>>>>>It's worth the read:
>>>>>
>>>>>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/10/MNGUKPOGKJ1.DTL
>>>>
>>>>And on a related note: http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/212351
>>>
>>>That estimate of how much we have been getting gouged by the oil companies for nearly two years now, since Katrina, feels on target. 15 cents a liter Canadian is how much U.S.? About one USD per gallon in round numbers?
>>>
>>>What perplexes me is how little agitation there is about it. We all talk around the water cooler, so to speak, about how high gas prices are. But nobody seems agitated enough to try to do something about it. Nothing happens at the federal level, which is not exactly surprising given this administration's pedigree, but there is no grassroots outrage, either. We pay our $3.30/gallon USD, and climbing, with hardly a complaint even as the multinationals report record profits. We baaa like sheep.
>>>
>>>We shouldn't complain if we won't do something about it. And I include myself in that statement. As Tamar likes to say, if you don't vote, don't complain. My variation on that is if you don't do SOMETHING to fight gas gouging, don't complain. Let the oil producing nations continue to have their way with us.
>>
>>In Britain, back in 2000, we did - and it worked. The govt have been very chary to raise prices too much in the budgets ever since - a few coppers here and there are snuck in but the price now is .LE. what was attempted back then.
>
>
>I don't know that the U.S. government can control pump prices. The oil companies set prices, in collusion among themselves. How did the British government do it?

It's all to do with the amount of revenue they get from the pump prices, I think. They just took a smaller cut when they realised the British public had come about as close to revolution as ever seen :-)

During this "uprising" there were severe gas shortages. Paradoxically some garages bumped up their prices heinously (to the price we have now) to cash in on the misery. There are therefore some stations I will not use because of this.