RE: [pf] working 50% more, just to support car ownership.

· The string of comments (below) on the fraction of your income that goes
to support your car (as one of all the cars in the US), ranging from 28% to
P.S.J.'s 40%, aren't worth arguing or enquiring further about, IMO. Those
are large figures, given the sort of income most Americans take for
granted. There's no need to look for accuracy here, when the damage and
expense is so huge.

· Obviously something has to be done. Not arguing more, but publicising,
persuading, agitating etc. 

· Making as public as you can, that in spite of young men's infatuation
with and/or enjoyment of driving and car ownership, /and/ the dependence of
most of present-day economic activity on fossil-fueled internal combustion
engined vehicles travelling at high speed for far too great distances on
very expensive highways, 90% of it is unnecessary and its expansion to this
degree was a mistake that should be rectified.
  (90% is my guess, comparing the 1950s in the US with now.)

· IMO, arguments based on keeping the economy from crashing are very
suspect. A managed transition to a balanced, well-designed (most efficient
use of resources) economy would be preferable to the chaos and hurt of an
economic crash, but if (as is obvious) it's not going to be done in a
managed way, it still has to happen (the present max-production,
max-consumption economy _cannot_ go on for ever), so it'll have to be a
series of crashes.
  What a shame! Humans _should_ be able to do so much better!


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At 10:04 7/3/2001 -0800, Molly Williams wrote to Pos Fut, with Subject: RE:
[pf] working 50% more, just to support car ownership :-

>> Even if ALL our income taxes went to pay for my car costs, we still
wouldn't be near 40% of our income on car costs. I don't see where this
figure comes from. I did read Peter SJ's comment on hidden car costs, in
services paid through taxes and insurance, and still don't see how we could
come near the 40% mark.
>> 
>> ~ Molly Wms.
>> 
At 11:23 7/3/2001 -0800, David Appell wrote:
>I agree with Molly -- the 40% figure doesn't seem that it can be correct.
Last year I paid 28% of my income in car expenses + taxes, or 1.4 working
days a week. (And I expect a refund on part of the taxes.) Even if I were
to live in a state with a sales tax, say, one of 6%, and *all* my expenses
were taxed, this figure would be 33%. 
>
>Where does this figure come from?
>
>David
>

At 18:22 7/3/2001 -0800, Peter Saint James wrote:

  Didn't seem right to me the first several times I used various methods to
come up with that figure. ...  One can, however, make some estimates using
various methods.  That's what I did.  The figures kept coming out about the
same: somewhere around 40 percent of income.  Other researchers have also
come up with similar numbers.

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David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davdd.geo/index.html#top
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