[ale] [OT] cartoon on BP spill blame

[Tom Freeman]

Well, the majority of the race seems to lack the desire/ability/
education (pick one or more blame points, or add one) to make much of 
any choice except on the basis of upfront cost.

How often have you had the conversation with somebody about to, or 
justifying the purchase of a SUV where the _only_ cost that they 
consider is the cost of the fuel to drive it somewhere? Funny thing is, 
fuel cost is a fraction of the total cost of driving, yet the cost of
fuel drives the whole dynamic because it is visible.

My Mazda 6 is getting about 30 mpg overall at the moment. With fuel 
running about $2.70/gal, that works out to about $0.09/mile. Capital 
cost happens to run about, wait for it, $0.09/mile (I was able to pay 
cash - it will be higher if you have to finance). I haven't figured the 
maintanace on this car, but the last one worked out to perhaps $0.06/
mile over 270,000 miles. Add in insurance at something near or better 
than $0.05/mile (in my case - YMWV), and you might see the cost of 
driving is at least three, probably four times the cost of fuel - 
assuming that all the costs are accounted for. Plus the cost of 
maintaining the roadway is almost impossible to account for here, as 
there are multiple sources of funding (including but not limited to the 
road use tax on fuel.)

What I'm trying to suggest is that "price saver" mentality isn't the 
only force in play here. There is also the hiding of costs through 
various mechanisms The bright people around here can probably add two 
or three more cost hiding/transfer mechanisms in further discussion.

Jim - I do so agree that we need to own up to our participation in the 
whole process, and not foist the responisiblity off onto somebody or 
something else. My driving habits drive the need for more oil wells, 
oil wells will leak/spill oil even if handled with the highest degree 
of professionalism, so part of the "fault" of the catastrophe in the 
gulf is mine. The owners/stockholders of record at the time of the 
blowout have a larger, more direct responsibility since they own the 
entity which acted in a less than perfectly professional manner. (If 
you want the profits - you should take responsibilty for the oopes 
also. IMHO)

On 06/18/2010 11:25:55 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> I am willing to pay MUCH more on my plane tickets if the extra $$ 
> goes
> to
> improve service and reliability and safety, etc.
> 
> We have developed too much of the walmart mentality for my tastes. 
> cut
> costs
> to save $ with no regard for the quality (or lack) or damage it does
> to the
> surrounding.
> 
> We _so_ need to start evaluating our own individual participation in
> the
> process around us.
> 
> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Greg Freemyer
> <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
> > Damn,
> >
> > I guess we should blame the passengers if a commercial airplane
> > crashes due to poor maintenance and pilot error.
> >
> > Greg
> >
> > On 6/18/10, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/2010/05/31/mike-luckovich-
> june-1-cartoon/
> > >
<<snip for brevity>>