scooperhsd
Top Post Dawg
There's a place for all three - ships, rail, and trucks. We need all of them to do business in the most effiecent manner. There's also a place for planes and POVs (privately owned vehicles).
TurbinePower said:Really the big Class 8s are the second most efficient way to move that cargo across the country, second only to freight rail. Pound for pound, those trucks are more efficient than, say, a TDI or a Prius (~3k pounds) doing 60mpg. Even if the truck is only getting 4mpg while fully loaded, it's more efficient per pound than any passenger car on the road.
Weight percentages are better, too. Large transit trucks and buses carry a higher percentage of cargo to vehicle weight relative to smaller passenger cars. For instance, on my 55 passenger bus, I can be carrying almost ten thousand pounds worth of passengers (55 passengers @180 pounds apiece, not unusual in a college environment). With a 22k pound bus, this puts my total weight at just shy of 32k pounds, with a perhaps startling 31% of that being made up of passengers.
Put five of those same 180 pound individuals in a Prius (2921# curb weight + 900# passenger weight = 3821 total combined) and you have a mere 24% and less space per person than you would on the bus. I've been in the back seat of a Prius (or any 5-passenger car, really), I would much rather be on the bus than the guy stuck in the middle.
Big OTR rigs have even higher percentages of cargo weight to total weight, perhaps only beaten by trains. Rail is, in fact, more efficient than trucking, but it has it's drawbacks that make trucking appealing, such as difficulty of distribution and the need to have dedicated lines.
I kind of thought that; I think I'm getting a tad too suspicous around here lol.darkscout said:Same reason you quoted someone else. It's an entertaining quote that many can relate to.
really ? and who is the Fed ? a bunch of banks ..LanduytG said:The subprime mortgage problem is not the feds fault. Its the fault of the banks that want to loan money to anyone , if they can pay it back or not. I don't feel sorry for them or the people that buy the home.
Greg
'cause it's the first line on this forum that's almost drawn soda out my nose from the first reaction. I love it.FL2AK-tdi said:Ummm, why are my remarks in your signature line?
Too funny. Rock on.TurbinePower said:'cause it's the first line on this forum that's almost drawn soda out my nose from the first reaction. I love it.
x2! Avoided layoffs are almost always a good thing.Da~da~da said:Keeping my fingers crossed for you!
Well, I did have one of those green all-purpose suitcases dug out of mothballs and ready to fill up. It's still in hot standby, or "hot behind the stops" - we'll see what happens in the next 3 or 4 weeks.dieselgrandad said:Well hopefully that's some good news if only a glimmer. Here I figured you had your bags all packed. Did you ask your buddy what kind of ris they use?
Perhaps, if things get desperate enough.Da~da~da said:http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/29/markets/thebuzz/index.htm
I think that this article does a good job at getting across what I was trying to elude to earlier in this post. The author makes a good point about windfall taxes
"Even though many oil companies are reporting record profits, many people forget just how expensive it is for energy companies to engage in the oil business.
The average net profit margin for the S&P Energy sector, according to figures from Thomson Baseline, is 9.7%. The average for the S&P 500 is 8.5%. So yes, energy companies are more profitable than many others...but not by an inordinate amount.
Google, for example, reported a net profit margin of 25% in its most recent quarter. Should we have an online advertising windfall profit tax?
Venezuela, where fuel cost something like pennies per gallon. And some how OUR system is better?Da~da~da said:Remember free markets?
At the end of the day, we shouldn't emulate Venezuela of all places and slap higher taxes on oil companies just because crude is around $120 a barrel. In free markets, there are times when many companies do well and others will not."
I just finished a college class on this lol, called the Populaist and Progressive Era A451. We slid into an inverse universe sometime after the 1912 presidential election. The Democrats began to co-opt much of the Republican platform at that time and the Republicans becan to move tot he right. The only thing the Democrats didn't adopt fromt he Republicans after 1912: race. The Democratic "Solid South" would not have tolerated a relaxig of relations towards their former slaves. It would take another 50 years for that. Oh wait, we're still not there.visionlogic said:"Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. [It is said] that protection is immoral…. Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 [the U.S. population] of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefitting mankind everywhere. Well, they say, ‘Buy where you can buy the cheapest'…. Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: ‘Buy where you can pay the easiest.' And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards."
- President William McKinley - REPUBLICAN
When did we slide into an inverse universe?
