Petrol Price Review: OFT and Graham_Devon join forces

Loughton_Monkey

shortchanged wrote: »

I'm glad somebody on here is concerned about the environment, because since renoman has been PPR'd there certainly seems to be a lack of concern about the environment.

Some of us deeply concerned about the environment.

Time was, when you could cruise your 3-litre car around the countryside, admiring the beautiful thatched cottages, rolling hillsides and the swirling seascape. Now we get nasty so-called 'Solar Panels' on rooftops, and endless wind farms, both onshore and offshore. All of them producing the most inefficient and high cost energy it is possible to make.

This has totally ruined our environment, and is ruining our fragile economy.

Join my campaign against the tree huggers. Let's mine 'till they whine. Let's drill 'till they're ill. Let's frack 'till we crack!

N1AK

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

The cost of transport to ones place of work is a huge disincentive to work! Many people on below average wages are hammered by fuels on tax - there are far fewer pizza delivery peeps because the customer has to pay that cost (whether explicit or implicit).

And a tax on income is a disincentive to work. Taxes by definition make something less beneficial. Unless we are going to decrease taxation (and thus spending) then we have to tax something.

The delivery example is pretty redundant. I can live with bike based delivery, with people walking to collect or with people eating less junk food even if the cost is a few low paid delivery jobs.

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

* I don't mind the taxes on production as much because it is ultimately a finite resource 'owned' by the populous and as Osborne has found out production can be surprisingly elastic when you make drilling uneconomical compared to other sources

A tax on UK fuel production that raised as much revenue as the total revenue on fuel bought would completely stop production in the UK. Why? Because most fuel consumed in the UK is produced elsewhere so the tax on the portion that is would have to be vast. Because no UK fuel would be produced it would raise no tax revenue requiring massive cuts or huge tax increases elsewhere. This is a completely impractical position.

Herzlos

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu wrote: »

What's annoying is when the government brought in the new car tax payments to discourage people from buying less fuel efficient cars, they made it retrospective. This not only means that they are punishing people who bought their cars before the new tax 'incentive' was brought in, they are also discouraging other people from buying these less efficient cars second hand. Which on paper sounds great because you get a lot of fuel inefficient cars off the road. In practice these cars have already been manufactured and so have a huge amount of embodied energy that is wasted when they are scrapped before the end of their mechanical life.

It's as shortsighted as knocking down older houses to make way for new more efficient ones. The new houses will take decades, if ever, to recoup the embodied energy wasted in the older houses.

Exactly. And it really punishes the people who can't afford to upgrade to a newer car, who are the people already feeling squeezed