The pain at the pump abroad

Actually there's a VERY simple solution. The cure for high prices is high prices. When gas is a dollar a gallon, SUVs make sense, and that's what Detroit builds. OPEC gets rich because the oil costs them very little to extract. When gas is ten dollars a gallon, 80 mpg makes sense (and I remind you that there are 80 mpg vehicles on the road right now). OPEC gets REALLY rich.
But that's short run. In the long run, the market fills up with 80 mpg vehicles-we don't even have to consider the possibility of alternate fuels and 200-mpg fantasies.
Now OPEC's in trouble. India and China motorize, but instead of a 20-mpg world fleet average we've got a 60-mpg world fleet average.

None of this will happen even if we go back somehow to dollar a gallon gas. Detroit goes back to making ten-cylinder F 350's and OPEC stays rich forever. Trust the free market to respond to price gouging, and don't get panicked by short-run market disruptions into selling the milk cow.

I like the fact that you two have a great dialogue going, sucks that it is spent dissing each others educational qualifications for making a comment on this article.

The fact is this:

Everyone is paying too much for fuel, the simeplton LIB author is just trying to make us all feel better that the brits (nudge, nudge; maybe we left there for a reason....taxation without representation ring a bell?) are paying more for fuel than the USA.

How about putting down the hooka for a bit and coming up with some viable alternatives, rather than sinply stating; "Well, at least we have it better that the UK" Duh.....

Mm, let me point out that neither your experience nor your "knowledge," at least as revealed in your account of your formal education, give you any right whatsoever to speak on social science, politics,or anything else with an epsilon in the analysis.

"I've determined that my views are valid by science." Tutorial: your views are irrelevant to anyone but yourself, except to the extent that you can get someone else to agree with you. Get in close touch with your navel, and at best you'll discover lint.

And, of course, even if you've discovered that "liberal" has, in fact, three syllables, not two, and that it's not necessary to precede it with the word, "Yew," as do most folks of your mindset, it's pretty much lost its pejorative powers these days, what with the complete collapse of neo-conservative thought and all.

Finally, note that I REALLY don't care about what you think of me or my educational background. I was educated at Southeast Missouri State, and left after two semesters on discovering I had no aptitude for ballroom dancing. Impressed? I thought so.

In any case, my original points, remembering that this is supposedly about high gas prices in England, stand as given.

"University of Yee-haw; the rest is vo-tech."

Nice one, Alma - as I said, you're a real expert at name-calling. Condescending doesn't come close to describing the tone of your posts. 'Deeply initimidating'? Lol - of course not, I simply posted them to be illustrative of my education - what you personally may think of them, I really don't give a rat's ass, as I do not value your opinion.

As far as my prejudices, I have them because of my experience and knowledge, inasmuch as I've determined that my views are valid by science and also some common sense, so while I'm prejudiced against the likes of your views, I have solid reasons for them. YOUR prejudices are just as revealing, and I sincerely hope you enjoy them.

I'd love to see a liberal like you make that kind of comment about OU where you're not surrounded by cooing liberal acolytes. Speaking of liberals, what's your educational background? Have you puffed your ego up to its current gargantuan state because you went to an Ivy League school on Daddy's dime, or perhaps some exclusive women's college where they coddled you and made you think you're superior to everyone else? As proof of the incorrectness of your knee-jerk response about OU, which shows more about your ignorance than you intended:

from: http://staging.okcommerce.gov/test1/dmdocuments/Oklahoma_At_A_Glance_0602061749.pdf

"The University of Oklahoma ranks at the top per capita in its enrollment of National Merit Scholars and in the top five U.S. public universities for Rhodes Scholar graduates. Students from more than 110 countries attend OU, which also has an astonishing 156 exchange agreements with other nations – the highest of any university in the U.S."

So this is Yee-Haw University? You should be ashamed of your ignorance, but then that ego seems to have a stranglehold on whatever reason still exists and I know you're not.

Pet engineer, that really WAS my second guess, since the number of "hard science" degrees employed in Kansas City outside academia is extremely limited.

In any case, you've misused both the terms "psychobabble" and "social engineering." And the hard science background which you intend to be deeply intimidating is actually a bachelor's in biology from the University of Yee-haw; the rest is vo-tech.

If you're not intimidated by the math in journal-level economics, you might investigate the analysis of market failure, and why pump pricing determined by current production is such an irresponsible practice.

But probably not. You seem to be perfectly comfortable with your prejudices.

