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US Gas
I'm home sick today; nothing life-threatening, but I'm uncomfortable. But I couldn't resist responding to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nakedfaery's recent comment about the price of gas in the UK, compared to the price in the USA. My response was so long that it might as well be a post of its own.
Feel free to pass this around to your non-USAn friends.
nakedfaery's recent comment about the price of gas in the UK, compared to the price in the USA. My response was so long that it might as well be a post of its own.This is funny, because it reminds me of part of Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court". I also had this exact same conversation with another Brit here a while ago - correction, it was a Finn.
Here's the thing: you're right that you pay more for gas. But that is more than offset by a number of factors.
1. We pay far more for health care.
2. There are many other services which we pay for that you don't, or that you pay a much lower rate for thanks to government subsidy. Daycare, for example. It costs us $500 to $1,000 per month. We pay over $500 per month for Sebastian to go to daycare three days a week.
3. Usury laws have been abolished in the United States, and credit card companies are virtually unregulated. That means that if you have a credit card (and almost everyone does - you wouldn't BELIEVE the number of credit card offers we receive in the mail every week), odds are that you're paying 25% or more on your money. And there are many hidden fees which make the effective rate even higher.
But many Americans are actually paying rates of over SIX HUNDRED PERCENT at the many "paycheck loan" shops across the country. That sounds unbelievable, but it's true; I can get you some sources on that, if you'd like. It's also completely legal in this country. Of course the people who go to those shops are living paycheck-to-paycheck, which is extremely common here.
4. We are far more dependent on our cars, for two reasons: one is that America is much bigger, and except in the cities, things are much more spread out. For example, I have to drive ten miles every day just to get to the nearest train station, and I live 60 miles from where I work.
The other reason we have to drive so much is that the big oil companies successfully influenced Congress in the early-to-mid 20th century to virtually abolish the American light inter-city rail system. At the same time our extensive national highway system was built. This was done, of course, to force Americans to drive more and use more oil - and sell more cars, I suppose.
I'm actually LUCKY to have a train station only 10 miles from my residence. The vast majority of Americans have no such luck. And it should be noted that the Bush administration was actually attempting to dismantle much of our remaining rail system until recently; I suspect that they may have had to give up on that due to the fuel situation. My father-in-law, who's a transportation broker, tells me that a LOT of shipping which was formerly traveling by truck is now going by rail, instead. But the rail option isn't available for much of the country.
Speaking of the trains, those are costing more, too. My monthly train pass is $181. That rate has been raised three times in the last six years, and it's going to be going up again on next January 1st - by 25%. The governing board has made no secret of the fact that additional increases will be coming soon. That's partly because both the federal and state governments have privatized the rail system; it's not subsidized, as I'm sure yours is.
Even parking costs are going up. If you want to park for the train, you have no choice but to use one of the official lots; most parking spaces within walking distance of the station (and most stations) are metered, and the maximum parking time is often only two or three hours. Fail to pay the meter or exceed your time, and you get a ticket costing anywhere from $25 to $60. The official lots cost $2 per day (although they may have gone up to $2.50; I can't remember), and the price is going to be going up again soon.
The American economy is utterly dependent on artificially cheap fuel. This continuing increase is effectively going to destroy it, starting with the poor and middle class - which have already been put under unprecedented pressure.
Sorry to have gone on so long. I think I'll make this a stand-alone post, too.
Feel free to pass this around to your non-USAn friends.
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1. We pay far more for health care.
Yes, directly you do. But we also pay a buttload more tax than you, which pays for our NHS. Most people that work still have to pay towards their healthcare anyway, it's only the really poor people like me that get it free. Doesn't the U.S have something called charity hospitals or something similar where poor people can go? I'm sure someone mentioned something about that.
2. There are many other services which we pay for that you don't, or that you pay a much lower rate for thanks to government subsidy. Daycare, for example. It costs us $500 to $1,000 per month. We pay over $500 per month for Sebastian to go to daycare three days a week.
You also have that a bit wrong. The government subsidises 5 half day sessions for children over 3, and only subsides full sessions to a maximum of 80% if you are in hospital or a full time student. If you work full time, a 5 day a week full day nursery works out about $980 per month.
3. Usury laws have been abolished in the United States, and credit card companies are virtually unregulated. That means that if you have a credit card (and almost everyone does - you wouldn't BELIEVE the number of credit card offers we receive in the mail every week), odds are that you're paying 25% or more on your money. And there are many hidden fees which make the effective rate even higher.
