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Data is not worthless, so not sure where you are reading that I think that.
What I am saying is that data is easily manipulated and skewed based on what data you CHOOSE to use. This study is so narrow in it's focus, that I personally don't find a lot of value in it. Economies are complex, and can't be easily dissected into smaller segments. They all impact each other and need to be looked at IN CONJUNCTION in order to valuable. It's like telling someone to describe your face and they only talk about your nose. Gas prices are only one part of the whole, and not easily talked about without talking about the rest of the economy.
I'm a real estate agent, and you can use the average home price, median home prices, whatever and you they will say DIFFERENT things about the real estate market. Data is not an end all be all, but it does have importance.
Knowing how to put the data into CONTEXT and the BIGGER PICTURE is much more important than one little slice. Lawrence Yun of the NAR is getting significant heat for skewing the data.
You are also making the assumption that even if we could pump our own gas, that the people of Oregon would agree to additional taxes to take that money and put it towards education/healthcare, etc. I suggest you google Measure 5, if you think Oregonians would do that, or google our kicker checks and what happens when legislaters try to keep them.
Oregon is progressive in many ways, and in many ways it is very conservative. The politics of Oregon are all over the map. Oregon is not as liberal as people think it is.
Which study are you specificially referring to when you say "This study," because I provided two studies? I know economies are complex; I spent 4 years studying them, and I'm going to still continue in a Master program, soon. It may not be easy, but it is necessary to dissect economies into small pieces; there's no way to look at the whole U.S. economy and make any sort of useful statement about it.
If what you claim were true, then we couldn't look at the Gravitational Force and instead would have to look at how it effects everything. But that's absurd, because we could never understand gravity then. It's necessary in any science to look at the smaller parts and pieces before you can assess the whole. You cannot look at things in conjunction, because they are confounding variables and you need to look at individual pieces as much as possible. Again, for example, we don't consider gravity with other natural forces like the strong force or electromagnetic force; we look at them all separately.
Otherwise, how did you look the unemployment rate and claim it's relevant? I still didn't get an answer on that. The unemployment rate is also a small slice of the economy, and not a "BIGGER PICTURE" look of the economy. The unemployment rate has many data issues. It doesn't tell you if the unemployed are long-term or a sudden, but temporary, rise. The unemployment rate also fails to see if suddenly a new group of young employees are joining the work force, which raises the unemployment rate but means nothing in "CONTEXT" of the larger economy. The unemployment rate is based on two things: 50,000 randomly chosen household survey and a payroll survey. Immediately, one might suspect the accuracy of the unemployment rate and the self-employed. This still doesn't mean you or I using the unemployment rate is somehow wrong or incorrect.
Even if the money was not used as tax revenue, I'd much rather it return to the hands of the people. The people would then, still, be free to decide whether to relax in their car or not. Those who wanted to keep their money would also be free to do that. Why is it alright to force those who want to keep their money?
Finally, I don't know if I ever claimed Oregon is "too" liberal. Looking at Oregon politics, it seems to be a weird hodge-podge of liberals and conservatives, which to me sounds far better than many places that have a one sided view. I really like the all over the map politics. I looked at Measure 5, but I don't understand what the relevance is; it seems that in 1990, Oregonians did not want to pay rising property taxes and wanted to equalize revenue among school districts by having more of it paid by the State rather than local districts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by manzanite
I don't buy the argument that it costs millions of dollars a year in higher gas prices. I travel all over the country and I can see no correlation between gas prices and self serve states. From what I see, the oil companies will charge whatever the market will bear. I don't believe that they would really reduce the price of gas in Oregon if the self serve law was changed. They would just find some other reason to justify the price.
When did I claim that I didn't care about the other "really important issues" facing Oregon? All I said, was those issues may be taken care of if the money for them existed, which could based on the studies.
You're free to not believe the argument, but personally, I'd want proof of things effecting law and economics (but probably not faith). Just because you don't see a correlation in layman's eyes, doesn't mean there isn't one when you carefully measure it and then use a computer to model it. Lastly, the oil companies do not always sell gas to you directly, and the government has some control over that price by means of taxes, environmental regulations, and additional laws (for example, no self-pump).
You're free to not believe the argument, but personally, I'd want proof of things effecting law and economics (but probably not faith). Just because you don't see a correlation in layman's eyes, doesn't mean there isn't one when you carefully measure it and then use a computer to model it. Lastly, the oil companies do not always sell gas to you directly, and the government has some control over that price by means of taxes, environmental regulations, and additional laws (for example, no self-pump).
