Gas In Europe Is Double the Price in the U.S.

Click on graphic to enlarge.


Charles Krauthammer, the neo-con columnist who works across the street from my office, writes:

At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up, and, while complaining profusely, keep driving like crazy.

At $4, it is a world transformed. Americans become rational creatures. Mass transit ridership is at a 50-year high. Driving is down 4 percent. (Any U.S. decline is something close to a miracle.) Hybrids and compacts are flying off the lots. SUV sales are in free fall.

The wholesale flight from gas guzzlers is stunning in its swiftness, but utterly predictable. Everything has a price point. Remember that love affair" with SUVs? Love, it seems, has its price too. . . ..

At $4 a gallon, the fleet composition is changing spontaneously and overnight, not over the 13 years mandated by Congress. (Even Stalin had the modesty to restrict himself to five-year plans.) Just Tuesday, GM announced that it would shutter four SUV and truck plants, add a third shift to its compact and midsize sedan plants in Ohio and Michigan, and green light for 2010 the Chevy Volt, an electric hybrid.

Krauthammer advocates a $2 a-gallon gasoline tax (yes, on top of what you are now paying) and says folks are paying $8 a gallon for gasoline in the U.K. right now, and we should be too -- if only we would jack up gasoline taxes.

Uh ... Great Charlie. Thanks for sharing. I know it's news to you that not everyone lives in million dollar homes in Bethesda, but I assure you that it's true. Some folks live check-to-check, do not have limousines taking them to their talk show engagements, and some people (gasp) even live in the American west where it's 80 miles to the nearest town. I suppose these folks can sell off their vast stock portfolios, take fewer vacations in the Bahamas, and cut back on maid service, but still ....

Where Krauthammer is right is that gasoline prices are reshaping the American and world economies. Within 10 years owning a Humvee or eight-cylinder SUV will be as unlikely as owning a horse and carriage.

Which should get us thinking about change. Because one thing is for sure: It's coming.

.