Why are people so cheap?

[Cruciform]

From the wording it appears to be in equivalent American funds.

[Linds]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
That's cheaper than BC. We pay anywhere from 80 cents to 95 cents per litre! Even at 80 cents/litre, that's like $3.20 per gallon!!!

LOL... I've lived in Ontario most of my life, and I can say for the past few years I've been paying at least 80 cents per litre as well! Only time it went down was in the GTA during the SARS period I don't even live in that area so I reaped no benefits. I wish I was paying only 57 cents! LOL Justin where are you getting your gas?

[Matt.B]

out here in calgary the native reserves dont pay tax so when the price spikes theres like an hour long line to get gas at th reserve lol.
Matt

[Siretsap]

Originally posted by hhw
We're talking about fuel usage, not efficiency here. If you drive 100 miles to work everyday instead 1, you're going to be using more gas no matter how fuel efficient your driving speed is. If you have to travel farther to work, you're going to end up spending more money on gas.

Well it applies for everyone anywhere if you look at it this way.

But let's say someone has to do 5 miles in town to get to work in traffic, and an other has to do 8 miles on a highway cause it's farther, the 8 miles will still be cheaper on gaz than the 5 miles.

[Siretsap]

Originally posted by Matt.B
out here in calgary the native reserves dont pay tax so when the price spikes theres like an hour long line to get gas at th reserve lol.
Matt

lucky you, cause the natives around here keep the price a cent lower than the others... not much of a difference on a tank

[justinO]

Originally posted by Linds
LOL... I've lived in Ontario most of my life, and I can say for the past few years I've been paying at least 80 cents per litre as well! Only time it went down was in the GTA during the SARS period I don't even live in that area so I reaped no benefits. I wish I was paying only 57 cents! LOL Justin where are you getting your gas?

I did conversion to US dollars per gallon :P

So we are paying around $2.50 USD a gallon for gas, or yes, $3.20 CND, and have for years. (Americans are scared of our loonie dollars and liters of gas, so I converted it for any of them reading........... KIDDING!!!)

Jess

[Linds]

LOL Yeah I get strange looks when I start talking about or pull out a bunch of loonies or toonies when I'm shopping over the border

[hhw]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
I'm not sure who said we have cheaper gas than the US, but that is NOT true!

I'll admit to saying that, and I now retract it... I was converting prices based on kilos to pounds intead of gallons to liters, quite a glaring miscalculation on my part, my bad :P

I would still bet good money though, that the average American spends more money on gas than the average Canadian... rush hour traffic going in and out of Seattle up to a good 100km out of the city on the interstate makes Granville Street in Vancouver look clear.

[Jeff_Favelle]

I'll buy that hhw. My sister and her husband just moved back from Tacoma, and they were AMAZED at the traffic on the I5 and the commute that average people take to work. Much much more than in Canada, for sure.

[Linds]

Originally posted by hhw
I would still bet good money though, that the average American spends more money on gas than the average Canadian... rush hour traffic going in and out of Seattle up to a good 100km out of the city on the interstate makes Granville Street in Vancouver look clear.

Hmmm... Canadians don't commute? My dad has a 1.5 hour (ALL highway) drive to work. A friend of mine has an hour drive to get to work, 6 days a week. Another friend of mine has to drive 2 hours. One of my ex's used to have to drive 1.5 hours to the initial place, then drive around from job site to job site the whole day. Mike has had several jobs in the past which he has had to commute. Most people I know either currently, or have had at some point, a job in which they had to commute. I've never had a job where I've had to drive more than 25 minutes to get there, so I'm probably one of the luckier ones that I know. Although there were several years as a teen in which I spent 1/2 - 3/4 of the day driving, usually back and forth from Toronto and around the Niagara Region. I still drive a fair amount, but not as much... there isn't anything in my town so I usually have to go to another city when I need something, but most of my friends live quite a distance from where I am. Rush hour sucks... I have little patience to sit in stop and crawl traffic... or in any kind of traffic for that matter... hehehe... I'm under the silly impression everyone on the road should part and let me through I don't know... from my experiences I wouldn't put Canadian driving below anyone else's

[Cruciform]

My first month working in Toronto back in 98, on a good day it was 2 hours each way. During construction it was FIVE each way. Not fun at all.

I sure appreciated finding a place

Now it's 45 minutes from St. Thomas to work in London. I kind of miss the 5 minute walk I had last year, but at least I own the property now.

[hhw]

Originally posted by Linds
Hmmm... Canadians don't commute? My dad has a 1.5 hour (ALL highway) drive to work. A friend of mine has an hour drive to get to work, 6 days a week. Another friend of mine has to drive 2 hours. One of my ex's used to have to drive 1.5 hours to the initial place, then drive around from job site to job site the whole day. Mike has had several jobs in the past which he has had to commute. Most people I know either currently, or have had at some point, a job in which they had to commute. I've never had a job where I've had to drive more than 25 minutes to get there, so I'm probably one of the luckier ones that I know.

It's not that Canadians don't commute, but they don't commute nearly as much as Americans. Just like at the population densities; the vast majority of people who work in cities in Canada live within city limits. I can't say that about Toronto as I haven't spent nearly enough time there, but it's definitely the case in Vancouver and Montreal. Driving from Burnaby to Downtown Vancouver is a minor fraction of the commute from Olympia to Seattle. Not to mention, despite only needing to have 2 people in the car for the carpool lane, virtually nobody is ever in it in Seattle. It's just SUV after SUV of suburbanite.

Here's some statistics I dug up from
http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchabl...lect_countries

Very slow site though, so try not to cause a slashdot effect on it people :P

Anyway, for 2001, Liters per person
Canada: 1,189.8
United States: 1,623.8

Basically, we use 73% as much per person. Now, let's translate this into how much people are spending on gas:
1,189.8 x $0.845 = $1,005.38CDN
1,623.8 x $2.00(1.30) / 3.7854 = $1,115.31CDN
Canadian gas price from
http://www.mjervin.com/public%20reso...PPS_Public.htm
United States gas price from http://www.csaa.com/global/articlede...7C4588,00.html

Alright, so we spend about $100CDN less on gas. That pays for a lot of rodents, especially if you breed your own... I don't have the patience to look up insurance right now as I'm about to go to bed, but I'm certain we spend hundreds if not thousands less.

Anyway, I'd have to come up with a lot more figures to demonstrate that it's cheaper to breed herps up here, but I think you can get some of the line of reasoning I'm coming from.

Now, I'm pretty certain that pastel ball pythons are cheaper up here... I'd assume most higher end herps would be, since although we have less poor up here, we also have much less rich, thus the market for the high end is much smaller, even proportionally to our overall population/market. Until the price difference covers the costs of CITES permits and additional shipping costs, I think that's reasonable.

Lower end herps on the other seem to cost a lot more here in general... For ones in shorter supply, that's understandable but for those that are not... you can see why some people will sell cheaper than the perceived "market price".

Now, I'm not saying breeders are making too much money or anything like that... but I bet a lot of us check the pricing on herps in the states and wonder why we have to pay more. So, if you're having trouble selling your herps, take a closer look at what your real costs are... for some herps, I bet you're making a tidier profit than you realize. For others, well, it's unfortunate that that's the case but as long as you're recovering costs, it's more about keeping the animals than selling them, right? Or perhaps it's time to start working with some other species...

Hope I'm not offending anyone... just presenting the other side of the coin.