Comments on: Michael Moore’s advice to Obama on General Motors

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:12:49 +0000

I liked your comment about the oil people fleecing us. However, just to play devil’s advocate; that sludge comes out of the ground and has to be put through billions of dollars of equipment and refinery apparatus to be usable, then shipped halfway around the world. For this we pay (now) approximately $2.65 a gallon. Our own American farmers take milk from their cows. To be usable for safe human consumption it has to be boiled, thats all. They then have it packaged, truck it to the the next county and stock the store shelves. For this privelege we pay $3.50 a gallon and up. I honestly ask you: WHO is fleecing us more??

By: BabsCakc

BabsCakc — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:50:04 +0000

Is flying really cheaper? I don’t know the real costs of transport in the US. Who pays for roads? Are they all toll roads or does general tax fund them? Aviation fuel in Europe appears cheaper, but that’s only because it’s not taxed, unlike other fuels.

By: nickgark

nickgark — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:32:34 +0000

I’d like to raise a point of information re: Ron’s comments on gas prices.

I live in the UK, and we’re used to petrol prices that are now around GBP1.00 per litre – about USD6.00 per US gallon. From the UK perspective, petrol prices of less than USD5.00 per US gallon look more like a luxury than a disaster.

By: k0an

k0an — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:31:50 +0000

@Stephen Paul Weber – That’s one way of interpreting what Mr. Moore meant to say, but I think that’s giving him too much credit. Why would he mention how long the trip would take if he wasn’t trying to propose it as a valid trip? Was he just spouting out random numbers?

By: Stephen Paul Weber

Stephen Paul Weber — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:22:36 +0000

@k0an The point is not that you would go from NY to LA, but that train across said distance could service everything *between* NY and LY

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:55:30 +0000

I think if you stacked all the bullet trains build in Japan since the 1964 Olympics end to end they wouldn’t reach from Los Angeles to New York. Japan is the size of California, and most areas don’t have bullet train access.

Japan is able to have some really nice rail and subway transport because the population is so concentrated into a few small areas. Plus, people here will walk 15 minutes or more to and from the stations. And live in small houses, apartments, and condos, so that the necessary population density can be achieved.

By: k0an

k0an — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:18:42 +0000

17 hours to go from NY to LA would… suck! I can make that trip in 5 hours for $260 (current kayak.com pricing) via plane. Incredibly long train trips don’t make much sense when it’s affordable and radically faster to fly. I think the distances that make sense are those that take about 2-4 hours by high speed train. Short flights aren’t actually that short because of the time it takes for all the pre-flight red tape at the airport. If getting on a high speed train takes merely minutes then it will be faster than planes for short distances (500 miles or less). If they could rework the US flight grid to only focus on medium to long distance flights and high speed trains for short distances that would be the best of both worlds.

By: Stephen Paul Weber

Stephen Paul Weber — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:35:56 +0000

Unfortunately, this makes far too much sense for any government to actually implement it

By: ron

ron — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:49:58 +0000

how are gas taxes a catalyst for recession? somehow the rest of the civilized world has had high gas prices for years thanks to gas taxes yet that didnt spur a recession in those countries.

the bad thing about gas taxes is that they are regressive. how about we not build any new major roads like they want to do in houston, and instead just fix the ones that already exist.

By: Grover

Grover — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:15:44 +0000

“This one is so misplaced for me it ruined the rest of the ponts.”

Agreed. A two dollar per gallon hike in gas would put an immediate and painful strain on just about every middle-class budget. We were having to make hard decisions at 3+ dollars a gallon. 5+ would be a disaster.

It’s often hard for people like Moore to remember that the majority of the country does not live in a major metropolitan area where public and alternative transportation make sense.