Gas prices
-
DavidCrow wrote: So how high must gas prices go before folks finally decide it's not worth it? Gas prices on Brazil are roughly 2~3 times what you pay. And we still do travel on weekends and holidays. Does this answer your question? :-D Due to technical difficulties my previous signature, "I see dumb people" will be off until further notice. Too many people were thinking I was talking about them... :sigh:
Daniel Turini wrote: Does this answer your question? Not really. Here's an example. A few years ago, a co-worker was offered a job near San Francisco for almost double of what he was making in Oklahoma. That sounded great until he told me later on that his very small apartment ran him nearly $2,000 per month. That is about double of what he was paying here. So while it looked as though some things were twice as expensive in San Francisco, his nearly-double paycheck offset the rent increase by about the same amount. What is the cost of living in Brazil as compared to the U.S.?
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
-
DavidCrow wrote: According to the Associated Press and AAA, the high gas prices are not a deterrent in this weekend's holiday travels. What holiday is this weekend? I'm expecting the weekend after next, the 29/30/31, to be when people will be doing their holiday travel. Cheers, -Erik
Erik Thompson wrote: What holiday is this weekend? Oops! My bad. :-O
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
-
DavidCrow wrote: how high must gas prices go before folks finally decide it's not worth it? Well, in my neck of the woods "gas" prices are in the region of $5.70 per US Gallon. And the traffic on the road each morning is backed up a few miles. I'm looking to a Toyota Prius as my next car - Not that I drive much these days, I'm 10 minutes walk to a railway station and so is my work.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September
Colin Angus Mackay wrote: Well, in my neck of the woods "gas" prices are in the region of $5.70 per US Gallon. What is the cost of living for Scotland as compared to the U.S.? Do the wages there tend to be higher than here?
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
-
Gas makes up such a small percentage of my income and my bills that it doesn't really matter. If gas went up another $1/gallon, I'd think "gee, gas prices are kind high", but it would be with casual indifference and I'd never notice an effect on the amount of money I have in my checking account. As far as I can tell, the only people who complain about this are driving inefficient vehicles, living at or above their means, and/or are simply overreacting to the price of gas when it really has very little effect on their lives. ----------------------------------------------------- Bush To Iraqi Militants: 'Please Stop Bringing It On' - The Onion
Ouch! Actually the price of gas hits nearly every sector of the industry, not just car owners. Service companies are charging more for off-site work. Taxi companies are charging more for lower-mileage trips. City municipalities are cutting back on work they are doing (e.g., right-of-way mowing, street repair). Some companies are cutting back on their business trips and either holding meetings via telephone, or bundling more trips into one bigger trip. When gas was nominally priced, it was hard to realize that it impacted so many other sectors. Now that it has climbed so high so fast, the domino effect can be seen.
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
-
Problem: Wealthy people do not care. It is nothing more than extra digits to their stuffed bank accounts. If fuel as $30 per gallon, they would still consume just as much driving their Hummers! And there are enough wealthy people in the USA, it will not change anything. Now if we had gas shortages like the 70's, that would be diffent. There is good and bad news to the fuel prices though. The bad news is that a small group of people control the price and desire to get as much as they can for each gallon. They know that there are ample supplies for decades to come and that people will make fuel cell (yuck) vehicles a reality and thus greatly reduce demand. I would even imagine you will see regulation go into play forcing people to move to fuel cell vehicles. At that time, thier lakes of oil will be worth far less and they want to get every dime they can right now. The current price of a barrel of crude at $40 means about $1 per gallon just on the crude, before it is refined, delivered and taxed. Over $2 per gallon is no surprise at that price. The funny part of the news though, is that they are saying it is our refining capacity that is the problem. How would our refining capacity change the price of crude? If anything that would mean there was a glut since we could not process it fast enough. The good news is, the higher prices force people to evaluate if it is time to move on to something else. How long can you put up with small groups of people control your income without looking for alternatives? People think buying a Hybrid is really going to matter. They are now paying as much to drive as they did last year without the Hybrid. I would imagine that the chop shops which convert cars to pure electic vehicles are running full steam now and cannot keep up with the demand. Of course, these high prices are great for auto manufactures since may people will run out and buy new vehicles that get them better milage. Fuel is like diamonds, they are currently plentiful but because a small group have control of the majority of them, they have a preceived value far greater than they are. Yes, we consume fuel. Do we consume three times more fuel now than four years ago? Four years ago in Columbus Ohio I bought gas at $.78 per gallon. It is now over $2 per gallon. What has changed in four years to tripple the price? There are people making tons of money, that is just a fact. I personally do not mind paying $10 per gallon if I knew it was due to shortage, but when I know it is just greed,
Rocky Moore wrote: If fuel as $30 per gallon, they would still consume just as much driving their Hummers! And Ford Excursions! Rocky Moore wrote: People think buying a Hybrid is really going to matter. I was passed by a Honda Insight the other day on the highway. It was an odd-looking car and I made a mental note to check it out once I got to the office. Holy smokes, Batman! It gets around 65 MPG, over three times my current rate. The bad news is the cost is prohibitive. It's $20,000 with no bells or whistles.