No, I don't beleive that there are huge sums of money just waiting for us if we just get self serve gas. A computer model may suggest that there is a pot of gold waiting, but that model was constructed by a human and my human common sense tells me that if the self serve law was repealed, we wouldn't end up seeing a huge windfall of cash. Could we fund universal healthcare if we just got rid of all grocery clerks? Was there a huge chunk of revenue returned to the public when we switched to ATMs instead of human tellers? It just doesn't pass the smell test.
Either way, you seem very agitated by this law. Given the large number of more important issues we face (many of which can't be fixed by the millions of dollars you assert we are wasting), I refuse to obsess about something this unimportant. I don't mean to imply that you should not spend your energy on this issue, I just won't be doing the same.
As a matter of fact, I've already spent more time on this than I think it warrants. This will be the last message I read or post on this topic.
Good luck with your crusade to rescue Oregon from this grave injustice
I was with you till your last sentence. I don't feel this is the most important problem a state could face, but I don't think it's necessary to belittle someone about it. And FWIW, I don't know what the state has to gain by banning self-service, either.
...Could we fund universal healthcare if we just got rid of all grocery clerks? Was there a huge chunk of revenue returned to the public when we switched to ATMs instead of human tellers? It just doesn't pass the smell test.
Good luck with your crusade to rescue Oregon from this grave injustice
I don't think this country has the money to fund universal healthcare, period. I don't believe any country on this planet does. Some of the countries, like Canada and Europe, will be able to sustain it for some time (and that some time may even be a couple decades), but they will rack up huge debts eventually or cause inefficiency by having to repeatedly raise taxes. In your case, however, grocery clerks aren't government mandated. They're a choice people make, and when people can make choices, it tends to result in more economic efficiency than government mandates. In fact, the switch to ATMs from human tellers did result in a huge chunk of revenue (why else do you think the switch happened?), but it was mostly not returned to the public; instead, it was kept by the bankers. There probably should've been more regulatory threats to "share" those savings with consumers.
I don't know if I ever characterized it as a "grave injustice", or an injustice greater than any other societal problem. Just, in my opinion, a foolish law that undoubtedly is costing money, even if it's not in the millions. But, foolish or not, I don't think I'm having any luck, so I too will quit now.
You can continue to talk about how Oregon suffers higher costs by not having self-serve (which is, by all measurements, untrue) but as manzanite pointed out, it's a small, if not tiny, issue in comparison to others.
Regarding your statements about health care, well, first of all I suggest you take a couple of courses in economics. It would benefit your understanding of these issues.
Secondly, this country is running a huge deficit, something unimaginable like $9-TRILLION plus, and counting. We have no money for ANYTHING, yet we continue spending. We are in debt to China and other nations, our dollar is tanking, and future generations are now saddled with the prospect of using their tax dollars to cover all this debt.
Health care costs are driven up by the middlemen involved in getting those services to us: the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and such. There are numerous ways to bring health care costs down, but it would require cutting out insurance companies and reigning in pharmaceutical companies, something unlikely to happen given our current political 'mindset.'
There are ways to fund a universal health care system. It works not only in Canada, but every European nation has some form of universal health care, some of which are exceedingly successful.
But again, given the current political mindset and the prospect of cutting out the big-biz aspect of health care, it's not going to happen here. Until we get, that is, demand the political change we desperately need in this country. You say it's not possible? I say:
I have always been for full service service stations or as in Oregon having to have your gas pumped by an attendant. Why? Because it creates more jobs, and that circulates more money in the States economy. Think about all those service people losing their jobs and joining the unemployment rolls. It would cost the state much more----all that tax money gained by cheaper gas would be eaten supporting the unemployed gat attendnts
Just stumbled upon this thread.. fascinating. I'd have more interest in the "studies" if they weren't linked from a uber-right-wing website. The original post was one of the more.. umm.. interesting ones I've seen here. It takes some getting used to, having your gas pumped, but I love it! Whenever I'm in Oregon I enjoy having someone clean the windshield, and greet you human-to-human. What's wrong with that? One attendant told me he can always tell someone from out of state... we all get out of our cars, even when we don't have to, and stand there while they pump the gas. I think it's quaint, and I'm happy to see that jobs are being saved.
Observation: in states where gas is primarily self serve the public has been educated, cajoled, implored, threatened to never, ever put more gas in the tank after the pump clicks off. In Oregon the attendant will always squirt a couple or few more clicks of gas after returning to the pump. I only drive rentals and I always ask them not to give my money away to the rental company. Sometimes they listen, other times habit gets the best of them and click, click another dollar goes on the credit card. I figure the station pays the workers salaries easy on the extra squirts. The stations would lose that revenue if people were allowed to pump their own.
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