the Brits do? ;-)
Oz (as was)
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Is anyone as irritated as me, when you see the cheesy "Price Watch" notice at Esso petrol stations?
Is anyone daft enough to think this sign means that the fuel price is competitive, i.e. cheaper than the rest?
All it seems to mean is that there is a price cartel in that particular area. The motorist has no choice, all prices are the same no matter what the petrol company, to the nearest fraction of a penny!
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Andrew, you are absolutely right, fuel is far too cheap. As I said in another thread, a good oil crisis is what the world needs in order to see sense! But I think these views are in a minority!
Baz
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As some recently published statistics show, fuel now is as cheap as it has ever been in real terms - which is why so many of us can afford to use so much of it, and have evolved lifestyles where we commute SILLY distances to work instead of moving as people used to. In effect it has become an addiction. Despite fuel being so cheap, some people will drive a few extra miles to save a small sum where fuel is 1 or 2p less per litre, neglecting the cost of the extra distance (or sometimes the quality of the fuel). As I am not obliged to travel large distances, I don't mind much if unpleasant market forces work against for a change, instead of bringing prices down as they often do (or are claimed to). A company-directed boycott is just a bit daft.
well as long as you are allright.
unfortunately since the way we work in this country has changed over the years most of us are forced to travel long distances and are therefore a easy target to be ripped off.
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Chris - part of my point was that 'the way we work in this country' was (at least partly) of our own making. If we hadn't evolved this lifestyle we wouldn't moan so loudly about the cost of fuel. And of course that nice Mr Brown knows motorists will continue to fork out those high rates of taxation.
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Seems like most of us "got on our bikes". (The modern version of which, of course, means we "got in our cars").
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Oh, and another thing. If you complain at the cost of fuel - about £3.50/gallon - which has to be dug up in inhospitable parts of the world and processed in expensive refineries, why are the complaints not that much stronger about the cost of beer (the basis of which falls from the sky) being about 4 times as much? Maybe it's because it is not so easily transported by tanker?
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If, for example, you work in London on a middle management salary of £30k or so, there is no way you will get a mortgage for a £300k house or affird rent of £500 a week for a flat.
However, you CAN get a house further out and either a car or season ticket.
So where is the choice?
The only way things will change is when jobs move out to where the workers are.
Only the very rich or very poor (in municipal housing) can afford to live in cities.
Brian
Still learning (I hope)
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<
Yes, I think that's the point AT is making, that our dependency on oil is of our own making. Of course the cheaper it is, the more illogical society becomes in its use! I'm as guilty as anyone else, having done an 80 mile round commute for 2 years! Crazy really isn't it?!!
Also good to see the other thread "Axle of evil" - at least the Yanks are starting to question their own excesses at last!
Baz
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I seem to recall this "boycott a brand" suggestion cropping up last year. The problem with this approach is that there is an assumption that just because a forecourt site displays the Esso logo that it is owned and run by Esso itself. Not so - Forecourts range from Company Owned/Company Operated (COCO) through Company Owned/Dealer Operated (CODO) to Dealer Owned/Dealer Operated (DODO). If you religiously boycott all Esso sites then you need to accept that you'll probably drive a large number of independent, hard working Esso franchisees out of business - Dead as a DODO?
The margins on fuel are extremely slim (despite the high pump price which - as has been pointed out - is down to government imposed taxation) which is why most oil companies are desperately trying to build up the dry goods side of the business where the profitability is (e.g top up shopping) - and of course why the supermarkets are happy to use forecourts as loss leaders.
Boycotting Esso might lead to simply less choice in the long term as small rural Esso sites are driven to bankruptcy by lack of custom through no fault of their own.
RM
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Ironically the high tax on fuel in the uk will protect our economy in the case of an oil crisis. A rise of, say, ten pence per litre is a relatively small percentage rise in fuel costs compared with countries where fuel currently costs thirty pence a litre. Thus the impact on businesses and individuals is less because they have already budgeted for, and lived with, the bulk of the cost.
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ChrisR
I'm not sure that your logic is quite correct.
