Gaslighting

[msconduct]

 I've read a lot of complaints from people in the US recently about the price of gas, which seems to be about $3/gallon. I've always been vague about the conversion to litres, not just from gallons but from AMERICAN gallons, which I have no clue about at all. But I just looked it up and did the conversion. A US gallon of gas at $3.60 is around 95 cents a litre.

I'm crying. Gas, or petrol as we call it in New Zealand, is around $3 a litre, or more than three times the cost in the US. Other than a very brief dip in 2016, petrol hasn't been under $1/litre since 2000.

Comments

[echomyst]

I'm always annoyed when other Americans complain about their gas prices lol

Ours always hover around $6 per gallon. California always has some of the highest gas prices in the country and MY town always has the highest in the SF North Bay area thanks to monopoly of gas stations (almost all owned by a single family!).

$6 a gallon is still less than $3 per litre. But! The US is incredibly car dependent :( It's hard getting anywhere without a vehicle unless you live in a big city. My kids and I walk a lot, but even then it's just not feasible to walk/bike/bus everywhere, especially if we need to get out of our suburb.

[echomyst]

Same deal with electricity, natural gas, water, housing... Anytime someone in another part of the U.S. complain about how expensive it is, I just laugh.

It's amazing what a dramatic difference in costs of living it can be across this country. My friends in Texas have been snapping up fixer uppers at <$90k to rebuild and rent out. Here, there is absolutely nothing to be had for that price, not even a shed never mind mobile home or whatever. Fixer uppers here *might* start at $600k...

[msconduct]

Yes, I've seen some of those house flipping shows from the US and I've been astonished at the low price of housing in some areas. However, I'd still love to find a $600,000 fixer-upper in Auckland! We have one of the least affordable property markets in the world and the average house price is $1,125,000.

[echomyst]

That's in my town -- suburbia where it's supposed to be more affordable? :/ I'd love to move back to the GTA (greater Toronto area) but the prices are like yours. We're completely priced out unless we move in with my parents.

[echomyst]

I am curious though: how walkable/bikable/public transit-able is New Zealand?

Is there solid public transit across the country?

[msconduct]

I was about to respond to this re your other comment! Public transport is terrible. Auckland is in area the size of Los Angeles and while the public transport system isn't as bad as Los Angeles's, it's not great either. It's mostly buses, with some trains, but everything is structured around getting in and out of the city so it's difficult and slow to travel in any other direction. Wellington, the capital, has a better train system, but overall, a combination of low population density and very hilly terrain (making rail expensive to build and maintain) means that public transport is in general woeful. Even freight travels mostly by road. So we're very very dependent on cars.

[msconduct]

Forgot the bikable part! Auckland is very hilly with a lot of traffic, and of course we're so spread out that the distances are often large, so only 2% of people bike to work. Unlike places like Germany where there are bike lanes separated off from vehicular traffic, where there are bike lanes at all they're just next to the road - too dangerous in my opinion. And there is constant friction between cyclists wanting more cycle lanes added and car drivers who don't want to lose lanes off already congested roads.

[echomyst]

Is this the "ugly" part of NZ? Everything else seems to be wonderful!!! It is disappointing that NZ is also so car dependent since it's not a huge country. What about elevated monorail for hilly regions? Vancouver has their SkyTrain and it was great when we tried it years ago!

Oh yeah re: friction between cyclists and drivers -- it's the same here. Granted, some cyclists don't follow right of way and it annoys me too as a fellow cyclist. I'm wary of biking with my kids here because the bike lanes aren't protected from traffic.

[msconduct]

Everything else seems to be wonderful!!!

I'm afraid it definitely isn't! We have had record-breaking migration this year as people have fled to countries with higher paying jobs and cheaper housing. As well as our insanely priced housing which stops people from getting on the property ladder, everything is much more expensive here, both because of our distance and isolation and because several years ago they suppressed the NZ dollar to help our exporters. This means everything coming in costs vastly more than it does in the US. For example one of my Dreamwidth friends just priced a Speed Queen washing machine and it was $2,000 - mine was $3,200. Couple that with higher paying jobs and mostly lower cost of living in Australia (Kiwis are entitled to live there and vice versa) and so many people have been leaving for a better economic future. I don't blame them - I'm OK as I bought my house when it was cheap, but it's very very tough otherwise.

