I’m from Australia and my wife’s from the States - fuel prices are always a fun thing to poke my inlaws with, and they reply by laughing at how expensive cars are here (~20%-30% more than the same models sold in the USA).

As for paying more–well, that depends on where you live. The price of gasoline in Belgium, before taxes, is 3.32; the price in France is 3.28, the price in Germany is 3.18, the price in Italy is 3.61, the price in the Netherlands in 3.85, the price in the UK is 3.09 and the price in the US is 3.21

These numbers are before taxes are applied.

The difference you see (and they are quite substantial in the $5 and up per gallon range) is because many of these nations apply huge taxes, in part to subsidize public transportation, but also to subsidize other spending.

Supposedly, you are gettng some service for those taxes, but the actual price we are paying per gallon is about the same. And yes, you are paying too much for the same reason we are.

rant - We pay %%% more for our fuel, you yanks should be grateful you only pay $3.50 a gallon - end rant :-)

Secondly, I’ve heard that GM will have a hybrid -electric plug in and gas- on the market by 2010 that will do up to 80 mpg. That’s only 2 years away, much sooner than bio fuels will get up to speed and become cost effective. Are we doing as much as Europe to increase gas mileage? There’s a big fuss when we get large increases, then we get complacent and simply buy a smaller SUV. BTW, you can’t compare European gas prices to ours. They subsidizes many social programs with gas taxes, and thus get things like free college tuition.

I live in Kansas City, and our public transportation system is basically non-existant other than the metro buses, which don’t connect to where I need them to go for work and school. It makes me want to buy a bike and just suffer through the 20-mile ride to work. It would be free, and I’d be skinny in a month!

Open up off shore drilling, they say…off shore drilling would only be needed if there was an inadequate supply of crude–there is not. There are always fluctuations, but none are justification for the outrageous increase in gasoline and crude oil. Twisting OPEC’s arm will not result in an increase in production because OPEC is pretty much at peak oil production as it is (although, this didn’t stop Bush from claiming in 1999-2000 that the oil prices were Clinton’s fault and if elected he would use his family’s good relationship with the Oil nations to improve things).

Build a new refinery, gosh darn liberals and environmentalists are to blame! Could someone show me one time–one time–in the last 20 years when an oil company wanted to build a new refinery and was turned down or prevented? It has not happened. It’s a total BS arguement. You can argue that building a refinery requires too much paperwork, or costs too much, but this argument falls on deaf ears when Oil companies are raking in BILLIONS of dollars a quarter.

The real truth that no refineries have been built is because Oil Companies don’t want or need to build them. Instead, for 20+ years they have been consolidating oil refineries or expanding them (which is not a bad thing) and cutting inefficiency so they have not needed to build any more. So please, can we stop this argument? It’s insulting to anyone who is paying attention, or embarassing to any idio who makes it.

As others have pointed out, our problem is that the dollar has fallen. Not only does the US dollar not buy what it once did, but because of this decline it has made other investments worth less. And who can we blamne the falling dollar on? Why, the people who enacted policies designed to push the value of the dollar down.

We also have an erratic investment market with too many dollars chasing too few investments. No one has confident in the markets, and that is a direct reflection on this administration

Instability in the middle east…agee I wonder who who to blame for this?

As fars as alternatives go, their ultimate arrival as viable-use products is a question of when, and the answer is “when the market shifts to the point where they are cost-effective.” That day could feasibly arrive on different sorts of time frames, and at various different levels of pain for everyday folks, depending on how we manage it. And to some extent, we can at least try to manage it with both domestic and foreign policy. When it comes to managing it via policies that capitulate to the greenest drain circlers, I’m not on board.

I’m not that thrilled by the idea of policies that seek to hasten the arrival day of alt-fuel dominance if that comes at the cost of making all of us pay a lot more a lot sooner. Why not encourage OPEC to increase production? Quite possibly, this buys us all more time while the alt technology continues to mature and becomes cost effective. In other words, I’ll be much happier if we all end up using alt fuels at $3.90/gallon in 10 years than if we start using alt fuels in 5 years at $5.50 a gallon. If the reason we are using alt fuels is only because their price has become more attractive than that of grossly inflated fossil fuel prices, that’s not much of a win for everyday folks, is it? In fact, it’s a big hit and regressive hit to the purchasing power of anyone on either a fixed income, a low income, or any low-growth income. Most of us.

Seriously though, how about a little arm-twisting geared to OPEC raising production? Why not entertain some sorts of sanctions that have tangible benefits for Americans?

And even if you don’t like these ideas and/or think they’re irresponsible, still notice that just getting a candidate or two to mention such a possibility might have some beneficial effects.

You know what else would help gas prices? Stop lowering interest rates to spur the economy. Protect the dollar, bring it back up, and gas prices will go down. No one wants to pay that toll though. But I predict it doesn’t get better with gas prices until someone has the nuts to raise interest rates. Cheap money fuels speculation.