Re: X and tonyw
Yes - spot on. In the UK we had Tony B and New Labour voted in with a massive mandate for change after successive Conservative governments. They completey squandered it. We have an economy which is based on little of substance and we have no tools at our disposal to change it - everything is outsourced to "plc" (and not UK plc as New Labour call it!) in the name of efficiency. The current gov. can do nothing but try to prop up the house of cards with big money subsidies to banks and deciding to build a new runway at Heathrow! It is panic stations!! If Obama is half what he is cracked up to be he'll take the US forward through the tough times with a vision of a different future instead of more of the same. The time to do that is NOW early in the term and with the mandate of public support. If he doesn't it will be a shambles - yes, he'll probably get two terms based on the record of the outgoing administration but if he does n't get on with the job now the end of the second is going to be one big mess...

Ok - having had my rant! - back to gas prices. Yes they need to go up but in line with mandatory reform of the US car fleet. There should be no excuse for the type of fuel performance the US manufacturers ship. Without going into detail it could be doubled tomorrow just by buying european cars - check out some of the stats. As D.Benton_Smith posts below the whole flow of capital is skewed disproportionately to the non productive. So there needs to be a buy back program - get those guzzlers off the road and get some proper 21C kit out there. 55mph is still the limit? - man that should be 100mpg territory even without hybrid etc etc. If you are getting 20mpg at the moment you could put the TOTAL price of gas up 4X and still have 20% reduction in fuel bills. Up to smarter people than me to work out what to do with the 300% revenue gain but I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of man to find ways of protecting those like JCS below. How about essential user tariff or allowance? Again related to the kit you drive? Maybe some of it even goes to the oil companies as margin to keep them at work as volumes fall? And how about new max. salary law? No one earns more than 10times the lowest wage in the company?! Ahem - I thought I'd had my rant....I'll leave it there before I start on the acres of cars taking up good real estate!

Best wishes to all