but the facts are the facts...so far. Let's see where it goes. Putting this in context with the bigger picture of ever-swelling discontent with virtually everything this administration is doing, maybe We the People will get a little something out of the deal; a lot of people here have noticed a rise in the petulance level and squirming in the Oval Office.

But you could be right...maybe I AM dreaming.....

"Lord! What fools these Mortals be!"

Bush said during the 2000 presidential campaign it was the job of the president to "jawbone" OPEC producers to lower oil prices. "What I think the president ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots," Bush said in a January 2000 presidential debate.

before we'd get a comment like this. Wasn't a question of 'if,' it was a question of 'when.'

The issue of US pigginess about oil is not in question here...at least by me.It's been well-documented and commented upon here at great, great length. And yes there is a lot of whining about it, and with the exception of the Texas pawn shop link, I deliberately avoided the "poor me" stories and sought material that dealt with the "why" and "what-we're-gonna-do-about-it" sort.

I've noticed, BTW, that the most significant portion of those here "whining" about gas are not the Hummer/musclecar/monster truck drivers; those people, generally speaking, have the money to fill their tanks. It's the everyday working stiff that is feeling the pain, along with businesses who depend on trucking to get their goods to the marketplace, and I'm scouring the news pages looking for stories about impact and, more importantly, solutions. You'll find no one, particularly here at The Agonist, doing a "poor me" screed; it's crystal clear that the issue of our amount and cost of consumption has got to change.

America, in the last quarterr of the 20th century, has had a lot of wake-up calls about oil and we've hit the snooze alarm on most of them. Maybe this time we'll get out of bed. Posts like yours do serve a purpose; like a recalcitrant child, America needs some nagging and scolding. But we also need some leadership, some solutions and, above all, a stronger inclination to change. What I'm trying to post here are signs of intelligent life in the oil consumption universe.

"Lord! What fools these Mortals be!"

From Norway (one of the largest oil producers in the world) I
pick a medium price for a litre, 11.40 NOK
http://www.dinside.no/php/oko/bensin/vis_prisliste.php?region=1

and convert it to euros:
conversion

and get 10 eurocents per litre more than here.

This old page tells something about the relationships of gasoline prices in the world:
http://www.galtglobalreview.com/world/world_gasoline.html

* US - $1.43
* Hong Kong - $5.24
* London, England - $4.83
* Oslo, Norway - $4.38
* Tokyo, Japan - $4.34
* Quito, Ecuador - $.50
* Jakarta, Indonesia - $.52
* Kuwait City, Kuwait - $.76
* Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - $.93

Price level has correlations to living standard and being an oil producer.

The reason for 3rd world taxing of gasoline in the USA has probably been the domestic producers. They have wanted to sell as much gasoline to the consumers as possible.

Economically now is a good year. If Yankees have now problems with their gasoline bill, I wonder what happens if there will be the predicted recession in the end of the year.

-- There are no income taxes in The Democratic People's Republic of Korea