Posted on 04/05/2011 12:45:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Inspired by Cord's thought-provoking post on the per gallon prices of various liquids, and by Sarah Palin's ill-informed Facebook rant on the "$4-Per-Gallon President," I decided to take a closer look at gasoline prices around the world. Mrs. Palin might be interested to learn, that the world already has quite a few $4-Per-Gallon Presidents. In fact, the world already has $6-Per-Gallon Parliaments, $7-Per-Gallon Prime Ministers, and $8-Per-Gallon Presidents!
We've collected a broad sample of gas prices from throughout the industrialized Western world in the chart below. Important to note: this chart includes only official data from throughout the European Union and North America. I've included some self-reported gas prices from a handful of relevant nations below the chart.
All of the European data comes from the E.U.'s European Energy Portal website. U.S. and Canadian data come from the respective Automobile Associations.
Here are a few others countries that I thought were interesting, but for which I couldn't find official data. All of these numbers are self-reported within the past six months (unless otherwise noted) through the Gasoline-Germany website, a popular energy and petroleum forum.
An odd trend seems to be that the most of countries that have gas prices under our own, are those same countries that so many politicians routinely cite as "evil" or "undemocratic." Does Sarah Palin want our oil economy to be more like Iran and Venezuela?
From this recent chart in the Economist, you can see that the bulk of the premium costs in most European nations is due to higher taxes and duties on crude and gasoline. Many nations recognize oil as a finite resource, and are utilizing gasoline taxes to reduce oil imports, create a more efficient transportation system, and better prepare for longer-term oil price volatility.
Kiss the rod, peon Americans. You deserve to be as miserable as the rest of the world.
I don’t give a flying f what the rest of the world pays.
Europe has a condensed population.
the rest of the world doesn’t have its own oil, we do
you ain’t seen nothing yet!
I suspect the Saudi announcement about trouble there would bring about $200 to $300/bl was made for a reason. Russia would really make a killing!
If I want to live
In a high-tax Euro-state,
I will move to one.
He mentions that higher taxes and duties play a role in the costs, but never mentions how much those countries buy, compared to the US.
Who gives a rip what the rest of the world pays? That’s a feeble argument in overcharging Americans for gasoline. What we care is what we pay and we’re paying way too much. Time to get the speculators out of the oil business, and time to drill here, drill now.
And the best part is,
The cattle-car ride is FREE!
Only one-way, though...
O’boy, o’boy.... I wanna be like everybody else.
What the “other countries” pay for gasoline should have absolutely NOTHING to do with what we in the USA pay for gasoline. Arghhhh.
Isn’t the whole point about loving being an American about not *wanting* to be like the rest of the world???
Exactly. There is no reason, except for BO and his troglodyte enablers in Congress, to make ourselves as miserable as, say, the Netherlands, which has no oil of its own. A more honest comparison would be the cost of gasoline in oil-producing countries. The UK continues to screw itself despite the riches of the North Sea. I continue to be surprised that the British public puts up with it.
Who gives a damn what the rest of the world pays? They’ve been using that nonsense argument to push all kinds of nonsense (health care, global warming, etc).
The United States of America is the BEST COUNTRY in the history of the World.
We should NEVER be compared to any other country. Who cares what they pay, we need not pay as much as the others.
What a condescending twit! He bashes Palin for daring to suggest that $4/gallon is too high. I think $1.50/gallon is too high!
How about this clown pays for his $4/gallon gas and then send me $4 for every gallon he buys so he can pay $8/gallon right now. Why wait on the rest of America?
When G. W. was in office, all you heard from the Media and the RATs was Bush/Oil Prices - strangely, the media and the RATs are now silent about the skyrocketing price of oil and gasoline since Hussein Obama is in the Oval Office.
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