truckers.

[joe-90]

What are they whining about? They simply work out their running costs and add profit on top. It's you and me that pays the extra fuel price with higher consumer prices on goods they carry - not them.

And what can Gordon do about the price of World oil anyway? Not only that - the faster we use our dwindling oil resources the bigger the crash when the price goes through the roof due to our squandering a finite resource. We leave our kids houses and cash - how about leaving them something really useful - like a bit of oil?

 

[Softus]

They're whining because they can't put up their prices as quickly as fuel costs rise, so the reality really is that their margins are squeezed.

They're whining because they know that fuel rises could price them out of the market, with the risk of long-haul deliveries losing ground to other forms of transport, and/or to locally produced goods.

They're whining because they're insecure - they work in a competitive market; one that engenders an us-and-them mindset, so their perception is that 'they' are putting up fuel prices to hurt 'us'.

And they're whining because they do a mindless and thankless job, and they've got nothing else to occupy their minds.

 

[JohnD]

I fear they are in a cut-throat industry, where there is always somebody willing to undercut them

it's a bit like farmers, who complain that the supermarkets only pay them (say) 10p a litre for milk.

However, if someone is willing to sell milk to the supermarket for 10p, why would you expect them to pay more? Only when China offers to buy their milk for 11p does the market price go up.

If the transport industry is willing to sell its services at cut-throat prices, then, whatever the cost of diesel, it will always be a cut-throat industry. It will just be cut-throat at a slightly higher price if diesel is more expensive.

 

[joe-90]

They're whining because they know that fuel rises could price them out of the market, with the risk of long-haul deliveries losing ground to other forms of transport, and/or to locally produced goods.

People buying local goods - that'll never do will it? Now answer me the other question, Softus. Do you think we should be saving our precious oil reserves for our kids and grandchildren or should we just blow the lot and let them sort it out later?

 

[joe-90]

I don't know about where you lot live but where I live the fields that were once full of wheat are now full of rapeseed. Naturally the crop is subsidised but I doubt they'll take the subsidy into account when they work out how much the fuel cost to produce. And what about the shortage of wheat that will now occur? Bet they don't take the price hike in wheat to account either.

 

[jbonding]

blow the lot, something else will turn up, it always does.

 

[joe-90]

blow the lot, something else will turn up, it always does.

That's just it. The thing you've yet to grasp. There is nothing else - and there never will be.

 

[Softus]

I don't quite know how you manage it, joe-90, but you can take a simple and reasonable question and make it seem as though it's being asked from behind an anglepoise lamp.

Notwithstanding that, there's nothing that the PM can do, whether he's called Gordon, Tony, or the Fat Controller.

I don't doubt that the finite-ness of the resources hasn't yet hit the consciousness of most people, but it will, and more gradually than you suggest. It soon won't be as comfy as we've been used to, but I don't think we'll be living 'Beyond Thunderdome'.

Most people don't care about what future generations will inherit. Until that attitude changes then they stand to inherit very little of the oil reserves.

I don't know what you can do about that.

 

[joe-90]

I can whine.

 

[jbonding]

I can whine.

Your right there

 

[jbonding]

That's just it. The thing you've yet to grasp. There is nothing else - and there never will be.

How do you know?

 

[joe-90]

Laws of science say so.

 

[nickso]

blow the lot, something else will turn up, it always does.

, love this.

i have a vision of a bloke walking his dog round the "thunderdome" in the near future. rex starts barking at some sort of object in the bushes, the bloke wanders over sees the object and thinks to himself, "christ, i could power the world for the next 200 years with this"

 

[Steve]

joe, theres always nucular power until we can find a truly clean, efficient way of generating (and using) energy.

 

[jbonding]

Laws of science say so.

Does it say this "There is nothing else - and there never will be."
show me
He wont