Avgas in France has reached $7.50/gal !

That's for sure. If any of us have luck on our side, it's surely those of
us who were fortunate enough to be born in the "Western world."

Oh, crap -- there I go again, being "racist"...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:aTE8e.23567$8Z6.2699@attbi_s21...
You speak with the wisdom of a cosmopolitan traveler. I suspect that
Mr. Honeck has never stepped foot in France or anywhere else in
Europe, else how can his provincial attitude be explained?

I own and operate a hotel in a city that is home to a world-class
university, with 35,000 under- and post-graduate students, and 15,000
faculty members and staff.


I thought you lived in Iowa.

Mike
MU-2


As such, I am fortunate to interact with people from all over the world on
a daily basis.

As you can see, I needn't fly to France, as the world comes to me.

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I thought you lived in Iowa.

Ha!

As opposed to, say, Idaho?

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:zoN8e.26116$8Z6.5821@attbi_s21...
Just because French society has different values to the US doesn't make
them "dunderheaded" either.

Call it what you will. Anyone -- French, British, or Martian -- dumb
enough to tax avgas up to $7.50 per gallon is dunderheaded.


Why? Societies make choices about what they want their governments to
provide and what to tax to pay for it. France (and most of the rest of
Europe) has chosen to provide extensive social benefits and pay for them
with taxes mostly on consumption. The US has also chosen to provide
extensive social benefits and also buy a huge mililtary and pay for it with
taxes mostly on production (and borrowing from their children.).

If you look at it dispassionately, avgas is used primarily for recreation
producing noise and pollution as byproducts. This is particulary true in
France where trains go faster than most aircraft burning avgas. Why does it
make more sense to tax people's productive effort directly through income
taxes than it does to tax avgas?

Mike
MU-2


And that's on a *good* day.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:zoN8e.26116$8Z6.5821@attbi_s21...
Just because French society has different values to the US doesn't make
them "dunderheaded" either.

Call it what you will. Anyone -- French, British, or Martian -- dumb
enough
to tax avgas up to $7.50 per gallon is dunderheaded.

And that's on a *good* day.

And this instance of dunderheadedness is certainly not isolated.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:UmN8e.26114$8Z6.8446@attbi_s21...
But as for much of my fortunes - yes, they are mostly the product of
luck.

History is rife with stories about people of "noble birth" winding up insane
and destitute, and, OTOH, most of our wealthiest people were born on the
wrong side of the tracks.



I didn't have any control over my birth - it was certainly
fortunate that being born into a middle class British family means I was
born into the world's richest 10%. The vast majority of the world
doesn't have it anywhere as easy.

"Palace to poor house in two generations" -- American witicism from the late
1800's


That's for sure. If any of us have luck on our side, it's surely those of
us who were fortunate enough to be born in the "Western world."

And even that isn't enough for most, and some of the wealthiest people
are/were from Hong Kong, and Chinese are often the weathiest people in the
countries in which they reside, often causing servere envy.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:aKO8e.26241$8Z6.17556@attbi_s21...
I thought you lived in Iowa.

Ha!

As opposed to, say, Idaho?

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


I don't think anyone in ID is claiming that we have a "world class"
universitee...unaverasty...er...college. Some claim that we have "world
class" skiing but that isn't true either.

Mike
MU-2

"Jay Honeck" wrote \

Hey -- didn't you hear? We just received national press coverage for
being
the university with the highest percentage of "binge drinking" in the
nation?


I'm IMPRESSED!!!!

Who would have thunk it?

Better than U of Wisc, who has the Bud song as one of their pep songs?

Better than Ohio State? (where I did my share of influencing the stats, when
I was there)

Oh, that's right! The missing factor. Out in the middle of the cornfields
of Iowa, there is not much else to do but drink! Or write. (yea right Jay,
good try!)

;-)
--
Jim in NC

Jay,

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 at 20:00:32 in message
AZz7e.14314$xL4.12721@attbi_s72, Jay Honeck
wrote:
The Federal tax code has been carefully -- even diabolically -- written so
that the average Joe on the street has NO idea what he's actually paying in
taxes. By forcing employers to withhold the tax BEFORE the employee ever
sees the money, the Gubmint not only guarantees payment, it guarantees
acquiescence.

As has the UK tax code.
Bottom line: The government keeps the tax laws inscrutably complex quite on
purpose, lest they provoke an uprising.

Similar in the UK with all sorts of tax credits etc. The UK citizen's
ability to offset expenses against tax is also very limited.

Gas prices, on the other hand, are plain as day transparent, and people are
already ****ed as hell. The Bush administration is crapping their pants
right now, watching GW's approval rating plummet, primarily because of
rising gas prices.

If it hit $7.50 a gallon, you would see a revolution in America.

Just did a quick sum. I am paying £0.855 per litre for regular unleaded.
This is the equivalent at an exchange rate of $1.80 to the GBP to $5.83
per US Gallon.

(3.78541 litres per US Gallon)
--
David CL Francis

"Mike Rapoport" writes:

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:zoN8e.26116$8Z6.5821@attbi_s21...
Just because French society has different values to the US doesn't make
them "dunderheaded" either.

Call it what you will. Anyone -- French, British, or Martian -- dumb
enough to tax avgas up to $7.50 per gallon is dunderheaded.


Why? Societies make choices about what they want their governments to
provide and what to tax to pay for it. France (and most of the rest of
Europe) has chosen to provide extensive social benefits and pay for them
with taxes mostly on consumption. The US has also chosen to provide
extensive social benefits and also buy a huge mililtary and pay for it with
taxes mostly on production (and borrowing from their children.).

Would that we were taxing ourselves, but we're not. And we're not
borrowing from our children, but from the rest of the world. One day,
not so far away, the rest of world will get tired of it. I think
within 10-15 years the world's goods will be priced in something other
than the US dollar (probably the Euro) and then our consumption will
come to an abrupt halt.

Dunderheaded is when you consume way more than you produce, when you
borrow not to invest in production but in consumption, when you launch
wars half way around the world on the basis of lies or gross
incompetence, when your only national energy policy is drilling more
holes and nothing else.

Dunderheaded is also when you think you know everything by having a
few foreign guests stop by.