Our dear friends across the pond think their petrol (gasoline) is expensive. They should try living here. Got this in my e-mail.......

Compared with Petrol......

Think a gallon of petrol is expensive?

This makes one think, and also puts things in perspective.

Diet Snapple 16 oz £1.29 ............ £10.32 per gallon.

Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz £1.19 ............ £9.52 per gallon.

Ocean Spray 16 oz £1.25 ............. £10.00 per gallon.

Brake Fluid 12 oz £3.15 .............. £33.60 per gallon.

Vick’s Nyquil 6 oz £8.35 ......... £178..13 per gallon.

Pepto Bismol 4 oz £3.85 ............ £123.20 per gallon.

Tippex 7 oz £1.39 .......................... £5.42 per gallon.

And this is the
REAL KICKER.

Evian water 9 oz £1.49 ……….. £21.19 per gallon.

£21.19 for WATER and the buyers don’t even know the source.

(Evian spelled backwards is Naive.)

You don’t even want to compare it with perfume or after shave.

Ever wonder why printers are so cheap?

So they have you hooked for the ink.
Someone calculated the cost of the ink at ................. (you won’t believe it .... but it is true ........)

£5,200 per gal ...
(five thousand two hundred pounds)

So, the next time you’re at the pump, be glad your car doesn’t run on water, or Tippex, Pepto Bismol, Nyquil or, God forbid, Printer Ink!

Just a little humour to help ease the pain of your next trip to the petrol pump.

And

If you don’t pass this along to at least one person, your exhaust will fall off!!

Besides the satire in it.... (:
The first thing I thought of is how long are we all going to put up with these corporations...   This is sad state of affairs for all of us world wide...  We are being farmed... ! (Matrix)   I feel for the folks in the UK...
Thanks for the post...

Tom

Sadder still is that the prices are set to “what the market could bear” which means that people will continue to pay for it and thus continue to sustain the price hikes in accordance to the laws of supply and demand. Not to mention the upward spiral of taxes and all its ramifications. IMO this forces the division between the “haves” and “have-nots”. The prices of everyday necessities continue to rise but the wages of common folk remain stagnant so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Welcome to the global economy…it’s all out of control.

 BTW, the pics in the post are "X"ed out (unlinked?).

As my mother once said, "It's truly a game of leapfrog on a cosmic scale."

Sorry about the pics. They didn't copy over.

Coproations = worst evil we've ever created :/

easy to udnerstand the evil of the jackboot, the gulag, the inquisition etc.
But corpoations are effectively, like drug dealers, offering what you want, enticingly...and growing os powerful they can warp governments, start wars etc. Plenty of proof of that.
Oh well, folk wo't learn and do anything about it until it's too late, seems we never learn except by very bloody lessons, sigh.

watch this and think
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=related

While I can see how this YouTube link may relate somewhat to the subject matter of this thread it tends to deviate into a rather broader topic of exponential function and exponentialists which lends itself to the Cornucopian vs. Neo-Malthusians debate.  Although I find Dr. Bartlett’s arguments compelling, I do not fully agree that populations grow exponentially at a constant rate but rather at a variable rate. And I further believe that food resources also grow exponentially and not linearly as some proclaim. But rather than split hairs over semantics I feel mankind’s proclivity towards ingenuity also grows exponentially but he (Bartlett) doesn’t broach the subject in this lecture.  Whereas natural resources are limited I believe human intellect and ingenuity can eventually conjure up substitute means of sustainability. Nevertheless it is a very interesting link which shows the Neo-Malthusian side very well, but to show a Cornucopian side albeit not as elaborately or compelling allow me to offer this article with my apologies to The Bryster: Over population doomsday.

On the question of Corporations being evil; although corporations can in some cases for their own self-interest be bad for the environment, exploit workers and manipulate government they can also be construed as machines of progress, they provide jobs, research, development, growth and products.

meanwhile, in the Middle East you can get gas for 1950s prices...;)

Attached Link: http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/

Attached Link: http://blog.nola.com/news_impact/2008/07/large_spill.JPG

We are being farmed Matrix style.. and oil is the fluid where all the other junk we consume in our society floats in it...   Someone please pull the plug....! 

