Avgas in France has reached $7.50/gal !

It's "C'est la vie" - and if you think that, you don't know the French
well at all. They are famous for shutting down the country if they don't
get what they want.

So, to sum up, what you're saying is that the French people simply don't
value general aviation enough not to tax it out of existence?

I only feel bad for the common men who gaze skyward, fruitlessly. What
a
shame.

Generally, they don't. They just fly planes that burn less fuel.

They would have to fly a plane that burned less than half the gas of a
Cessna 152 for French students to be on even keel with their American
counterparts. I'm not sure I know of any certified trainers that burn just
2 - 4 gallons per hour?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article fvg7e.11984$GJ.11256@attbi_s71, Jay Honeck wrote:
Americans. For some odd reason, the French just go "Se la vie" and
shrug
their shoulders.

It's "C'est la vie" - and if you think that, you don't know the French
well at all. They are famous for shutting down the country if they don't
get what they want. French people generally are also fairly left-wing;
they aren't US Republicans.

I only feel bad for the common men who gaze skyward, fruitlessly. What
a
shame.

Generally, they don't. They just fly planes that burn less fuel.

Could you provide some numbers to support that cliam? I mean, what
percentage of the populous are pilots?, that sort of thing?


Why must so many threads in this NG turn into vitriolic political rants?


Like the "foreigners" that whine that their gas is so expensive (hey,
they're all democracies), but they are so much better than the US?

Dylan Smith writes:

Why must so many threads in this NG turn into vitriolic political rants?

Because one very ignorant poster repeatedly insults large blocks of
people by country of origin.

"Jay Honeck" writes:

They've got the government they deserve.

Ladieees and gentlemen, straight from http://www.whitehouse.gov, the
Government You've Got! If you live in the USA, that is. And you
deserve it!

Q -- really understand how is it the new plan is going to fix that
problem?

THE PRESIDENT: Because the -- all which is on the table begins to
address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate,
for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon
wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the
formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those
different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with
personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more
likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a
series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are
calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the
increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the
benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage
increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that
were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast
the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it
will help on the red.

Okay, better? I'll keep working on it.

"Jay Honeck" writes:

Makes you wonder how people so dunder-headed ever spawned men like
Bleriot...

Or how people so smart spawned George W[hat? Me Worry?] Bush?

Oh...maybe 51% of us aren't so smart. Maybe the Europeans aren't
dunder-headed. Read this if you wish...

An Economy On Thin Ice
By Paul A. Volcker
Sunday, April 10, 2005; Page B07

The U.S. expansion appears on track. Europe and Japan may lack
exuberance, but their economies are at least on the plus side. China
and India -- with close to 40 percent of the world's population --
have sustained growth at rates that not so long ago would have seemed,
if not impossible, highly improbable.

Yet, under the placid surface, there are disturbing trends: huge
imbalances, disequilibria, risks -- call them what you
will. Altogether the circumstances seem to me as dangerous and
intractable as any I can remember, and I can remember quite a
lot. What really concerns me is that there seems to be so little
willingness or capacity to do much about it.

We sit here absorbed in a debate about how to maintain Social Security
-- and, more important, Medicare -- when the baby boomers retire. But
right now, those same boomers are spending like there's no
tomorrow. If we can believe the numbers, personal savings in the
United States have practically disappeared.

To be sure, businesses have begun to rebuild their financial
reserves. But in the space of a few years, the federal deficit has
come to offset that source of national savings.

We are buying a lot of housing at rising prices, but home ownership
has become a vehicle for borrowing as much as a source of financial
security. As a nation we are consuming and investing about 6 percent
more than we are producing.

What holds it all together is a massive and growing flow of capital
from abroad, running to more than $2 billion every working day, and
growing. There is no sense of strain. As a nation we don't consciously
borrow or beg. We aren't even offering attractive interest rates, nor
do we have to offer our creditors protection against the risk of a
declining dollar.

Most of the time, it has been private capital that has freely flowed
into our markets from abroad -- where better to invest in an uncertain
world, the refrain has gone, than the United States?

More recently, we've become more dependent on foreign central banks,
particularly in China and Japan and elsewhere in East Asia.