As for monorail: Auckland is in deep debt and we've just had a lot of our train projects cancelled. They were supposed to be putting in light rail but the cost ballooned to so many billions that it had to go, after wasting tons of our rates.

[echomyst]

Guess no country is perfect, eh?

Consumer goods are loads more expensive in Canada too compared to the U.S., but I'll take highly subsidized healthcare any day over this insane American healthcare system that can actually bankrupt you.

Sweden seems like an idyllic country with a strong social safety net, so I was surprised when my Swedish friend said she prefers raising her family in the U.S. -- "there's more diversity here and everyone has to be the same in Sweden"... so, wonderful if you fit in to the mold, but not if you don't? I would not have fared well under their covid response, for example.

[msconduct]

Yes, the healthcare is that one terrible gotcha that trumps everything else. A close friend had cancer and died in 2019, and in the middle of the awfulness of all that, I remember thinking how much worse it would have been if she had been worried about paying for treatment on top. Even the copays seem high.

I have no idea what Sweden were thinking with Covid. It doesn't seem at all in line with their collectivist ethic. All during that time people bombarded us online with "You're being enslaved by your government (nope!) and you should be more like Sweden!". Yeah, well, Sweden has had 27,000 Covid deaths and we with half the population have had less than 6,000 (and while we were taking full Covid measures it was 53). No thanks. Some European countries can be a bit conformity-requiring. My friend T was born in the Netherlands and says a common expression there is "It's not normal!" (that being a bad thing). What wrong with not being normal?:).

[kaishin108]

Oh dear, your petrol is so high. That is what I have heard about the EU also. I don't dare complain.
Since 2000 you say, yikes!

[msconduct]

Yes, it's not great, and with no good public transport network we're very dependent on cars.

[kaishin108]

Do many people invest in electric cars there? It doesn't seem feasible here in Idaho with our lonely mountains roads. I would like a car that does both, but we don't have a charging station in our garage. I can only imagine the price.

[spiffikins]

I would love to be at $3.60 a gallon, LOL :)

I was THRILLED to find $4.99/gallon last week - every gas station in town other than Costco, is $5.45 or more!

But yeah - Canada, New Zealand, the UK - anywhere that uses litres, have been >$1/litre for ages and ages, and just pat Americans on the head when we whine :)

[msconduct]

Wow, it's so variable over the US! I wonder what contributes to such a lot of variation. Google google - I see, mostly fuel taxes in the bluer areas are higher, plus the proximity to a refinery matters. Makes sense.

[spiffikins]

Yeah, taxes and environmental thingies - hence why blue states have higher ones, since red states seem to think climate change isn't a Real Thing. sigh.


In the winter they change the "mix" and the prices go down a TINY bit, and in the summer they change again, and the prices go up (more than they went down, tbh)

The difference involves the fuel’s Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP), which is a measure of how easily the fuel evaporates at a given temperature. Winter-blend gas has a higher RVP because the fuel must be able to evaporate at low temperatures for the engine to operate properly. Summer-blend gas has a lower RVP to prevent excessive evaporation when outside temperatures rise.

[kevin_standlee]

I think that it's a matter of faith to a significant number of 'Murikens that gasoline should cost about 5 cents/gallon, or be free, or maybe that they should pay us to take it away. Parking should similarly always be free and unlimited. And of course "freeways" are free, and cost nothing to build, and the guv'mint never does enough to keep them maintained, but they never should do any maintenance when it's personally inconvenient. Also, there shouldn't be taxes, because Freedom! And so forth.

Having said that, I note that gas prices here in Fernley where I live are significantly less expensive than they are in Reno, 50 km west of here. I always tell people driving from California into Nevada who are planning to keep going east (say to go to Salt Lake City, where this year's Westercon is) to never refuel in Reno. Wait until Fernley and save 50 cents/gallon.

[msconduct]

Exactly! My business partner was in the 90s seconded to the US for a while by IBM and she says someone said to her there "If gas goes above a dollar a gallon there'll be rioting!". Mind you, she was in Dallas.