jdanton

It's my opinion that our government and our candidates are all looking at the gas price problem from the wrong end.

If I were president, or a candidate for president, I'd be inclined to propose that our federal government contract with GM, Ford, and Chrysler to build electric vehicles suitable for use by various government and/or government connected industries/services.

Your letter carrier, for example, could do fine with an electric van, and the "meter maids" could do fine with an electric vehicles. These vehicles would work very well where the daily driving is limited, and they could be plugged in overnight to charge.

Just the government using these vehicles would make a significant dent in the demand for gas, and, hopefully, prices would fall some.

Ideally, these vehicles would also be available for the public. I'm not alone in my situtation wherein I need my wagon to go on longer trips, or to hold my three grandchildren. Most of my trips, however, are quite local and I am alone in the car.

Government contracts, under my proposal, would lead to a large market for these vehicles, and the large market would bring the price per unit down.

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Author: Memoirs of a Sleepless Mind, a book you CAN judge by its cover.

DRS112

Most of our electricity comes from coal....so...we know that electric cars won't help global warming.

We also know that electric cars are woefully underpowered and nobody really wants one...

so...to that extent any resources spent on developing electric cars will come at the expense of producing other cars like hybrids or ones that run on other alternative fuels....

which also means that there will be less demand for developing alternative fuels....

Kanadesaga

the cullusion between gov't and big oil is two fold. first, gov't has allowed a monopoly of energy to exist by underfunding or nonfunding of alternative energy sources. second, the gov't has allowed an artificial shortage of fuel to occur due to a very laizze faire attitude when it comes to new refineries, et al. that was the underlaying strata the W and his criminal cronies built upon by this little exercise into Iraq. Which has over quadrupled the price of a barrel of oil.

You know if I was a Saudi family member, I'd be real happy with what good ol' George has done for the family business.

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"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

jdanton

This is all true, but it's not relevant to my suggestion.

Your letter carrier or meter maid don't need power. If they are powered by coal, they are not powered by gas.

I'm not proposing this as an "instead of" but as an addition to. It's something that could be done fairly quickly.

It's primary purpose would be to bring demand down in hopes that prices would follow.

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Author: Memoirs of a Sleepless Mind, a book you CAN judge by its cover.