It's about the same here. We get special offer rates for the first 6 months of a credit card, then we usually end up paying around 22% on the balance. That means if you only pay the minimum payment you are told to pay, you will NEVER pay off the balance because the interest is continously accruing.
But many Americans are actually paying rates of over SIX HUNDRED PERCENT at the many "paycheck loan" shops across the country. That sounds unbelievable, but it's true; I can get you some sources on that, if you'd like. It's also completely legal in this country. Of course the people who go to those shops are living paycheck-to-paycheck, which is extremely common here.
We have stuff like this too. These kinds of shops tend to frequent the poorer areas of the inner city, where work is usually of an unpredictable and unsteady temporary kind. It's completly legal here, and you pay a shocking amount of interest here too.
Speaking of the trains, those are costing more, too. My monthly train pass is $181. That rate has been raised three times in the last six years, and it's going to be going up again on next January 1st - by 25%. The governing board has made no secret of the fact that additional increases will be coming soon. That's partly because both the federal and state governments have privatized the rail system; it's not subsidized, as I'm sure yours is.
Nope, it's not. Our rail system is owned by several different private companies. There is a government organisation which oversees this, known as 'Network Rail' but they do more harm than good. 'Railtrack', the original company set up to help us make the transition from a nationalised railway system to a privatised one, actually went bust. My friend
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Parking here costs on average about $1 an hour, and in London it's two or three times more than that.
I didn't mean to pick apart your post, I just wanted to point that you were kind of misinformed a little. I think our respective governments have done a good job of convincing us that the grass is greener on the other side ;-)
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2. We pay for childcare, and while in some cases, like if you are in full time education, it's paid for, for everyone else - no chance. And it's incredibly expensive.
4. Yes, America is bigger, but there are plenty of people dependant on cars here as well. We have just as much problems with our railservice - and it's a very expensive service, and many people live in the countryside, with no form of public transport. Parking at the station costs at least £3 a day ($5.58). Many people work in London, and the price for a daily travel pass a year is around £4000 ($7,443.03).
Our housing prices are appalling. In London, the average cost of a detached house is £466,011 ($866,718) and in the UK in general seems to be £208,435 ($387,662.99). The average house in the US is around £99,411.55 ($185000).
We pay a lot more for our individual goods. We often pay around the same amount for goods, like, £10 here and $10 there, but that means we are paying a lot more for it. Which is why when people in the UK go to the US, they buy shit loads of CDs, DVDs etc. Your electrial goods seem to be a damn sight cheaper as well, as well as food.
People in America are not hard done by.
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Many people live paycheque to paycheque here as well, poverty is very common. People think the welfare system means there are no people in poverty, but it's completely rubbish.
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ASome points.
Amtrak and the commuter trains and the subway are subsidized. The problem is that they're not subsidized enough to make the system actually work. And in the case of the MBTA of late the Massachusetts legislature elected to change from the old system where the state would cover whatever shortfalls there were to a system where a dedicated portion of the sales tax goes to the MBTA and that's it, mostly. Combine that with questionable expenditures like the "Charlie Card" with it's neat looking but surely expensive new high tech gates replacing the old turnstiles and tokens and the T doesn't have the money to do adequate maintenance and is making the subway actually less easy to use (okay, to be fair, there were doing the stuff like closing entrances and exits before the change, but it seems worse now).
Now on to health care for our foreign friends....
Pretty much everything I've seen indicates that Americans pay the most by way lots (link to an Economist article, of all things) of anybody in the developed world for health care (and that's counting everything), yet aren't the healthiest. As for charity hospitals, well, depends; there is no Federal such thing (unless one counts Veteran's Administration hospitals). Mostly no State such thing. Some cities and some charitable organizations have hospitals and clinics with a mission to the poor, but it's hardly universal and they're not necessarily adequately funded. In some states what happens is if you go to one hospital and you don't have insurance they'll send you across town to somewhere they can dump you, even if you're a really hurtin' unit. And there is no right to health care.
I'm certainly not going to say that Europe is a Utopian Paradise compared to the US, but the US can do better but won't because of misplaced and manipulated ideologies preventing real worthwhile change. We're likely to have a pretty messy splat over here, and unfortunately everybody else in the world is going to get splattered.