Quest,
well said :) but I totlaly disagree ;)

1. Corporations, as a whole, only care for short term monetary icnreases, and have almost NO brakes, especially now that the major sharehodlers are frequently the execs because of "jiggerypokery", lol.
   Hence the time a few years ago where FBI profiler concluded that coporations effectively act like psychopaths. They have, in general, no morality/empathy and aggrandize themselves at any cost to others. Most obviously this cna be seen in the banking crisis, caused by such behaviour, and remember, that came within seconds of wiping out Western civilization..it wa smuch worse than most folk realize. Problem of having electronic trading and Human Beings reacting in panic.

2. No, you cnanot' have increasing food production as you suggest, we live in a finite world, and Humans have grossly damaged food growing cpacity as it is.
   Int he developed world, soil quality has decreased 40% in last 50 years. Reason is over use, too much use of chemicals etc.
   If you compare the soil of a typical farm, versus one using 19th century systems, you'll find modern farms soils are turning to clay. there's not enough humus in them, also, because most of the hedgerows were ripped up, water erosion and soil loss is much worse.

Likewise, factory ships are raping the seas. Most of what they catch isn't for human consumption, much goes to animal feed, industrial useage, etc. Or the lunatic shark fin soup industry, throwing 500lb to 1 ton sharks away and keeping 1/20th the weight of fins.

Simple, ugly fact of life, that Human Beings, in groups, usually become more and more stupid and extreme. The group dynamic, preserving the group etc, outweighs common sense in most folk hence the notorious experiment of electrocuting a person when asked ot by a "scientist", showed that only about 1:8 people have the gumption to NOT hurt someone else when they are given a reason to.

With the stock market, it's been proven that hormones are far more important than logic.
In the Cold War, the "Game Theory" used by the RAND corporation and the USA, was based on the work a paranoid schizophrenic (John Forbes Nash) and only worked on psychopaths and, lol, economists! when they tested it out on their secretaries, who behaved with altruism in the test rather than selfishness as they expected, they concluded they were "too stupid/female" ..instead of realizing their system was crap. LOL Wasn't Nash's fault, was way they used/thought about it.

Politics, economics, religion even science, no matter if the basis is good and useful, people ALWAYS take things to extremes, largely because of our psychology renders most people gutless, stupid, and plain dangerous, in groups :/
History is full of proof of that.

And sorry Bryster if yer original post was meant light hearted and I've dragged it away from that :)

I mostly agree with all the above. And I thank you all for keeping it sane.;-)

In reply to Quest's Over population doomsday. link.....

It came as a personal shock to me many years ago when I realised just how many people there are in the UK with a relatively low IQ.

I was working as a maintenance engineer in a truck plant and I got to talking to a couple of guys on the production line. We had a really great coversation with lots of intelligent opinions.....for about 5 minutes. After that it was obvious that they had reached the end of their intellectual ability to carry on the conversation. It was then I understood why they worked on a mind-numbing job on the production line.

Also a long time ago, I read an interesting short sci-fi story that proposed that we - the human race - are like bacteria living on a dish surrounded by something poisonous. When the bacteria grew to proportions large enough to force them to come into contact with the poison they (obviously) died....that is until they developed the ability to overcome the poison and break through the barrier.

The story proposed that once we evolve sufficiently we too will break through the barriers that are holding us back (the poison) and move forward expotentialy. To enable the reader to understand this, the story involved a particularly clever scientist who suffered from a chronic disease. The closer he got to solving the problems of his chosen field the sicker he got.

Sound like anyone you know?

It was only recently that I realised the Prof. Stephen Hawking is the living example of the story's character.

Bryster
doh, sorry for typos in post above.

I believe the human brain is liek a muscle in the sense that good exercise/care will increase fitness/ability, though, there are limits and natural bias from the genes you have, it may give you a bonus or a loss, same as in other aspects of your body.
So, when many folk have bad upbringings, it cripples the mind, just like malnutrition can cripple the body.

Many folk I was at school with I KNOW have a lot more smarts than they show, they were often afraid to "stick their head above the parapet" and so, ruined their mental development and potential, IMHO.

Silver, very interesting point.

