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Originally Posted by Sludgy
Truckers aren't the bad guys, although Toecutter's right that their 80,000 pound trucks beat up the roads. But if we tax truckers more, they'll just raise transportation prices. Just like us, no trucker works for free. Walmart, Kroger and Target pass the costs along. So we'll wind up paying indirectly anyway.
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If the transportation costs are raised, that will make locally produced items more competitive, as items from faraway places are artificially cheap. This results in more local employment and sufficiency, less pollution and congestion on the roads. It means that goods will cost more, but road upkeep costs less as there would be less traffic.
One thing that is hopeful for us is the degree to which we are wasteful with energy. Our personal transport is just one example - we know that it is possible increase our efficiency by an order of magnitude or so, if it is designed that way from the ground up. And that phenomenon is all over - putting cities on farm land, using a hose to wash a car, using a power hungry multiple core high GHz cpu when you could get by with a pentium M or something. Another example is using more energy to cart around food than the calorie value of the food.
Low hanging efficiency gains abound.
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