IF Gas Prices reach $4 a gallon or higher...

[cosmart]

Originally Posted by Westfield 11

Of course not, but my ATM is limited to only $200 a day max and my credit cards are covered by fraud insurance as well as the issuers fraud departments. Your gas card has a $2000 limit at $5 a gallon and cannot have a daily limit if it was to be useful. If someone filled their boat and truck at the station for a weekends outing one can easily use 300 gallons or more. Thus your copied card could be drained in a day and then where are you? Back to pleading with a federal bureaucrat for a refill of another 400 gallons?

BTW I listen to Air America, not "comedian Rush Limbaugh"

Ummm. My proposed gas card *IS* a corporate issued and fraud insured card. It would be handled exactly the same way credit and debit cards are handled today, because THAT IS WHAT IT WOULD BE.

Is there any further question about that?

Any limit we wanted could be put on the card, because there would be NO restriction on buying gas. You could buy 400 gallons in one day if you wanted, but if you want to have a limit out of fear, perhaps only 50 or 100 gallons of that would be allowed to be tax reduced by using your account. I would allow people to manage their account online, just as you can do with your credit cards. If you are worried, set your limit low. If you are going on vacation, set it high and go fill your RV.

All this stuff about card security seems to be just a red herring to me. This card would be more secure than the credit cards you carry in your pocket, because 1) It could only be used to pay $4.00 a gallon toward gasoline purchases (or taxes) and 2) You would have to have a PIN number to use it. I don't even need your physical card to rip off your credit card. All I need is your numbers.

What is the real issue?

[rawlus®]

no issue for me, can't wait to see the plan go into action. great work!

[Westfield 11]

Originally Posted by cosmart

What is the real issue?

Really, other than the fact that this will never happen in your or my lifetime, nothing. Just playing devil's advocate.

[cosmart]

Originally Posted by Westfield 11

Really, other than the fact that this will never happen in your or my lifetime, nothing. Just playing devil's advocate.

I don't know how old you are, but if you plan on living another 30 years you will see the end of personal transportation powered by gasoline refined from crude oil. Personal transport will be electric, fuel cell, biofuel, or synfuel. Crude oil will be reserved for jet fuel, diesel for commercial and military, home heating(very limited), agriculture, and raw material for making plastics and the like. Oil shale, oil sands, coal to oil, all of these have major challenges that will make it impossible to ever reach the 20 million barrel a day mark we would need to continue as we are.

In the meantime, there are going to be some very painful transitions. As I said at the beginning of my rant, if we had true leaders in this country, we would adopt a program immediately to start building nuclear power plants, mass transit, and taxing gasoline to incent people to make the changes they will have to make anyway. Better to phase in the pain rather than get hit over the head with it, as we have in the past year or so. There is only one other country on the planet that will hurt as badly as we will, and that is Australia. The difference is that their leaders have actually acknowledged the challenge and have at least started talking about making changes.

Here, we have arguments over drilling more places. If we were cut off from imports, we would deplete every last drop of oil on US soil and seas in 15 years at the rate we consume it today. That would be drilling ANWR, coasts, and downtown LA. Gone. Every drop. And you can bet our enemies know this.

[BobDiaz]

A little side note of a change I've seen over the last year...

When I go to downtown LA, I always take the Blue Line (rail) because the cost of the ticket is less than parking downtown and I don't have to deal with the traffic.

In the past, I could always find an open parking spot in the top level of the multi-level parking structure at the Willow Station. HOWEVER, last Thursday, there were no open spots in the multi-level parking structure and the overflow parking area, that in the past was hardly used, is almost full.

The Blue Line, Red Line, and the Purple Line are all full. Getting an open seat is now getting to be a problem. I didn't get a chance to check out the Green Line or the Gold Line, but I'll guess that ridership is much higher than a year ago.


To me, it looks like, as gas prices rise, there are less cars on the road.


Bob Diaz

[angel]

We can all speculate. I can remember back in the late 70's and early 80's when it was speculated we'd all have our own personal aircraft similar to Jetson's by now. Okay. Maybe I was the only kid who thought that. ;)