Are higher gas prices cutting into your SL discretionary spending?

Nope.
SL better that what on the Telly.

Here's a picture of my redneck cadillac:

And here's a picture of my Daimler-Chrysler V-10 Tomahawk that I haul around in the back of my redneck cadillac:

Now, if I promised every American a redneck cadillac and a motorcycle like mine, do you suppose they'd agree to invade Scotland for the Northsea oil fields?

One can hope! And the bike has two many wheels

This thread really cuts to the heart of the matter

....

I'm American. More and larger is better.

Way to go Ardith! I take public transportation too. I have never owned a car in my life. I was 16 when the gas crisis first started and I rememer the long lines and being able to buy gas only on alternate days. (OMG, I'm dating myself and I sound like one of those old folks talking about ration books in the Depression, LOL).

It just seems like such a waste to see people using all that energy and spewing all that polution just to move one person around.

Plus the expense! You have to pay so much for a car, then the minute you drive it off the car lot, you lose almost a quarter of what you paid in vaiue. Then you have to pay for gas to make it go. You have to pay for a place to put it because even though you paid so much for it, you only use it less than 10 percent of the day. If you put it in the wrong place, you have to pay. If you move it the wrong way you have to pay. If you use it the wrong way and something bad happens, you can even end up in jail. If it breaks it costs at least $500 to fix it most times. Oh and you have to pay more money in case something happens to it while you are driving it. If something really bad happens you can go to court and get sued. And if you do something bad, the money you pay to the insurance company can increase. Someone can steal it and if you do get it back, you have to pay something to repair the damage. I mean the list goes on.

I love the bus. It takes me where I want to go, never runs out of gas and if it does break down, I just get off and catch another another one.

Sorry for the rant.

From: Seth Kanahoe

Thank you for spewing sense into this thread.

In Sydney I rarely if ever drove... It was just too much hassle, and way simpler to catch a train/bus/ferry.. I drove my car when I wanted to go out to my mothers place for a barbque, or perhaps take a bunch of friends to the beach with our surf ski's and barbque fare.

Then I moved to the USA.

Now I'm sure this isn't common across the states, I'm sure that there are cities with very good public transport systems out there...

But the last two I lived in (Bakerfield CA and even here in Las Vegas) - if you don't have a car -- in a word, your screwed.

Las Vegas is a little better than Bako... But nowhere near the convenience or frequency for me to be able to commute to work on it (reliably) - If I were into conspiracy theories (which I'm not) It's nearly like the powers that be don't want public transport as a viable option.

Siggy.

I *hate* living in the suburbs. the bus runs from home to work okay, but forget it if you want to go anywhere else. If its not a peak work time, the bus isnt running. and forget about walking, as theres no sidewalks. 7 days till I move back to a place that makes sense.

I specifically moved to areas that have decent public transportation. It just makes sense to me. When I go looking for a place, the first thing I do is check the schedules.

The sad thing is, it is a Catch-22 situation, most people don't use public transportation because it's not convenient but hey won't make it more convenient because most people don't use it. It won't be until we are forced to make public transportation more available because we've used up so much of our natural resourses that the public transportation industry will be properly funded. By then, it will be too little too late.

This country is so backwards. The highways are crowded and the government will spend more money to build more highways, but won't give Amtrak the money it needs which would reduce the traffics on the highways. Go figure!

From: Seth Kanahoe

Thank you for spewing sense into this thread.

My car gets 30 miles to the gallon and wouldn't own a huge SUV even if you gave it to me. In the US, the major problem is size, everything is far apart so a car is essentail. Considering the horrendious experiences I've had using city and crosscountry busses, I would basically rather take a bullet rather than spend 16 hours crammed in a bus with screaming babies and phlem spewing drug addicts. I haven't ridden one since I got out of basic training 20 years ago and unles my fortunes change dramatically I won't be any time soon.

As far as other countries paying more for gas, well, I'm sorry for our English friends but at $6 a gallon, 78% of that price is taxes. That is pretty typical of the EU in general. Taxing like that is designed as social engineering to force the lower strata of society to use public transportation and in smaller countries you can do this. In the US, it's so huge that public transportation is impractical unless you live in the city. Unfortunatly, most Amiricans live outside urban areas where public transportation makes sense.

Are alien death rays cutting into your brain?

I wonder how the price of oil would look against the value of the L$... I bet there would be no corralation what so ever!

"Are higher gas prices cutting into your SL discretionary spending?"

Nah. I probably pay more for SL than I do on gas.

I own a car ('84 Celica GT), and gas up maybe once every month/two months. I only use it to get to places that public transit doesn't service and are too far to walk. The local transit system is subsidized by the University, and with a student ID, I can get around town for free.

I live a block from the supermarket, ~12 blocks from the University, 2 blocks from city hall, and 6 blocks from town square. Feet work great at those distances.

To top it off, our researchers keep working on alt.energy vehicles. IIRC, We already have electric and fuel cell vehicles in-use as on-campus transport.

...plus some gas-powered cars, since they're cheap, and we are a CSU after all.

Yeah because of the higher gas prices i can no longer play sl lol. Also, because of the high ozone level I will never be leaving my house again.

How do you get "cut into your SL discretionary spending" to equal "can no longer play SL".

(sigh)

Anyways, according to CNN over 65% of americans believe that higher gas prices will effect them financially.

Generally, when I am impacted financially, I tend to cut my discretionary spending.

Interestingly, SL'ers seem to either not feel the pinch from this or don't drive enough so that they do.

I found it an absolutely fascinating poll (if you can extrapolate to the population), with very interesting implications about a future of high oil prices.

Just a thought--higher fuel costs will be reflected in other areas--non-durable goods. Want to see what is happening with that 65%? Watch Wal-Mart. So goeth Wal-Mart's forecasts, so goeth that 65%. If I am not mistaken, Wal-Mart failed to reach its forecast for this quarter.

(Oh, and I just wanted to participate in a Blaze poll )