Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The Albatross of Entitlement

According to the Wall Street Journal of May 28, 2008, here's the price of gas of a gallon of gasoline in May in select countries, and the percentage of increase from a year ago:

U.S. -- $3.72 -- 20%

U.K. -- $8.42 -- 17%

Austria -- $7.66 -- 15%

Ireland -- $7.43 -- 13%

Greece -- $7.01 -- 13%

France -- $8.44 -- 8%

Germany -- $8.38 -- 4%

What can one conclude?

I'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

They say a lot.

A wealth of policy is behind those numbers.

2 comments:

Troy Camplin said...

What is not addressed is how much of the differences in prices are due to taxation in those countries. What is interesting (and also not addressed) is why we have had such an increase, while other countries have not. My guess is those countries with little change also subsidize gasoline, and have changed the subsidies as the oil price has gone up, meaning they are masking the price rise -- and doing so with increased taxation elsewhere. So those countries are not getting proper market information as we are.

Todd Camplin said...

Plus, bills like the Clean Air Act has allowed the energy companies to hold monopolies. Therefore, a company that lets off huge amount of wasted heat energy, like a steal mill can not convert that energy into electricity. In Europe they are doing this and many of the factories are adding to the grid vs. pulling from it. I would bet less industry would go over seas if these companies didn't have an eclectic bill to pay. It would be really cheap to stay.