I'm getting SO SICK of gas prices and car taxes!

[Redneck in training]

Part of me thinks we are paying gas prices like this because the feds have devalued the dollar so much that the gas companies have adjusted prices accordingly.

Feds has very little power to set dollar value. The problem is demise of manufacturing from the USA. Unless we produce products other countries buy it will not get better but only worse.
I lived and/or worked in many countries and my experience is that US government is in general working well and is reasonably efficient. All countries where people can avoid taxes have high corruption, bad infrastructure, crime, polluted environment etc. In other words you wouldn't want to live there.

 

[Redneck in training]

I care less if you whine and complain because it does NOTHING to alleviate the problem other than make you FEEL like you accomplish something when, in fact, you've become a part of the very problem we have.

Rummy was governor of your state and the designer of Obamacare. Tell me, how do you like your one state socialized medicine?

I don't give a hoot what you drive either. But if you want to drive a guzzler or sub-guzzler, quit whining about the cost of admission. Its built into the product.

It's our country FYI, not yours.

I'm proud to be an American, still the best place to live and one of the few places where whining is acceptable.

I spent half of my life in a country where whining would get you in big trouble.
We had a lot of jokes about that though:
There was a dog convention. The American dog says:"When I bark and whine long enough somebody comes a give me what I want."
The Yugoslavian dog says:" I can bark and whine as much as I want but nobody cares."
The Czechoslovakian dog says:"What is it barking and whining?"

My wife who is born American never laughs at such jokes. For her they are not funny at all. I guess you have to live through it to find them funny.

There are only few countries in the world that can measure up to quality of life in the USA. Australia and Canada. New Zealand comes close. Reading local news they are full of whiners too.

 

[clemsonfor]

I'm afraid it is only going to get more expensive.

I really could see myself in a nice new truck and every time I felt the urge a little voice in the back of my head said to just make do with what I have.

My Silverado is a 91 and my Service Van is 1985...

The one break California does have is trailer tags are $18 and cover 5 years...

Fuel here has always been high... especially the Bay Area.

We dont title trailers or buy tags here, thankfully as i have 4 of them!! Only commercial businesses have to tag trailers.

 

[clemsonfor]

I also just (April 5) paid the annual property taxes on our $145k home - $1774, up $156 over what it was five years ago. We are a block from a farmer who is actively farming who has about a quarter section (for int'l members 160 acres, 65 hectares) valued with home and buildings at $953,000 who pays $1554 in property taxes per year. All info is publicly available on-line.
.

This is because all but the acre his house is on is taxed as farm or Ag land. Here in SC my 130 acres and the house (maybe worth $30K maybe? if it were on 1/2 acre or so) was $600ish. Thats at like a 1% higher rate as im an absentee landowner, and live in a different county. My land is taxed at just a few $/per acre as its Ag land, i have timber. In your area your probly paying taxes close to the same as his his land is probly not really even a burden on his taxes, so if his house is not like yours or a bit older it all makes sense.

 

[rsewill]

If we drilled/pumped more crude we would only import less crude which isn't bad. Because we are already awash in refined products, which we export, the price of domestic fuel wouldn't go down. Make it more expensive to speculate and I believe the price would go down.

 

[2manyrocks]

Feds has very little power to set dollar value. The problem is demise of manufacturing from the USA. Unless we produce products other countries buy it will not get better but only worse.
I lived and/or worked in many countries and my experience is that US government is in general working well and is reasonably efficient. All countries where people can avoid taxes have high corruption, bad infrastructure, crime, polluted environment etc. In other words you wouldn't want to live there.

That is correct. The Fed does not set the value of the dollar. The Fed's policy affects how much money is created. So when they create more money and the amount of goods stays about the same, you have more more dollars chasing the same amount of goods and prices increase accordingly.

It is also correct that the demise in manufacuturing in the USA has contributed to less stability in the economy than when so much of the economy is tilted to the financial sector and its ups and downs. It has been a policy disaster to allow so much manufacuring to leave the USA.

By comparison, the USA is more efficient than some other countries I'm sure. However, the independent Congressional Office of Budget and Management has been telling Congress for several years straight that their level of spending is "unsustainable." Their fancy word for saying they cannot keep spending at the rate they are spending.

 

[rsewill]

Feds has very little power to set dollar value.

The Fed can set the dollar as it pleases, making it strong or weak.

 

[RollingsFarms]

I spent half of my life in a country where whining would get you in big trouble.
We had a lot of jokes about that though:
There was a dog convention. The American dog says:"When I bark and whine long enough somebody comes a give me what I want."
The Yugoslavian dog says:" I can bark and whine as much as I want but nobody cares."
The Czechoslovakian dog says:"What is it barking and whining?"

My wife who is born American never laughs at such jokes. For her they are not funny at all. I guess you have to live through it to find them funny.

There are only few countries in the world that can measure up to quality of life in the USA. Australia and Canada. New Zealand comes close. Reading local news they are full of whiners too.

Australia and Canada have probably overtaken our top spot in quality of life. They don't have King Barrack and Queen Michelle running their country.

 

[rsewill]

This is because all but the acre his house is on is taxed as farm or Ag land. Here in SC my 130 acres and the house (maybe worth $30K maybe? if it were on 1/2 acre or so) was $600ish. Thats at like a 1% higher rate as im an absentee landowner, and live in a different county. My land is taxed at just a few $/per acre as its Ag land, i have timber. In your area your probly paying taxes close to the same as his his land is probly not really even a burden on his taxes, so if his house is not like yours or a bit older it all makes sense.

I wasn't complaining about the taxes the farmer pays or doesn't pay. I was just giving the OP an idea of what we pay in taxes based on value and use of property. Easy to relate to a residence or a farm if I include the value of the property and, when a farm, whether it has a home which is owner-occupied.

Commercial property: our local Walmart is about three years old. It carries groceries so it is fairly large. It is valued at $15,027,800 and pays $516,848 in property tax.

 

[2manyrocks]

There have been a cast of characters who have contributed to the current economic situation over an extended period. To name but one fundamental example from the 1980's, the repeal of the Depression Era prohibition on interstate banking enables financial institutions to grow to the point of being functionally beyond effective regulation and oversight for banking safety and soundness.

There was a brief period when it looked like we might get serious about dealing with our use of foreign oil. Then oil prices fell in relative terms, and the will power to address that issue fell away, too. Now we're facing some of the same issues we had 30 years ago because we didn't deal with them then.