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Log inHigh gas prices hit consumers worldwide
High gas prices hit consumers worldwide
by Outspoken on Sat May 31, 2008 6:56 pm
High gas prices hit consumers worldwide
By ANGELA CHARLTON
Associated Press Writer
PARIS - Feeling woozy about the fortune you've just pumped into your gas tank? Drivers around the world share the sensation.
Consumers, gas retailers and governments are wrestling with a new energy order, where rising oil prices play a larger role than ever in the daily lives of increasingly mobile people. But as the cost of crude mounts, the effect on the price at the pump varies startlingly — from Venezuela, where gas is cheaper than water, to Turkey, where a full tank can cost more than a domestic plane ticket.
Taxes and subsidies are the main reasons for the differences, along with lesser factors such as limited oil refining capacity and hard-to-reach geography that push up prices.
"I don't know why it is but... it hurts," says Marie Penucci, a violinist filling up her Volkswagen at an Esso station on the bypass that rings Paris.
As she pumped gas worth $9.66 a gallon she looked wistfully at a commuter climbing onto one of the city's cheap rent-a-bikes, an option not open to her since she travels long distances to perform.
High taxes in Europe and Japan have long accustomed consumers to staggering pump prices, which now are testing new pain thresholds — and it could have been even worse, if a strong euro hadn't cushioned some of the blow. As a result, plenty of European adults never even bother to learn to drive, preferring cheap mass transit to cumbersome cars.
Subsidies in emerging economies such as China and India, meanwhile, shield consumers but hurt governments, which must find a way to afford rising market prices for oil.
Increasingly, they can't. Indonesians are staging protests against shrinking gasoline subsidies in a nation where nearly half the population of 235 million lives on less than $2 a day. And there are now 887 million vehicles in the world, up from 553 million vehicles just 15 years ago, and on track to nearly double to a billion by 2012, according to London-based consultancy Global Insight.
In Europe, taxes are often the focus, since the high tax burden means crude itself is a smaller part of the burden.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080531/ap_on_bi_ge/price_at_the_pump;_ylt=AnnS30FjSzlR49DbGsRxIKis0NUE
By ANGELA CHARLTON
Associated Press Writer
PARIS - Feeling woozy about the fortune you've just pumped into your gas tank? Drivers around the world share the sensation.
Consumers, gas retailers and governments are wrestling with a new energy order, where rising oil prices play a larger role than ever in the daily lives of increasingly mobile people. But as the cost of crude mounts, the effect on the price at the pump varies startlingly — from Venezuela, where gas is cheaper than water, to Turkey, where a full tank can cost more than a domestic plane ticket.
Taxes and subsidies are the main reasons for the differences, along with lesser factors such as limited oil refining capacity and hard-to-reach geography that push up prices.
"I don't know why it is but... it hurts," says Marie Penucci, a violinist filling up her Volkswagen at an Esso station on the bypass that rings Paris.
As she pumped gas worth $9.66 a gallon she looked wistfully at a commuter climbing onto one of the city's cheap rent-a-bikes, an option not open to her since she travels long distances to perform.
High taxes in Europe and Japan have long accustomed consumers to staggering pump prices, which now are testing new pain thresholds — and it could have been even worse, if a strong euro hadn't cushioned some of the blow. As a result, plenty of European adults never even bother to learn to drive, preferring cheap mass transit to cumbersome cars.
Subsidies in emerging economies such as China and India, meanwhile, shield consumers but hurt governments, which must find a way to afford rising market prices for oil.
Increasingly, they can't. Indonesians are staging protests against shrinking gasoline subsidies in a nation where nearly half the population of 235 million lives on less than $2 a day. And there are now 887 million vehicles in the world, up from 553 million vehicles just 15 years ago, and on track to nearly double to a billion by 2012, according to London-based consultancy Global Insight.
In Europe, taxes are often the focus, since the high tax burden means crude itself is a smaller part of the burden.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080531/ap_on_bi_ge/price_at_the_pump;_ylt=AnnS30FjSzlR49DbGsRxIKis0NUE
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
