by John Crewdson
It's a little-known fact that I worked my way through college pumping gas.
(In those years you never, ever got out of your car at the gas station. People like me pumped the gas for you, plus checking your tires and oil and washing your windows--all for free. Amazing).
In Berkeley in the Sixties, regular was going for 29.9. That's 29.9 cents. Per gallon.
You could fill your tank for $3.50, which is less than a gallon of gas now costs in much of the country. Such ridiculously cheap gas made the muscle cars possible.
The guys at the station where I worked drove Pontiac GTOs, Oldsmobile 4-4-2s and Mustangs to work. One even had a Shelby Cobra, with a zero-to-60 time of under five seconds.
Over the years the muscle cars morphed into SUVs that look like armored personnel carriers and require a second mortgage to operate.
Even now, with gas prices pushing $4, muscle cars are making a comeback. Although high gas prices have become a universal cause for complaint, they don't seem to faze us. Most Americans just moan and drive on.
And yet the proposal by John McCain and Hillary Clinton to give Americans "a little break over the summer" by suspending the federal gas tax didn't seem to garner much support. Which is paradoxical but also good, because it was exactly the wrong thing to do. Economists don't agree on much, but most of them will tell you that, even at $4, gas is still way too cheap.
The right thing to do, which will never be done, would be to raise the price of gas, to $6 or $8 or even $10 a gallon.
Try saying that and getting elected president.
At $10, most people would finally have to put away their up-armored SUVs and find some other way to get around town. But so what?
Europeans have been managing for decades. In Hamburg, Germany, where my friend Manfred lives, gas costs just under $10 a gallon. To drive his Audi station wagon 60 miles, Manfred had to shell out $26, about 40 cents a mile. Ridiculous, of course, which is why Manfred finally traded in the Audi for a diesel Volkswagen Golf.
How do other Europeans manage in the land of $10 gas? Lots of motorcycles and bicycles, as well as walking more than two or three blocks to get somewhere.
That's why 82 million Germans, despite their horrendous lard-laden diet, have healthier hearts than the average American searching for his next low-fat, low-cholesterol, high-fiber meal. Unlike Nancy Sinatra's boots, however,
America wasn't made for walking, and the car will always be with us. But in what form?
Hybrid gas-electric cars are cheaper to operate than ordinary cars, but so far the difference hasn't been enough to save the world.
After years of environmentalists beating the drums for Ethanol, we're now discovering that, as the Nobel economist Milton Friedman warned, there's no free lunch. As Friedman's concept of "neighborhood effects" might have predicted, so much grain is being diverted to Ethanol production that we now hear warnings about higher food prices, even shortages.
The best solution yet, the Smart Car, which has been crawling along Europe's streets and highways, and parking on its sidewalks, for several years, is beginning to appear in the U.S. I saw one the other day in the downtown Washington, D.C. garage where I park.
A two-seater less than nine feet long, it looks like a regular car that's been sawed in half.
The Smart Car's three-cylinder, 70-horsepower engine might take a few days to get you from zero to 60, but it also gets over 40 miles a gallon and the base model costs less than $12,000. Filling the Smart's nine-gallon fuel tank will still cost close to $30. But you can drive it 15 miles for a buck, compared to two or three bucks for the average SUV.
It's not the perfect solution, but it's a Smart start, and you can almost always find a place to park.
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Comments
"The right thing to do, which will never be done, would be to raise the price of gas, to $6 or $8 or even $10 a gallon."
As painful as that is, it's true. The only way Americans will ever conserve -- will stop demanding gas hog vehicles -- is if the price goes up and stays up.
Unfortunately, many people like me have a long commute to and from work (17 miles one way in my case) with no option for public transportation.
So the Smart Car sounds like the perfect solution... except I'd be afraid to share the road with all the rude, braindead oafs in their SUVs. I'd be squashed.
Posted by: MJ | May 8, 2008 9:25 AM
This article fails on multiple fronts. First, REAL Economists do not suggest prices. Prices are a byproduct of economic interplay between suppliers and those that demand goods and services. Economists that would suggest prices have political agendas separate from normal economic concerns. Second, the comparison of a massive, heterogeneous, and highly productive country like the United States, with comparatively small, high density, relatively homogeneous, and mildly productive countries like those found in Europe is just plain silly. We have consistently blocked technologies and strategies that would have minimized our reliance on others and we are paying the price now. For example, while City Cars and Smart Cars are a good idea, every auto manufacturer has had diesel models available for years that burn cleanly and get 25-50% better mileage than the comparable model available in the U.S.. This is something that is available almost overnight on our showroom floors and yet we make life difficult for the manufacturers. We have blocked domestic drilling and the development and construction of refineries. We have blocked nuclear power which may be the cleanest and most efficient of all energy sources. We have made our bed……
Posted by: John C | May 8, 2008 10:59 AM
Ahhhh, more paradox from the Left. Let's moan and groan about the high cost of gas, and blame Bush and the evil oil companies. Yet, we'll also say that gas prices AREN'T high enough!
No, gas prices are too high. Gas taxes are too high (pushing 70 cents or so a gallon here in Illinois -- between federal, state and local taxes).
But, which it it, Loony Lefties and your fiends in the media? Gas prices too high or too low? You can't have it both ways, no matter how much you want to.
Posted by: John D | May 8, 2008 11:10 AM
Agreed.
