Gas Riots

Not a surprise, but in Europe there has begun some rioting due to the high price of fuel. In an excerpt from tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, an article entitled Fuel-Cost Protests Lead to Little Action reads:

With gasoline costing upwards of $9 a gallon in parts of Europe, protests are putting governments under pressure to cut the taxes that make up much of the price of fuel.

Hundreds of truck drivers converged on London Tuesday, jamming a major road and forcing police to divert motorists. In France, fishermen continued to block ports and oil depots, while their counterparts in Spain and Italy signaled they would join the protest.

But don't think this is going to become a major issue. Further reading may be disappointing:

Geoff Dossetter, a spokesman for the Freight Transport Association. "Now there's just this dumb acceptance of the price of fuel."...In Germany, only a few percent of voters see fuel prices as a major political issue, says Manfred Güllner, head of opinion-polling institute Forsa. That is partly because of fatalism, but also because of the big role green issues play in German politics and society, some Germans believe. "The environmental awareness has become so entrenched here that people think it's better to reduce fuel consumption" than to protest, says Asmus Kurig, a schoolteacher from Karlsruhe in southern Germany.

Well, at least the price of tea is still cheap...