I know for a fact that back in the 1960s - and probably before - schools in the UK operated a system of social selection in that kids that were about to take their 11+ exam - which determined who went to grammer school and therefore had a better education and who went to secondary school - were preselected to either fail or pass that exam. This was born out by my personal experiance. Those expected or selected to fail were seated on one side of the class, while those whose families had a higher social standing and were better off financialy were seated on the other side.

So, how do I know this? After my 11+ exam I was yelled at by my teacher for some minor infraction - like talking - at which point he let slip that I had failed my 11+.........2 weeks before the results were due to be sent out! Sure enough, I had apparently failed as did all those who sat on my side of the class.

yeah I can believe that, sigh.

my Mum told me back in her day, the maths teacher puniched her for ceating, because she, a female, had figured out the answers herself and demanded that she had cheated by rading the answers form the back of the book...there were no answers at th eback, my Mum's intelligent, that's all...and sicne females, especially form poor familes couldn't be intelligent...
grrr.

Working class fmaily, I had 170 IQ, afore M.E. knocked heck out of me, lol.
My family that moved ot AMerica made great for themselves, one of their kids is an MIT graduate.
Difference was, our family was full of music, reading, art, etc rather than booze etc.

Working class fmaily, I had 170 IQ, afore M.E. knocked heck out of me, lol.

That sucks! ;-(

At least I ain't the 25% who are bed ridden witht his vile disease, with it, thank God!

what REALLY PO'd me off was when I tried to go to university, only course they could offer me was £15,000 in St Andrews, and most I could get was maybe £3000 grant...may as well have asked for £15 million, back then, sigh. (you remember what the '80s were like in industrial towns, urf)
Crazy how this country wastes its talent.

on the other hand, pal of mine his Dad was a bitter wee a**hole, you know the type I'm sure.
pal was a great artist, could draw comic book characters etc exceptionally well.
His dad thought that was for "Poofs", "real men" worked their guts out in the steelworks, or were criminals...jeesh.
so my pal wasted over 20 years, and the steelworks etc all closed...damn lucky he didn't end up in jail. (He's nto a bad sort, but his dad's nonsense got him involved with shady silly stuff)

I encouraged him to come with me to college, back 10 years ago when they  changed the grant system
my ME wasn't as bad then, college was only a mile away, we took a course in "new Media Technology"
We both got HNCs, almost completed our HNDs, but between money issues, a right a-hole carry on (they wanted us to cheat on an exam, so three of us were a hair's breadth away from banjoing tutor responsible for the havoc, sigh) and all that made my ME flare up far worse...so we left.
bright side was my pal got into tattoing eventually, damn good at it, so finally he got to do what he cares for :)

shame though as Marvel comics has a studio in Glasgow, he SHOULD have been there earning megabucks.

Quote - At least I ain't the 25% who are bed ridden with his vile disease, with it, thank God!

what REALLY PO'd me off was when I tried to go to university, only course they could offer me was £15,000 in St Andrews, and most I could get was maybe £3000 grant...may as well have asked for £15 million, back then, sigh. (you remember what the '80s were like in industrial towns, urf)
Crazy how this country wastes its talent.

When I was 17-18 I wanted to take the courses offered by Alias Research (Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alias_Systems_Corporation) but the cost was $25,000 per year (1986-1987) for tuition, and it was a 3 year course, I had no way to raise that kind of money, if I could have afforded it, I could have potentially be working at Pixar or something. :)  $25,000 at that time would be like $40,000+ now.

Analog
doh, sucks that does :/
education should be free, paid by tax, cause it's THE best spending of money there is after basic public health systems like sewerage
because an educated population is mroe productive, has less crminality etc,  so makes the state far more money and costs it less. So "free" higher education pays for itself many times over.

we don't need dumb wage slave populations, which is what many in power want.
19th century is long past. we need educated stable, populations who ain't full of fear for their jobs, havignenough to pay the mortgage, fear of immigrants, fear of yadda yadda....
the reasons are numerous

Charging for education is like charging  entry fee to get into a store so that you can then spend more money to buy their product.... you can check out but you can never leave...

You are paying an educational institution money (getting into debt in the process) so that you can join society to earn money to pay back that debt and in the process buy more products from other Institutions and increasing your debts to furthering your need to earn more by borrowing more..