The gas tax holiday? What a joke and bltant pandering slap in the face. Think about it. In return for losing money to repair highways, thereby laying off the people who would have been making repairs, you get to fill up your 12 gallon tank at $3.57 a gallon vs. $3.74. On that tank, you save $1.68. Fill the tank once a week for 12 weeks, savings of $20.16 over three months. All in the name of pandering, and you get even crappier roads than we have right now plus laid off workers! Such a deal!
Democrats idea to lower prices? Who knows? Ethanol? Yeah right.
Repubs plan? More drilling and refining of dead dinosaurs who happened to die within our current borders. Real creative. Better than no plan I guess (see Dems) but not alternative research, batteries charged by solar, oh no, just more addiction to the fossil.
If you are a Meth addict (god forbid!) who gets his "goods" from the middle east and is seeing those prices skyrocket, do you consider at least 'attempting' to get clean, or do you just start saying the solution is more meth labs here in the US?
Its common sense people. It is a limited supply. We need a serious Manhattan Project style drive in this country to get off oil. Start with passenger cars and mass transit. Leave heavy machinery alone to start, let our natural domestic production feed those while the rest of America move to Hydrogen and solar/battery. It can be done if we can just get out from under the cloud of:
-Oil special interests dumping millions into all campaigns.
-A current administration with the most blatant family ties to big oil.
-People who think drilling for more oil, that will run out eventually and pollutes the planet, is a great idea!
C'mon America, its time. We are the innovators, the supposed superpower of the world, the "can-do" country. We can peer at the very particles that make up matter. We can deliver bombs with accuracy to within inches and kill mean nasty people. We can cure disease, clone animals, and explore the deepest reaches of space, but we cant get off oil???
If you choose to respond to this, do so in a constructive manor, please. All you bozo, partisan maniacs who only want to complain about the other side instead of just finding a dang consensus can go soak your heads while the American Meth addiction rolls along full steam (ha, steam power, no pun intended!)
What say you America?
Posted by: erick | May 8, 2008 11:11 AM
10$ a gallon, huh? I guess I will have to spend 130$ a week to get to work each week, right? That's great, because as it is now I can barely afford to put food on the table. I don't really need to feed my children. I don't really need to work my ass off each week and see less and less money. My little Saturn isn't a gas guzzler, but you'd have low paid guys like me footing the pain that the people with SUV's wouldn't feel. They wouldn't care that the price of gas is higher. This article fails on so many levels it is disgusting.
Posted by: John | May 8, 2008 11:49 AM
erick,
I agree, why would you treat an addiction by producing more of an addictive substance, which is finite? Little Johnny D, If gas taxes were lifted the oil barons would increase their prices to fill the gap because they know the market will bear $3.89 per gallon. Then when the gas tax holiday ends, lo and behold prices have increased. Why don't you understand this simple concept?
Posted by: janet | May 8, 2008 12:10 PM
America needs to develop an American alternative fuels industry. We need to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil. We need an American next generation bio fuels industry using American workers providing jobs for Americans and fueling American transportation needs. Our national security is at stake. We can not continue to send money to foreign countries that may or may not send us oil in the future. As China and Indian continue to grow and use more and more oil the price will continue to rise. We need to have an alternative at the pump. Pull up to the pump and have a choice of fuels. Ethanol, biodiesel, CNG, Hydrogen, electric,.........
Posted by: Ken | May 8, 2008 12:38 PM
DD Janet, the contention by you and your ilk that oil companies would increase the price to make up any lowering of taxes is ridiculous, without merit and just plain typical nonsensical lefty gibberish.
Please, DD Janet, while you are against feeding the addiction, what is your solution to bring prices down? Or do you not want to bring prices down?
Oil and fossil fuels a finite source? The evidence is the contrary. Untapped oil in ANWR, North Dakota, Canada, Utah, Brazil, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean, etc. would last hundreds of years. Anyway, it was just 30 years ago we were told oil reserves had a 30-50 year lifespan. Well, that theory has been blown out of the water.
But again, Lefty Loons, what are YOUR solutions to the energy problems???
Posted by: John D | May 8, 2008 12:39 PM
America wasn't made for walking? Then re-make it.
Posted by: Cheryl | May 8, 2008 12:42 PM
We've got the answers; I just read them here: incrementalism on all fronts. What's really gonna hurt is giving up my nice roomy private ride, when and wherever I want. Looking pricier every day. Hope the bullet trains, smart cars and wind farms get built soon.
Posted by: Lanning Russell | May 8, 2008 1:24 PM
Thanks, John C and John D. Have to admire the patience and effort that anyone would take to sort through agendas and try to relate economics to the socialists and surrealist democrats.
Even though you, erick, do not think more oil is an answer, I can appreciate that you have the perspective that this is a problem that America could solve. Of course there would need to be some consensus that energy is important and not just one more means, among many, for 'capitalists' to acquire great wealth.
Could be wrong here, but I think too many left-leaning folk much prefer to take the more narrow view of winners and losers, great wealth for some only due to the economic oppression of the many. Not sure how we can ever get beyond that deal-breaker point of view.
Posted by: Scott - Houston, Tx | May 8, 2008 3:04 PM
The little liberal secret about the price of gas is that they don't care if the price is $4, $6, or even $10 dollars per gallon, as long as they profit would flow into the gov't pocket and not "big-evil-oil". That's because gov't can do so much better things with the money than say explore and drill for more oil
Posted by: Terry | May 8, 2008 9:55 PM