It's all quite comfortable for us. We fill our shops and our garages
with goods from abroad, and the competition has been a powerful
restraint on our internal prices. It's surely helped keep interest
rates exceptionally low despite our vanishing savings and rapid
growth.

And it's comfortable for our trading partners and for those supplying
the capital. Some, such as China, depend heavily on our expanding
domestic markets. And for the most part, the central banks of the
emerging world have been willing to hold more and more dollars, which
are, after all, the closest thing the world has to a truly
international currency.

The difficulty is that this seemingly comfortable pattern can't go on
indefinitely. I don't know of any country that has managed to consume
and invest 6 percent more than it produces for long. The United States
is absorbing about 80 percent of the net flow of international
capital. And at some point, both central banks and private
institutions will have their fill of dollars.

I don't know whether change will come with a bang or a whimper,
whether sooner or later. But as things stand, it is more likely than
not that it will be financial crises rather than policy foresight that
will force the change.

It's not that it is so difficult intellectually to set out a scenario
for a "soft landing" and sustained growth. There is a wide area of
agreement among establishment economists about a textbook pretty
pictu China and other continental Asian economies should permit and
encourage a substantial exchange rate appreciation against the
dollar. Japan and Europe should work promptly and aggressively toward
domestic stimulus and deal more effectively and speedily with
structural obstacles to growth. And the United States, by some
combination of measures, should forcibly increase its rate of internal
saving, thereby reducing its import demand.

But can we, with any degree of confidence today, look forward to any
one of these policies being put in place any time soon, much less a
combination of all?

The answer is no. So I think we are skating on increasingly thin
ice. On the present trajectory, the deficits and imbalances will
increase. At some point, the sense of confidence in capital markets
that today so benignly supports the flow of funds to the United States
and the growing world economy could fade. Then some event, or
combination of events, could come along to disturb markets, with
damaging volatility in both exchange markets and interest rates. We
had a taste of that in the stagflation of the 1970s -- a volatile and
depressed dollar, inflationary pressures, a sudden increase in
interest rates and a couple of big recessions.

The clear lesson I draw is that there is a high premium on doing what
we can to minimize the risks and to ensure that there is time for
orderly adjustment. I'm not suggesting anything unorthodox or
arcane. What is required is a willingness to act now -- and next year,
and the following year, and to act even when, on the surface,
everything seems so placid and favorable.

What I am talking about really boils down to the oldest lesson of
economic policy: a strong sense of monetary and fiscal
discipline. This is not a time for ideological intransigence and
partisan posturing on the budget at the expense of the deficit rising
still higher. Surely we would all be better off if other countries did
their part. But their failures must not deflect us from what we can
do, in our own self-interest.

A wise observer of the economic scene once commented that "what can be
left to later, usually is -- and then, alas, it's too late." I don't
want to let that stand as the epitaph of what has been an unparalleled
period of success for the American economy and of enormous potential
for the world at large.

"G Farris" wrote in message
...
The title says it all.
Just received the latest price sheet from TOTAL.
Probably about the same throughout Europe.

JET-A is exactly half the price.


which explains why the Europeans are much keener on development of the
diesel powerplant.

In article ,
says...


"G Farris" wrote in message
...
The title says it all.
Just received the latest price sheet from TOTAL.
Probably about the same throughout Europe.

JET-A is exactly half the price.


which explains why the Europeans are much keener on development of the
diesel powerplant.


Correct.
Jet fuel in Europe benefits from a different tax structure, because it's
considered to be a commodity for professional transportation use, while avgas
is a luxury product for the rich. You don't see many Beech Dukes and Cessna
421's on European ramps - the cost of ownership/use is lower for a KingAir!

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 07:03:35 +0000 (UTC), (G Farris)
wrote:

professional transportation use, while avgas
is a luxury product for the rich.

Well, how much is the mogas burned by Jean Six Pack?


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
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the blog: www.danford.net
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Cub Driver wrote:

Well, how much is the mogas burned by Jean Six Pack?

The latest figure I found was $5.54 (recorded last week). At that time, the
average cost in the U.S. was reported to be $2.40.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

"G Farris" wrote in message
...
The title says it all.
Just received the latest price sheet from TOTAL.
Probably about the same throughout Europe.


its been that price for the last year. Despite the fuel price rises the fall
of the dollar against the Euro has kept the price relatively stable.