Welcome to Hotel California....

What an utterly depressing thread! I'd have to laugh if it wasn't all true! I think I'll just go have a nice long cry instead.

LostInSpaceman
oh there's tons of nice folk, great art, beautiful music, amazing sunsets, nebulae which are artistic jewels painted on a scale beyond our comprehension but we can still adore their beauty
etc etc :)
most folk are nice and won't harm ye and are no threat.
we just notice scumbags more because they will harm ye.

In a field of flowers, you watch out for the triffid ;)

     Interesting thread it went off the tracks a bit into a stream of consciousness. I tend not to credit educators with nefarious intentions but blame it more on a sort of anti intellectual culture that runs through a lot of working class people. it is a defense mechanism to console oneself for a misspent youth. It then goes on to the next generation through the parents in a viscous cycle. Now the British school system could very well be different with long running class distinctions that some feel need to be preserved.

     While I feel corporations are not actively seeking out to make the general public ignorant it is in their best interests because those who are less intellectually inclined are more easily swayed by something shiny.

     Back to the original topic I am surprised the price of petrol is so low in Britiain. i thought it would be more on the order of 8$ a gallon.

Dann-O, £5.40 a gallon is low? Where do you live?

As for having a mispent youth, and blaming my educators for my failings in the labour market, I beg to differ. 
Having a section of society ignorant is in the interests on not only corporations, but religeous organisations and the military.

Quote - Dann-O, £5.40 a gallon is low? Where do you live?

As for having a mispent youth, and blaming my educators for my failings in the labour market, I beg to differ. 
Having a section of society ignorant is in the interests on not only corporations, but religeous organisations and the military.

     I am going by the CNN link which puts gas at $5.79 a gallon. Remember I am not going by imperial gallons. (US gallons are 3.78L) While it is substantially more than what I pay it is less than I thought it would be. In Britain there is less need for low petrol prices due to shorter distances to travel and better mass transit system.

    As far as how you feel about my other comments I did not name anyone by name. If you feel offended I apologize. I just know that educators are not in some sort of cabal that makes grand decisions on who goes forth who does not. They are clueless and just try to do their job. Some fail miserably others do well.

     Often where conspiracy theories fall apart is that they often credit certain groups of really knowing what they are doing and being more like a James Bond villain than the clueless chumps that they are.

Mis-spent youth? I'm working class, was unemployed and life ruined during the 1980s. Not many folk though have the brains and guts to instead of self destructing, to go to the library (learning for free) or fishing (chilling out) instead, ya know.

Bryster is right, it is a vast "conspiracy", but not a "Dr Evil" one, lol no. folk with power push their agendas, they meet in clubs, back politicians who make them more money by policy changes, exchange deals over coke sniffing sessions in fnacy toilets, etc etc
so it's lots of litte dirty deeds, all piling up into one huge cluster**** :/

There are tendencies in some working class regions to "drag the other fellow down to stop him escaping the gutter". But there's also deliberate building up of prejudices and actions to keep them down, so they CANNOT rebel against their masters.

Nice little example:
In the UK, gun control was not brought in for public safety, it was for fear of anarchist or Communist "rebellion" (fact, go check the dates and the reasons)

The US has also suffered similar "top down control", the "Bonus Army" killings for example.

Other examples include the use of mass immigration/illegal immigrants.
These folk are brought in to keep wages at the bottom end artificially low, to make rich scuzzballs richer. They help break unions and prevent the lower class getting better wages. Capitalism demands at least 5% unemployment to keep wage costs artifically low.
The xenophobia and racism these immmigration waves cause also serve the cause of the Elite, as those on the bottom are encouraged to fight and hate,rather than co-operate (see tabloid newspapers and way they exploit immigration and incite racism)
Go back to the 1800s and see how Irish and Chinese were treated.

As I've said before, my great grandpa was in the trenches of WW1. they were drowning in mud and worse, but the Germans had good concrete bunkers. The UK's high command had used much of the concrete to build themselves a massive underground town to keep nice and snug.
And the funny thing was, the German bunkers had cement bags on their floors to keep dry, same bags were used at the UK HQ, and on the docks in Belgium (iirc) when grandpa was going home
Same company had supplied both sides....

