[PRCo] Re: Inside PCC 1673

[Bill Robb]

And all that gasoline and natural gas that you buy from us (Canada) has just risen 25% this so far on account of foreign exchange only.  Still even with that rise the Canadian dollar isn't rising against the Euro or the Pound. The only currency I see the US dollar holding steady against is the Japanese Yen. A lot of Canadian dollar's gain may be related to the US credit crisis and over the longer term to increasing US imports of Canadian gas and oil.
Before 9/11 it wasn't economically viable to access much of the Canadian oil like the stuff in the tar sands.
But 9/11 changed that.

Bill Robb


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We're going to have to wait until we gradually move back into cities, which I  
predict will happen over the next 50 to 100 years as the price of  
gasoline rises.  Note that the barrel of oil is up to $98 this  
morning and the Euro now costs us $1.48.  (It was $1.42 when I was  
there and $1.00 when it was first introduced).

Sadly most Americans haven't got a clue how much of what they buy  
comes from other countries and how much the devaluation of the dollar  
is going to push up the cost of everything they buy from clothing  
and  lawn sprinkler and a snow shovel at Wal*Mart to their next  
Toyota or Volkswagen or Chevrolet.    Chevrolet?  Certainly.  The  
auto industry buys parts world wide.

> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Inside PCC 1673
>
> Please don't shoot the messenger before you read the whole message....
>
> It is the American way ... it is not an indictment against Pittsburgh
> Railways as one of you said but an criticism of public transportation
> in general.  It goes back to Henry Ford telling us that each of us
> wanted our own cars.  I think I once mentioned that when my mother
> and father met at Carnegie Tech in February 1928, he had two
> wishes.  One was a vacuum tube radio to replace the crystal set.
> The other was one of those new Model A Fords.  He bought the Ford in
> 1930 when he graduated from CIT and he built the radio.
>
> Cars came with heaters.  You didn't have to stand in the rain on a
> safety island in the middle of the street.  You didn't need to have
> the fat lady beat you to the seat or sit on you.  You didn't have to
> suffer the misfortune of having some other son-of-a-bitch shed the
> water from his umbrella onto your clothing.
>
> I suspect there are also more antique automobile museums than there
> are trolley car museums, if only because we love them more than the
> trolleys.
>
> The other side of the coin is perhaps we've made very idiotic mistake
> burning up oil like crazy.  We worry about cutting trees to make
> paper bags but I wonder if if we have not used more non renewal
> resources using the resins in oil to make plastic bags?????  We've
> decentralized ourselves onto 1/2 acre building lots and left our
> cities as hollow shells in which the welfare recipients and drug
> culture live.  Those who live there, except for a few places like
> New York and San Francisco cannot even shop in the cities any
> longer.  In many cities they need to commute to the suburbs to find a
> store in which to shop (or rob).
>
> And some of you probably wonder why I like the European culture ...
> maybe it is because they still have cities where people live, work,
> eat, shop, worship and are entertained.  They don't have hollow
> shells.  As Josh Coran, who was with us remarked, you don't need a
> shopping center in Vienna ... the whole city is a shopping center.
> Right ... same applies to Munich, Graz, Linz and every place else we
> were.  Seems strange seeing elementary school kids on the streetcars
> by themselves.  Says something about the safety in their culture.
> And Munich ... the S-Bahn (commuter rail) is running at capacity, not
> like ours at 50% of capacity in Philadelphia, but at
> strangulation ... at the point where you really can't put more people
> on it.
>
> So the messenger isn't against streetcars.  He is simply observing
> that many in our culture want to preserve their automotive lifestyle
> come hell or high water ... they want gasoline at 29.9 a gallon with
> big Oldsmobile 98s and no one on the highway in front of them.    I
> don't think that will remain possible.
>
> fws
>

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