And we complain about Gas Prices!

[Adam West]

Just think about Norway next time you fill up...the equivalent of $11.28 per gallon. At that price, the U.S. would fall into an economic depression.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080722...ricetaxclimate

[SUPERUNDERDOGGIE]

Wow...I love the lady that says "Driving is a priviledge". I guess she means that gives her government officials the right to hose her on taxes at the pump. If its a priviledge whey not pay $100 a gallon? (or Kroners in her case....by the way, I would just be mad my money was called "Kroners" whatever that means.)

Nice freedom that they have there in Norway. Its like "Salaries are high...driving is a priviledge...and we feel guilty...so we don't mind making the Saudi's (a people with little love for freedom) even more stinking rich."

Makes a lot of sense.

[Mikey]

Norwegians are mostly all rich anyways

[wolfie]

Petrol is the same price here in the UK and you are right most of it is tax.

The thing is if they took all the tax off the petrol they would have to put it on something else. The money has to come from somewhere.

[toystalker]

i paid £1.22 a litre here today for unleaded petrol, not sure what that is a gallon, all i know its roughly double the £ and the $

so what wever it comes to in £ double it

at the same station diesel was £1.35 a litre

what on earth happened to the blockades? when it hit £1 there was murder, now folks dont seem to care and just pay it.

its a dictator ship im telling you!

we got rid of folks like hitler and appointed his henchmen in power in our own goverments

i dont seem to remember when i had a knock on the door and they wanted to tell me all about what good they would do if i voted them in, i dont ever recal them telling me all this tax would go up, we will close schools and hospitals, make bus lanes down every road that you cant use but your road tax will double! we will put speed bumps down every street, yes including the posh areas, food, drink and just anbout any consumable will go up and we will put our own wages way up above inflation but yours will be forgotten about... you will more than likely get laid off

vote for us please

i dont remember them saying all that

political i know... but i needed a rant

[Mikey]

Speaking of fuel oil .....

What happened to the days (early 80's) when they said to buy are car that runs on fuel oil because it's a lot cheaper to operate ?

Now it's more then gas .....

What the hell is that all about ?

[toys2cool]

holy crap!! suddenly paying $5 doesn't feel so bad

[megocrazy]

Just think about Norway next time you fill up...the equivalent of $11.28 per gallon. At that price, the U.S. would fall into an economic depression.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080722...ricetaxclimate

Norway does tax many things heavily, but they use that money to alleviate a lot of personal costs we have to pay here. National health, that's a major, National pension after 67, that is also applied to your spouse until their death and your children if they're under a certain age. All Norwegians are guaranteed 25 paid vacation days a year. At 60 you get an additional week. Huge benefits to having a child in Norway. Up to a year off after birth with 80% pay, as long as you were employed for 6 months prior. Many companies here don't even give vacation time until 1 year in, and they'll give ya 52 for having a baby. And mother and father are eligible for this. This also applies if you adopt a child under a certain age. National benefits for child care up to 3 years old. Funeral payments. Gas prices like this would also promote things like mass transit, and car pooling, which cuts down on pollution, and traffic, and creates jobs in those fields. So like anything it's got it's goods and it's bads, but probably balances out in the end. It may actually be cheaper for some in the long run.

[megoscott]

One thing to remember is that America is a much larger country, more spread out---that was designed when gas was cheap---we have much farther to drive on a regular basis than someone who lives in a smaller country that was laid out essentially when horses and buggies were the norm. Or that has a great public transport system. In a place like San Francisco I can get away with minimal driving and using a bike a lot. Not so much if you live in Montana.

[ScottA]

I have a friend who works at Al Udied AFB in Doha Qatar. He pays $0.00 (nothing) for gas on base but pays $0.80 when off base.

[Adam West]

Wouldn't it make sense to tax income or something else to pay for those type of government sponsored benefits rather than gas?

I believe there are quite a few other European countries that have similar benefits. I was in Germany around 8 years ago on a work assignment and I believe they told me they had similar benefits with the maternity leave, etc.

[megocrazy]

Wouldn't it make sense to tax income or something else to pay for those type of government sponsored benefits rather than gas?

I believe there are quite a few other European countries that have similar benefits. I was in Germany around 8 years ago on a work assignment and I believe they told me they had similar benefits with the maternity leave, etc.

Germany has a population of 82 million, while Norway has 4 million. There is just much more money in the system. German employers also pay into the health care fund, though I don't think that is the case in Norway, at least I found nothing to say that they did. Unemployment is very low in Norway versus other neighboring countries. Economic growth has also been high in recent years. It would be thought that with no heavy fees on companies like medical and social security, that businesses are more successful and expand offering new jobs as the population expands. Taxing the gas also would allow them to basically gain revenue from people they couldn't normally tax. ie: visitors, tourists. A lot like the extreme hotel taxes we pay here. While they may be paying out on one side the truth is it seems to be beneficial for residents on the whole. The fact they may not travel the distances we are accustomed to would mean the high gas prices aren't a huge factor in their personal budgets. It's not much different than the 15% sales tax Ventura wanted to impose in Minnesota when he was Governor. His argument was lose the income tax and charge 15% sales tax. This would stop the "under the table" jobs because you paid tax when you spent the money not when you earned it. And everybody spends money. You would also get the tourist money when they came which would be bonus revenue. When you break it down, it takes X amount to do what the country has to and it comes from the residents, so how they get that amount is a mute point that all seems to balance out. They do have a lot of benefits that we don't have though. So maybe it's not so bad to pay $11 a gallon if they aren't killing you with everything else we pay for here. It all comes out in the wash.

[Adam West]

I wonder if you could file for a refund if you were a tourist on the taxes similar to the VAT taxes in Germany? I remember you could on goods but not on items like food or lodging so maybe there's some truth to it.

I guess I'm just thinking that a wealthy Norwegian gets a better break than a middle class Norwegian because they are essentially paying a flat tax but I presume same benefits for all.

Well I guess there are advantages and disadvantages to every system of taxation.

As a side note, I did remember that the people I spoke with in Germany lived very close to their jobs and didn't have long commuting distances. They also all had labor type contracts which protected their jobs somewhat so there wasn't a lot of job hopping like you see here in the states.

[Bo8a_Fett]

We found a petrol station that dropped its price by 1 penny and boy the queues to get in there....

[nvmbrsdoom5]

As Megocrazy has pointed out, paying $11+ for gas in a country like Norway doesn't compare to what it'd be like if we had to pay $11 for gas here in the U.S. I know from having just toured in Europe recently that many people over there do not regularly drive distances as long as we tend to here, or spend as much time behind the wheel. Many of them take public transportation, ride bicycles or walk. We spent about the same amount of money on gas over a 10 day period touring the Benelux area, as we'd have spent touring just the Midwest U.S. in a few days. And, as already mentioned before in this thread, there's other things we pay for here that they do not in some of those countries, and vice versa. Truth be told, from what my friends abroad have told me, it sounds like we're all kinda in the same place, it all balances out.