If prices go up by 10p per litre then the additional cost to the business in cash terms is the same whether the original cost of the fuel was 40p/litre or 75p/litre.
However, the business paying 75p/litre was less competitive and earning lower profits in the first place because its overheads were higher, so the additional cost has a more severe effect on its profitability.
Brian
Still learning (I hope)
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As I replied to the sender of the email (& copied it to everyone else they’d sent it to) when I got it about a year ago if we do this what Esso will do first is cut its costs, not its prices to any great extent, so that any borderline uneconomic forecourt sites will be closed and the staff laid off. So when you see the person that runs your local Esso garage popping into the DSS once he’s lost his job at least you’ll be able to console yourself with the fact that you may have got a totally illusory couple of pence of a litre of petrol.
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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Am I the only person who couldn't give a toss about the "environment"?
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It's not that I don't give a toss, just that from what I've heard cars are only liable for 2% of the worlds CO2 production. Why should we get clobbered when there is potentially so much to be cut from industry pollution rates. I can't take the accusations against car drivers seriously.
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To paraphrase, then, Humpy - "I'll use less, but not before someone else does" ?
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Andrew,
Example, if a little spurious!
Imagine you worked for a company and out of a hundred employees, two people (2%) were singled out and their pay docked relative to their consumption of paper. or they were charges for their tea and coffee to save the company's water bill. If you were one of those two people you would start looking around and say, "what about the others, why have we been singled out?"
So yes, in repsonse to your paraphrase, until the rules are applied to everyone and the same pressure then I don't see why we are singled out.
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Humpy - this is a perfectly understandable reaction, but I can't think of any regulated situation where everybody is affected equally, partly because of loopholes or (more often) human nature. In the end, the only effective control is (for want of a better word) self-regulation. Your explanation covers all kinds of practices like the Boulogne fag-courier traffic. I wonder what will develop among those unfortunate enough to live just inside or outside the Livingstone cordon?
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I give a HUGE toss about the environment, given that I have 2 kids who I'd like to have a better world to live in than the one we have now. I DO agree, however, that if cars are really only responsible for 2% of the pollution, then motorists are being made a scapegoat, and the other 98% needs to be sorted out too!!!
HF
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Humpy
It's just that cars are an easy target.
Remember that VAT on domestic fuel was cut from standard rate to 5% in 1997 for political gain, although that went against the environmental theory.
Air traffic is a major contributor to greenhouse gases but is untouchable because it would need all governments to agree to tax rates.
Traffic calming measures and the congestion that they cause add to the problem since a vehicle stationary in a jam is producing infinity grams of CO2 per mile.
So by hypeing the problem and making motorist feel guilty extra tax can be raised without significant objections.
Brian
Still learning (I hope)
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Brian - you can't slam air traffic, because much of that is caused by lots of people demanding their holidays in the sun, and to help them get there everyone, including the government, is demanding more runways. I think that if drivers object to aviation pollution they should accept self-limitation of air traffic by congestion, similar to that on the roads (but even that isn't very effective). I suppose the ultimate limit will be the number of planes in a given airspace, somewhere near London probably.
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"I think that if drivers object to aviation pollution they should accept self-limitation of air traffic by congestion, similar to that on the roads "
The Government attitude to air traffic, which is "predict and provide" is the exact opposite of the criteria applied to road and rail.
That gets up my nose.
Ninety million people per year (one and a half times the UK population) pass through the UK in transit without ever leaving
the airport or contributing one penny to the UK economy other than the landing fees and employment of airport workers.
Whilst needing vast areas of land for the airports themselves and adding to noise and atmospheric pollution.
Cheap package holidays are only viable because jet fuel is tax-free.
West London has enough problems without the noise and traffic generated by Heathrow.
I've nothing against air travel as such, I like planes and have had a few lessons myself, but it has become a holy cow that no-one dare speak out against.
Brian
Still learning (I hope)
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Wasn't it said/proven somewhere that the methane given off from cows rear quarters was actually damaging the ozone layer?
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DD - I very much doubt that anyone has PROVED it! Nice idea, though.
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Malteser - absolutely not. You're one of the few who bother to contribute to chat rooms like this.
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