You can go on and on, look at the drugs issue in particular, which is nowhere NEAR as simple as the nitwits have been telling us for decades
and no, I sure as heck do not like drugs, loathe the damn things as I've seen the results too often
but the legal ones are even worse in effect, but they are legal and others illegal, because it made some folk money or were bribed/influenced to make them illegal, not because of real safety issues etc.

And it suits folk to have the poor smacked out of their heads and killing each other.
Go dig and learn.

Power corrupts. Little bit here, little bit there...all add up to pure poison :/

I see it more as a problem of a failure to identify the real goal. Schools are supposed to educate, but toward what? Are they supposed to create thinkers or in the US system to make good workers for the ruling class?
I hear words like socialization and mainstreaming used. There are a whole set of standards,what every child of every age should know. Children who fail at these standards are punished. Children who exceed these standards are also punished. Poor little Johnny is in the first grade and can already do third grade english and fifth grade math. Better stop him! When girls are 16 and have big boobs he'll be 12 and barely in puberty. Poor little tyke will be like a fish out of water. It's really for his own good.
Teachers have been given a set of concrete goals and are paid accordingly. Kindergardners should know their ABC's. 2nd graders should learn cursive.If the teacher works hard and 100% can do this, big reward. If less than 70% pass, punishment. There is nothing in the rules to cover what happens if the teacher produces a 2nd grade shakspear or two every year. There's plenty of negative reinforcement if they fail. Let's work with our friends who set the standars to make them low so we have lot's of wiggle room.
By 8th grade I was repeating the same algebra for the third time. By high school I was bored to death. My senior year I only needed 1 credit to graduate, but I couldn't go early. College a year early, that's absurd. In there with a bunch of adults who can drink and smoke. Poor little tyke, he'd be like a fish out of water. No use telling them I never dated anyone younger than 18. My wife was 2 years older. I do just fine thank you very much.

Corporations have the same problem.
You start a company to make a lot of money, more than you can by working for someone else anyway. So you get really successful. Eventually you hit a plateau. You can't grow more without expanding. The classic way is to go public and make a stock offering. Your focus shifts from making a product and paying yourself to having good stock prices and paying dividends to your shareholders. The shareholders want the stock to outperform banks and bonds every quarter. If you decide to pour all your profits into a west coast expansion and cut the dividend you could find yourself in a proxy fight or even voted out of your own company.

Unlike the good old days when you could start and retire with the same company corporate executives change jobs about 7 times during their career. Some actually make a career of downsizing corporations by firing and selling off assets then moving to another company. Other's specialize in taking local companies national, or national companies international.

The number one carrot for executives is the corporate bonus. This is usually tied to monetary performance within a sector of the company. Of course you can make more money by moving more product. You can also make more money by cutting costs. Only using 7 braces on your blowout arrestor when the engineers recommend 21 saves lots of money as long as nothing happens. Forgoing modernizations and expansions so the money can be counted as revenue are typical corporate policy. You can argue all you want that these fixes will position the company for growth for the next 5-10 years. Stockholders won’t give up dividends for a year to get a triple return next year. They want paid now. Unlike the time of the Vanderbuilts,  modern stockholders are mostly pensioners with stocks in mutual funds.

Conspiracies can also by design fog reality...   They often behave as  pressure valves for the ill informed masses when answers are not forthright and clear,,,   Sometimes truth is shredded into a conspiratorial pea soup designed to keep the real reality hiding...   

Here In the U.S. the Supreme court gave Corporations the power to donate as much money they cared to towards their favorite political party candidates..  Calling it free speech...  How, can the average candidate compete with Billions of dollars?  How can fairness be expected to take place in our electorate processes... 

Yet, the possibilities and prospects of big Corporations taking over our democracy and personal freedoms is still in the realm of conspiratorial hearsay..  How can that be...?
Instead, the truth is shredded and  the fingers points to  "The big Government take over"...   "Big Brother"  "Too much Government"   based upon examples in pass world history... not current events..

Just a thought... 

