that maybe, but whats the value of the peso...and the median
income per person ? 2 bucks is the WORLD to 80+% of the population
there and in most central & south american countries....its why they
risk their life to get to the good ol' USofA !
i spent a bunch of time in venezuela many years ago...gas was a nickle
a gallon (can you say state owned oil)...3/4 of the population didnt
make 100 bucks in a MONTH.
Bush Pilot, I like your avatar. 'Bout time someone figured it out. They are dragging the oil companies in for "obscene" profits, and not even realizing that their contribution to the cost of fuel is 5 times what the oil company profits are. Politicians suck, and they are constantly diverting attention from that fact by creating circuses to distract us. Can you say MLB steroid use hearings?
And to the OP, fuel has always been much more expensive in Europe, and it is for a bunch of reasons.
1.) They have no oil reserves to speak of;
2.) They have no refineries, so they don't buy crude, they buy refined products
3.) The states are highly socialist, and so the major expense for most of them is tax. Everything else is "provided". We are talking dollars, not cents, per gallon, on their taxe rates
4.) Their public transportation system totally rocks. Most folks don't own a car, because you can get everywhere faster and cheaper on public trans. That means less folks buying a product that costs a lot to get in, distribute, and provide, meaning the fixed costs of distribution, refining, etc are all applied at a much higher rate per gallon. Make sense?
Anyway, the long and short of all of this is if congress had gotten off of their asses and started drilling back in '96 when this first became an issue, instead of purposely creating parks and preserves right over our largest oil reserve areas to STOP us from drilling, none of this would be happening.
It is so easy to blame the current administration,a nd they do hold some of the blame, but a very large protion of this occured over a decade ago, and we are just now reaping the rewards.
Vote "pro-drilling" this november. The elk and caribou can just walk 300 more feet to get around the derrick, it won't hurt them a damn bit.
That gotta shake your world a bit 
