Families spending more on petrol than food

abaxas

Mr_Terrific wrote: »

I'm sure not everyone buys an inefficient car out of choice. What about people who can't afford to buy a modern, fuel efficient car? If you need a car and you've only got a budget of £1,000 you've got to take what you'll get at Honest John's Motor Emporium.

A car is a luxury and always will be. Only a handful of people really need one, they choose to live somewhere that makes then meed one.

Ellejmorgan

abaxas wrote: »

A car is a luxury and always will be. Only a handful of people really need one, they choose to live somewhere that makes then meed one.

some people don't choose where they live

abaxas

Ellejmorgan wrote: »

some people don't choose where they live

That is my point, some do, most dont.

Graham_Devon

abaxas wrote: »

A car is a luxury and always will be.

I suppose having a job is a luxurious too then?

abaxas

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I suppose having a job is a luxurious too then?

As if by magic, people had jobs even before the car was invented.

Callie22

abaxas wrote: »

As if by magic, people had jobs even before the car was invented.

But jobs have moved away from people. Just thinking of the village where my parents live, someone wrote a book about it a couple of years ago and in the 1900s there were over 130 'businesses' within a three mile radius, from farms to undertakers to carpenters to pubs. 'Everyone' worked locally. Nowadays there's very little there - a handful of shops, two or three farms, a tea shop, and a couple of businesses that employ a dozen or so people. 'Everyone' now has to commute to the nearest towns to work, and public transport is dire. Even in the town I live in, a lot of the main employers are based on out-of-town business parks, necessitating a car or a reliance on unreliable and expensive public transport.

Mr_Terrific

abaxas wrote: »

A car is a luxury and always will be. Only a handful of people really need one, they choose to live somewhere that makes then meed one.

That simply isn't true. I grew up in a village in the middle of nowhere which had one shop, two pubs and a bus service that finished at 4pm. If I wanted to work after I'd finished in education, I *had* to have a car. I didn't choose to live in a village, my parents did. I couldn't move without a job, and I couldn't have travelled to and from a job without a car. A car wasn't a luxury, it was a necessity.

Loughton_Monkey

Mr_Terrific wrote: »

That simply isn't true. I grew up in a village in the middle of nowhere which had one shop, two pubs and a bus service that finished at 4pm. If I wanted to work after I'd finished in education, I *had* to have a car. I didn't choose to live in a village, my parents did. I couldn't move without a job, and I couldn't have travelled to and from a job without a car. A car wasn't a luxury, it was a necessity.

In truth, most things are neither. [necessity or luxury].

In the case above, buy a new Jag and that's luxury. The necessity would consist of a well maintained 5 year old moped. I suspect you bought something in the middle.

To me, the essense of this debate is "cutting your cloth according to means". Something that a vast number of people fail to do. The word "necessary" means different things to different people. For most people, it boils down to 'choice'.

Once people have chosen to have subscription television, the latest Android mobile phones, a decent car (on finance), thirty pairs of shoes......, then that expenditure tends to be mentally classified as 'necessary'. Once all this 'necessary' expenditure adds up to 100% (or more) than income, then it should be no surprise that grief will follow.

Itismehonest

A._Badger wrote: »

Oh, only. Well that's all right then. And if we're really lucky the government will put it up by even more - then we can be first! Hurrah!

That wasn't what I meant at all.

I was surprised because from the way most people in this country talk you'd think we were way out in front of everyone else as far as petrol costs go.
As usual we bang on about how hard done by we are but, again as usual, there are others a lot worse off than we are.

A._Badger

Itismehonest wrote: »

That wasn't what I meant at all.

I was surprised because from the way most people in this country talk you'd think we were way out in front of everyone else as far as petrol costs go.
As usual we bang on about how hard done by we are but, again as usual, there are others a lot worse off than we are.

Let's be strictly accurate, There are some - a few - who are a lot worse off than we are.

Whatever eco-hippies might wish to be the case, modern economies depend on mobility and if you overtax mobility you constrict growth.

Fuel taxes are just lazy and easy sources for spendthrift governments trying to buy votes.