Relax, those schlubs at GM are going to get layoff benefits that amount to something like 80% of their base salary. Other laid-off people in other industries wish they were that lucky.dieselgrandad said:Not OTR stuff but GM announced today the they would be cutting back on trucks and SUV's. Gonna' cost the Janesville, WI plant something like 750 jobs.
Maybe they can afford to give back to the USA, but (this is the important part) THEY ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO GIVE BACK IF THEY DO NOT WANT TO.FL2AK-tdi said:Tax margins and percentages are irrelevant. It is a simple matter of can the oil companies afford to give back to this country?
FL2AK-tdi said:Perhaps, if things get desperate enough.
Venezuela, where fuel cost something like pennies per gallon. And some how OUR system is better?
I think what this entire arguement, what this thread and several others on tdiclub boils down to is simply this: Do we allow a scant 5% of the country to control and amass 95% of the wealth for themelves, while opressing the other 95% or do we ensure economic justice by guranteeing that the economic resources of America are accessible to all Americans, as a true deomcracy, or do we just keep transferring our money up the chain?
That is the essential question.
Tax margins and percentages are irrelevant. It is a simple matter of can the oil companies afford to give back to this country?
So, do you care about other people, or only yourself?
In fact, do you even care about yourself, because I doubt very few of us in here are in much different shape, economically speaking. The policies yo support hurt not only your neighbors, but yourself as well.
It's not about capitalism or communism, it's about making sure that we all do better when we all do better.
Venezuela is an oil exporting nation with a nationalized oil industry, and is presently suffering food shortages and massive increases in the cost of food, a majority of which must be imported. Most of the food shortages stem from the government's policy of fixing the cost of important food items, which means they cannot be sold for sufficient amounts to allow the purchase of more from the world market. This is, unfortunately, the ultimate end result of most price-fixing solutions from governments.FL2AK-tdi said:Venezuela, where fuel cost something like pennies per gallon. And some how OUR system is better?
I think what this entire arguement, what this thread and several others on tdiclub boils down to is simply this: Do we allow a scant 5% of the country to control and amass 95% of the wealth for themelves, while opressing the other 95% or do we ensure economic justice by guranteeing that the economic resources of America are accessible to all Americans, as a true deomcracy, or do we just keep transferring our money up the chain?
Daimler owns Freightliner you know.Dimitri16V said:Why are you worried ? there are people here that will tell this is just a hiccup of the economy.
BTW, care to guess what kind of trucks Halliburton and the other Cheney companies are buying with OUR money for use in Iraq ?
MERCEDES BENZ
I would have settled for one half of one percent. Anything. I got nothing. I did't even get the "retraining money" that Bush promised us all.MrMopar said:Relax, those schlubs at GM are going to get layoff benefits that amount to something like 80% of their base salary. Other laid-off people in other industries wish they were that lucky.
And there you have it folks, right from the conservative horse's mouth. That is exactly what this all about. Do you or do you not want to live in a democracy?TurbinePower said:America is not, has not been and hopefully will never be a "true democracy." End of story, simple as that.
Think back to high school or college government class. We NEVER had a true democracy.FL2AK-tdi said:And there you have it folks, right from the conservative horse's mouth. That is exactly what this all about. Do you or do you not want to live in a democracy?
And that's why we're in the fix we're in. (part of why) They can just take take take from us and never put anything back. That's what needs to be changed. That's what will never change.MrMopar said:Maybe they can afford to give back to the USA, but (this is the important part) THEY ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO GIVE BACK IF THEY DO NOT WANT TO.
yeah yeah, I know the whole story about Ben Franklin telling hte old guy, we gave you a republic.Bob_Fout said:Think back to high school or college government class. We NEVER had a true democracy.
No, I do not. I do not want to live in a place where everyone gets a say in what gets done, down to the infants and the truly mentally incompetent. A true democracy would be so sluggish and full of potential for "spoofing" votes to sway it one way or another that more nothing would be done on every subject than the nothing that gets done now, with a representative republic.FL2AK-tdi said:And there you have it folks, right from the conservative horse's mouth. That is exactly what this all about. Do you or do you not want to live in a democracy?
Democracy is not "the common good." Dictatorships are not "the common good," and neither are republics, monarchies, oligarchies, or socialism. Socialism comes closest, but even then it falls a bit short.FL2AK-tdi said:yeah yeah, I know the whole story about Ben Franklin telling hte old guy, we gave you a republic.
But that doesn't mean we can't all work together for the common good. And the common good is a democracy. Just in case you thought otherwise.