Lol - I liked your post, Alma. To refute your psychobabble:

Out of a class of over 500 at East Jefferson High School in Metairie, La, I graduated third in class with honors. I then graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor of science degree with honors from the University of Oklahoma in 1979 with a degree in biology, intending it as a pre-med degree, but got interested in geology due to doing summer work for my father at Cities Service Oil and Gas in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That work first exposed me to mainframe computers, and my supervisor encouraged me to learn the Fortran programming language so that I could write custom programs for their graphical gas/oil plotting machine (Tektronix). I found it so interesting that I then picked up several more languages on my own, at the same time that I was going to the University of Tulsa, majoring in geology. I was six hours away from graduating with a bachelor's in geology (a summer camp was required) when I decided that systems analysis was what I wanted to do, so that's why I never finished the geology degree. I then spent the next eighteen years mostly as an independent consultant working for Fortune 100 companies on deadline-driven development projects, and because of my conservative outlook, determination to live below my means, never have debt again and to try to enjoy more of life before I got too old, I was able to retire in 2003 when I was 46. I'm still retired. So the third discipline I majored in was computer science and logical analysis: the irony of all this to me was that my first love was English and my second was marine biology, but of course life never works out the way you plan.

Anyhow, I do agree with your point about name-calling - you're quite the name-caller too, if you take the time to read your enjoyably condescending posts. As far as pricing the British gas to take into effect its 'real cost', that's called social engineering, which liberals love doing - you can see that all around you now, with incandescent light bulbs being banned and also lamps that can accomodate them (bet you didn't know about that). And as far as accepting your or the U.K.'s definition of 'real cost', that's usually set by issue-driven enviro-Nazis, who are currently foisting the global warming hoax to the detriment of all of us, so I don't accept it.

Big Nanny? No, thank you.

Good morning, GrinchforPrez.

In an earlier post, you wrote, "By the way, I do have a degree in hard science, most of a degree in another and a lifetime in a third."

Having some small experience myself in reviewing c.v.'s and resumes, that translates to, "I got a bachelor's at Public School A, and enthusiastically got into a master's program at Public School B. But I was in over my head, blew out in my second year, and then, frantic, found a cute little Public School way out in the woods where I got my teaching credential in high school biology. I've been a high school biology teacher for thirty years, and consider myself the terror of the teachers' lounge."

I've been around enough pseudo-erudition to recognize the symptoms: in your tragic little public-school education, for instance, it's unlikely you picked up on the fact that educated people seldom start their discourse by calling their opponents fools, loons, and morons, however often they may think it. More signs: a belief that anyone on the planet cares about what sickens you, what you would consider, what enrages you; constant direct references to one's own collection of books, deep knowledge of the subject, and professional credentials, all without specifics, of course; and the forensic powers of a terrazzo sidewalk.

In any case, all of my points stand as given.

Alma, you are what I would call a complete fool. You completely ignored my main point, that the British are getting hosed through incredibly high gas taxes, which are what we call here in the States a FACT. I realize you have problems with 'facts', but if you can go to a good school with a decent faculty, not of all of whom are liberal losers, you might be able to learn a few.

The weakness in the dollar notwithstanding, the British have had to pay exorbitantly more for years - I know, I've been close friends with one of their expatriates for over a decade.

I also fully understand that the Democrats have forced this situation by squeezing supply through their enviro-Nazi policies, denying oil companies the leases they need to hit big strikes. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi both make my skin crawl - in fact, they make me ill - and these people are passing judgment on the progress of the U.S. by saying that 'coals makes us sick, oil makes us sick' - these people have absolutely no call to be running a diner, much less Congress.

I am embarrassed and sickened at the mess that Congress, controlled by Democrats, has forced us into, and I hope to God we can force them to get us out of it. They are humiliatingly ignorant, as are you, and I am sad for us because of it.

GrinchforPrez gets a twofer in one short paragraph. The price of gas in Europe has everything to do with economics. Like most laymen GrinchforPrez doesn't understand that free markets only work in strictly defined circumstances. They're incapable of incorporating all costs of a good in the long run into pricing; Brit/European policy since early on has been to make motorists pay something like the real cost of gasoline usage over time and across all its impact on the economy.
Also, although to a lesser degree than euro-denominated prices, the dollar price of British gas now reflects not only a higher real price to British consumers but the weakness of the dollar in currency markets. Irresponsible budget deficits require selling U.S. securities in astonishing quantities, and in recent years in astonishing quantities to people who don't like us very much, like the Communist Chinese. Simply put, if you want to pay for gas in London with pounds, you have to bring more to the pump. If you want to pay in dollars, you have to bring lots more.

Are you terminally ignorant? Is there any point to this vapid piece of tripe? WHO CARES if some European is paying $10 a gallon, especially since most of that cost is due to TAXES paid to their government, which of course has nothing to do with free markets or supply and demand.

What is your problem, Denise?