What's fair for gas? To Americans, $2 a gallon

[4dsc]

Many motorist these days are complaining about the cost of gasoline, but what people consider a fair price varies greatly, depending on where they live.

Americans angrily grit their teeth as they pump $3-per-gallon gas. They think $2 is about right. In Britain, $3 sounds fanciful — people there pay about $6.40 a gallon and think $5 would be fair.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3399607

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. $1.50 a gallon. That's my final offer.

[bluestateguy]

2. The oil companines want us to accept a new normal price

When (if) the price goes down to $2 they want us all to cheer and celebrate and accept that as the new normal level.

Not me. During the Clinton years we were paying as low as 81 cents a gallon in some parts of the country.

[liberaliraqvet26]

3. i remember those days....

the repukes wanted to hold hearings because clinton "made it go up to 1.25"

dumb fucks

[beyurslf]

6. 1997 and gas was .70/gallon in OKC.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. We will never see $2 gas again.

And we will be pathetically grateful to see it at $2.50, now that they've acclimatized us to $3.

[bullimiami]

4. what do the british get for their tax money though?

quite a lot.
we dont get jack shit. our roads are falling apart, our poor are neglected, the rich get richer and everyone else has to fend for themselves.
give us some return on our tax dollars and we might be more comfortable paying them.

[eleonora]

5. Yeah but Texas is larger than the whole of Britain

$3 a gallon here hurts us more as our cities are extended over large areas too. We're stuck in suburbia.

[benevolent dictator]

10. Perhaps the higher gas prices

will encourage better land use policies.

[lcordero2]

8. Pre-Nixon prices

[sweetladybug]

9. 50 cents a gallon would be a good price to pay for gas.But we'll be lucky

if the price ever goes back under $2.50 a gallon

[kcass1954]

11. I wouldn't be nearly as upset about gas prices...

if the oil companies weren't making record profits and the executives making multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses. Just another fine example of the little guy getting fucked!

[blindpig]

12. delusional

Why shuld we pay less for gas than just about anyone else in the world? For half a century Americans have followed the chimera of suburban living at the goading of the Big Three and Big Oil and now we have found ourselves to have been sold a bill of goods. Like a gang of junkies we curse The Man but can't do without him.

Cold turkey has got me on the run.

[NNadir]

13. The world's greatest tragedy isn't gas prices. It's global climate change

Americans are spoiled brats. If there is anything that will drill energy sense into Americans, it is high energy prices. One has nostalgia for an America that could do something because it is right but those seem to be by gone days, to the extent they once existed. Therefore graphic means of forcing Americans to do the right thing are required.

$2/gallon is way too low.

High energy prices, especially if they are in the form of energy taxes targeted toward investment in new energy technology and infrastructure, are a good thing mostly.

A caveat is that high energy prices used only for the purpose of furthering the inequity of wealth distribution are much less desirable. But we must address global climate change or we will all die. Anything that encourages conservation, including high prices, is essential.

[phantom power]

14. I don't understand the point of polls like this.

I want to pay 10 cents per gallon. In fact, I want all my goods and services to be free. So what?

[Boomer]

15. If we are willing pay, it's a fair price

Oil is a non-renewable resource and the people who own it have the right to charge what ever price they want for their commodity. Just as we have the option to stop buying it.

If we need gas so much that we are willing to pay $3-4 gallon for it, then that's a fair price. If we're willing to pay $10/gallon rather than go without, then that's a fair price.

If we can't stop buying it because we're unwilling to give up our cushy, spendthrift American lifestyle, then we've been getting a free ride for far too long.

Whichever way you cut it, we have no valid cause for complaint. So I'm trying hard to cultivate a grin-and-bear-it attitude.