Comment on American automakers are losing the race to make more fuel-efficient vehicles
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months agoWe could fix that in an instant by removing the astronomical fuel subsidies, but any sitting President would be instantly crucified because for some reason gas prices are indicative of how good the President is doing.
vexikron@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
I mean I agree that this should be done, but the problem is that basically that would instantly destroy what is left of the entire economy.
People and shipping business are operating on razor thin margins right now, and if the price of gas basically doubled in a 3 to 9 month period from ending all of the subsidies to oil and gas companies, basically logistics firms would go out of business, large retailers with their own shipping would make up the slack by cutting standards and raising consumer prices, and a huge amount of peoples personal budgets would collapse as they can no longer afford their daily commute.
This of course was and is the plan of oil and gas companies. You cannot double the price a what is functionally a drug the economy is and has been addicted to for quite a long time (cheap gas) without, at this point, life threatening withdrawals.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Yeah I was being a bit ridiculous but we definitely should have a long-term plan for weaning America off of fuel subsidies. Maybe make an exception for commercial vehicles.
vexikron@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
I once outlined ideas for ways to phase this in, in a way that would possibly be politically workable.
Those days seem quaint now.
Itll never happen. All the corpos control such kinds of policies and related politicians so thoroughly, and the country is currently in a sort of cold civil war.