Electroglyph, tom271
agree with ya ;)

School should be about educating a Human Being to think for themself in a positive manner, by giving the basic tools: Reading & writing to learn more, mathematics (basis of much of practical work) and "smarts" (common sense, wisdwom, getting most out of yer wits) which is the hardest thing to teach of all, all you can do is show the direction.

good teachers are awesome :)

*In Britain there is less need for low petrol prices due to shorter distances to travel and better mass transit system.

• A better mass transit system? Trust me - it sucks. It's actually cheaper to travel by car, but then they get you with parking fees and violation fines.

In the UK the motorist is the most taxed person there is. So, go buy a new car. That's car purchase tax, roadfund license tax (tax disc) and VAT ontop - that's a tax for the privalage of paying tax. Now you need gas (Petrol) Every year the tax is increased on petrol. When the oil companies raise the price of oil the government does nothing because it means more VAT to the treasury. Almost every budget we get price hikes in petrol. The cost of fuel in this country is one of the biggest contributors to price rises in goods at the shops, and restrictors of enterprise. Truck companies are going out of business every month solely due to the cost of fuel.

Shorter distances do not mean shorter travel times or more economy when it comes to mpg. With over 30 million vehicles on our roads journey times are increasing all the time. Our roads are not as wide as they are in say the USA. There are less opportunities for overtaking and stringent penalties for speeding.

Less need for low petrol prices?....I can't think of a country where the need is greater.

The ant at the picnic might shout conspiracy, the opposite is true. Large corporations are unwieldy behemoths. Wherever they put down their feet people get crushed. There may not be any real malice in the act.
 

I remember something from twenty years back about likening corporations to cells in the human body. Each cell is a self supporting structure. Beyond a certain size the surface to volume ratio of a cell gets so small that a cell can’t bring in enough food to feed its own mass. Long before that communication between the nucleus and the surface takes too long. In a central control scheme the nucleus sends the commands to bring more water or food inside. Too much distance and the nucleus starves before the food arrives.
 

This slow response time was the cause of failure in the old Soviet Union’s central government. It’s been responsible for lots of dumb business decisions such as the US car companies continuing to build SUVs years after the public started buying Hondas and Toyotas. Carter wanted us to be at about 45MPG now but the oil and car companies don’t see any profit in selling less gas. Now their entire market share has evaporated they’re looking around saying,” what happened?”
 

Corporations and banks are too big and slow to respond in the real world. The government is even bigger. The problem is these systems tend to fail spectacularly not slowly.

well the UK has a truly archaic road system, it's often 5+ times longer to get to where you are going than the crow flies ;)
our road layouts were based on medieval streets....
almost none of our roads are concrete based, so in a chilly, high rainfall land, with extreme urban density, that results in constant erosion and potholes of the non-concreted roads.
but that keeps the road maintenance business going...

lol

yeah, bureacracy and stratification are the enemy of all systems :/
like the music biz, screaming that it's the fault of pirates that they're revenues are going down
well, kids have more things ot spend on nowadays,
the execs ran the music business into the gorund by promoting only crap stuff and screwing the artists in outrageous fashions (typically getting $100 dollars for every dollar the artist got)
plus other issues

few years ago a study showed that 75% of all Mp3s traded on P2P, were music tracks 15 years old or more...ie, few folk like the current drivel, big surprise there, hehe.

It's impossible to do anything but drive in the US. I used to regularly drive between Knoxville and Nashville. That’s 180 miles or about the equivalent of going from Canterbury to Bristol but I’m only half way across the state. There are only about 6-8 towns in between and lots of places on the road where you might see one house but can’t get to it.
 

There has been no commuter rail service between Knoxville and Nashville since the 70s. Canterbury to Bristol has 33 trains daily. At a cost of 70 pounds this is the equivalent of 105 dollars US. With gas at $2.49/gal I can drive this for $16.76
 

There are only two busses daily to Nashville and the price is $37.  I would be nuts to try public transportation. They don’t even build sidewalks in new neighborhoods anymore.

We need to open up the rail road system again in the U.S..  A train can go about 400 mile on
one gallon of  gas...!   Imagine that..  How much we can save....

We need to catch up to other countries with the high speed trains...  200m/hr plus....

at those speeds you're in Nashville in +/-  an hour considering the mid trip processes that can slow things up..  saves energy and is clean....