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True, but that's not what Roger King means.
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Cliff Pope speculates on what might have to happen >> If the oil really does run out.>>
If OPEC are restricting supply and BP and Shell have just made profits of £7bn this quarter from exploration and extraction, how likely is that?
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The RHA are flying the same old kite, as usual. Since lorries and buses are still the major users of derv, the Chancellor is hardly likely to give them a rebate, as he'd have to make it up elsewhere.
Defining essential is almost impossible, anyway. Is a lorry carrying wine to Tesco essential? I doubt it.
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This is tending to go off topic but as 'oldnotbold' says it is impossible to define essential. It is similar with key workers - a young map I know couriers essential medical supplies such as blood and donor organs. Yet he is not a key worker - the people waiting for an organ would argue that he is more key than a teacher!
The whole issue of duty may need a revamp but it has to be done impartially at a distance.
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I think we all know exactly who's journeys are essential don't we ? Primarily our own ! I often curse all these "others" who insist on their trivial and clearly non-essential journeys when I wish to use my roads. ;-)
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I agree with you shoespy, now get out of my way, I'm in a hurry. :-)
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I've just listened to the news and unless I misheard the RHA rep, I got the impression he was asking for a reduction fuel duty in general.
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It seems I was right back in April...........
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Yes, though no-one likes a smartasterisk.
What worries me is that some special kind of rebate scheme is just the kind of nonsense to appeal to Gordon Brown's convoluted way of thinking.
Fuel duty is just too high. Public transport is both inefficient and too expensive. It follows that there's no difference between one group of road-users and any other.
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I was in discussion in a thread on another professional forum to do with Transport and one of the respondents actually stated that "Car usage was priced artificially low", I did ask them to clarify exactly how they came to that conclusion but they failed to respond!
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>>Car usage was priced artificially low",
I guess road construction is hugely subsidised.
Go by train or plane and you pay for every penny that it costs (airports, fuel, staff, infrastructure, control towers etc etc).
Go by car, and your total tax cost is £200 RFL plus a few quid for road tax. Barely pays for the streetlight outside your front door, let alone the roads you use.
Anyway, it's lucky that the UK tax take has always been so high (although it's not ALWAYS, but anyway). Oil has gone up 15-fold over the last six of seven years. Imagine the shock to society of petrol having risen from 10p to £1.50 per litre.
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Go by train or plane and you pay for every penny that it costs (airports, fuel, staff, infrastructure, control towers etc etc). >>
Er, who pays for the Civil Aviation Authority? Who subsidises airlines by the lack of duty on airline fuel? Who pays the air traffic controllers?
Of course "road construction is hugely subsidised", if by that you mean it's paid for out of the public purse (you and me), and so is the construction of schools, hospitals, public libraries and you name it.
Car usage is not priced artificially low. You pay VAT on the purchase and on every litre of fuel and every service, VED once a year and fuel duty on every litre.
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The BBC TV news report on this says that fuel duty is 11% lower now than in 1999.
If correct, how do the hauliers expect to be taken seriously?
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The BBC TV news report on this says that fuel duty is 11% lower now than in 1999.
So we should all go back to the living standards as they were in 1999? Why stop there? Go back to living in caves?
If correct, how do the hauliers expect to be taken seriously?
By asking their taxes and costs to be compared with what their competitors pay across the channel. A UK haulier who goes out of business because someone across the pond undercuts them does no good to the UK treasury. It does no good for the cause of reduced emissions either because the foreign haulier burns the same amount of fuel.
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jbif, you are assuming that all other taxes in say France are identical to ours and that fuel duty is the only discrepancy between the tax burdens of the two countries.
Can you confirm if that is the case?
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A Treasury spokesman said the government understood business and families were "feeling the pressure from high fuel prices".
But they said the "immediate priority" was to encourage oil-producing countries to increase output, that a 2p-per-litre fuel duty increase had been put back from April to October and fuel duty was "still 11% below its 1999 level, in real terms". >>
I've pasted that from the BBC news site. I'm no expert but there doesn't on the evidence seem to be a shortage of oil. George Soros said at the week-end that speculators were fuelling price rises and predictions of price rises tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies.
Duty 11% less in real terms? I don't know what the man means, unless he's making a point about inflation or something to do with duty being less of a cost per litre now that oil has increased in price dramatically.
I'm spending more to fuel the car, and that's pretty real to me.
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... speculators were fuelling price rises
So ask George Soros "Why stop at $135 or $200? Why not $1000, or $10,000?"
The answer - markets, supply and demand. For every seller of a contract for $135 a barrel, there has to be a buyer for it!
What the politicians are failing to take heed of is that the UK public is now aware through 24/7 media, plus internet chat-rooms and fora, that the UK has the highest duty on fuel in the world. I have read [but am not yet sure of the factual nature of the claim] that India and China actually do the opposite - i.e. they subsidise the cost of fuel to the public
Personally speaking, the I agree with the sentiment that fossil fuels are priced too low in the world. I personally prefer a return to the empty roads of the 70's and 80s, when driving on the uncongested roads was fun. I can afford the current and forecast hikes in car costs, and am looking forward to the days when all the "poorer" members of this country are priced out of their cars.
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"China actually do the opposite - i.e. they subsidise the cost of fuel to the public"
They do, but a recent e-mail from a colleague who is currently living in China indicates Chinese authorities are now rationing diesel.
The subsidy required between actual cost and fixed price the Government sell it for is too high. As a result many fuel stations are unable to supply diesel.
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For every seller of a contract for $135 a barrel, there has to be a buyer for it! >>
I think that must be true but if I'm a speculator I only want the contract not the oil. I'm hoping that the price will continue to rise so I can sell the contract for the delivery to someone else.
In India trading in 5 commodities (not sure if oil is included) was banned last week and you could knock a hole in speculation by saying that anyone who wants to trade in oil has to have somewhere to take delivery of it. You'd need more than a desk and a screen for that.
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.. anyone who wants to trade in oil has to have somewhere to take delivery of it.
They do. It is called oilfields and storage depots.
No different to when I [or your pension fund] buy M&S shares, I [or your pension fund] get to own a physical bit of the store on the high street.
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I said>> .. anyone who wants to trade in oil has to have somewhere to take delivery of it. >>
And jbif responded:
>>They do. It is called oilfields and storage depots. >>
jbif, there's a difference between a market in oil and a market in a financial product related to oil, a future.
Where do Goldman Sachs have their oilfields and storage depots? Where do USB have their tank farms. They don't, because they don't buy and sell oil as such. Where do you think they are storing the oil for delivery in 2016? It's still deep in the ground, isn't it?
{why do you persist in replying at the end of a thread, instead of to the person you're having the 'discussion' with? - moved for at least the 2nd time to the correct part of the thread. Next time I will just delete as it is 10 times easier}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 28/05/2008 at 13:32
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Public transport is both inefficient and too expensive.
And it couldn't cope if large numbers of people transfered to it from cars....
It would have been ok if the Gov were actually spending the money they are getting from all the road taxes to benefit the travelling public, but they are just wasting it elsewhere instead.....
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