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
-
Colin Angus Mackay wrote: Well, in my neck of the woods "gas" prices are in the region of $5.70 per US Gallon. What is the cost of living for Scotland as compared to the U.S.? Do the wages there tend to be higher than here?
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
DavidCrow wrote: What is the cost of living for Scotland as compared to the U.S.? It is higher than the US. Every time I go to the states I am continually amazed at how cheap everything is. DavidCrow wrote: Do the wages there tend to be higher than here? Oh My God, no! Especially if the Software Development Salary Survey is anywhere near accurate.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September
-
DavidCrow wrote: What is the cost of living for Scotland as compared to the U.S.? It is higher than the US. Every time I go to the states I am continually amazed at how cheap everything is. DavidCrow wrote: Do the wages there tend to be higher than here? Oh My God, no! Especially if the Software Development Salary Survey is anywhere near accurate.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September
Colin Angus Mackay wrote: Oh My God, no! Especially if the Software Development Salary Survey is anywhere near accurate. So what would those numbers be, for salaried and non-salaried folks?
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
-
Colin Angus Mackay wrote: Oh My God, no! Especially if the Software Development Salary Survey is anywhere near accurate. So what would those numbers be, for salaried and non-salaried folks?
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
A quick trawl through http://www.s1jobs.com/[^] revleals that for a "Software Developer" the current range is £18K to £30K which in US Dollars is $31,860 to $53,100. According to the Salary Survey[^] in Software Development Magazine the range in the USA is $56K to $94K (non-managment positions, main task is Application Development). So you see, the top of Scotland's range is just below the bottom of the USA's range.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September
-
A quick trawl through http://www.s1jobs.com/[^] revleals that for a "Software Developer" the current range is £18K to £30K which in US Dollars is $31,860 to $53,100. According to the Salary Survey[^] in Software Development Magazine the range in the USA is $56K to $94K (non-managment positions, main task is Application Development). So you see, the top of Scotland's range is just below the bottom of the USA's range.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September
Rather than looking at surveys, I'd be more inclined to look at numbers that are actually reported. What makes this difficult, especially across country boundaries, is that "average income," can include not just salary, but interest income, retirement benefits, and other sources of money as well. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average annual wages in the U.S. as $36,764 for 2002. More recently, the White House reports that the average hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers was $15.54 in March 2004 (which is about $32,000 per year). The White House also gets its information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which states that in that same month, the average wage for workers in the private sector was around $520 a week.
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
-
Rather than looking at surveys, I'd be more inclined to look at numbers that are actually reported. What makes this difficult, especially across country boundaries, is that "average income," can include not just salary, but interest income, retirement benefits, and other sources of money as well. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average annual wages in the U.S. as $36,764 for 2002. More recently, the White House reports that the average hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers was $15.54 in March 2004 (which is about $32,000 per year). The White House also gets its information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which states that in that same month, the average wage for workers in the private sector was around $520 a week.
"The pointy end goes in the other man." - Antonio Banderas (Zorro, 1998)
So what do you recon the range of salary for a Software Developer in the USA is? (I restricted my search to just Software Developers) And what does that include? The salary range I reported for Scotland is the gross salary before the Government has taken its share in tax - which is the normal way of giving that information - I am assuming the US figures I found were similarly reported. Having said that, the employer may add benefits onto the package which are not reported in the gross salary. Things like free parking space, gym membership, death in service benefits etc. (although the government will tax you on most of that as if you had received the cash instead)
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September