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2012 Set Record For Most Expensive Gas In US
An anonymous reader writes "According to data from the American Automobile Association, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. was higher in 2012 than in any year before it. Nationwide, gas averaged $3.60/gallon, up from $3.51/gallon in 2011. 'The states with the most expensive annual averages for 2012 included Hawaii ($4.31), Alaska ($4.09), California ($4.03), New York ($3.90) and Connecticut ($3.90). The states with the least-expensive annual averages included South Carolina ($3.35), Missouri ($3.38), Mississippi ($3.39), Tennessee ($3.40) and Oklahoma ($3.41). The highest daily statewide average of the year was $4.67 in Calif. on Oct. 9, while the lowest daily statewide average was $2.91 a gallon in South Carolina on July 3.' Bloomberg reports that fuel consumption is down 3.6% compared to last year, while U.S. oil production reached almost 7 million barrels a day recently, a level that hasn't been reached since 1993. AAA predicts gas prices will be cheaper in 2013."
Did some research, and as 2011, Colombia ranked 4th in price of gas (from most to least) in the whole American continent. USA ranked 15th, and Venezuela ranks last. Curiously, Venezuela is a country that is our immediate neighbor, and their price/gallon is under a dollar. We extract, they extract, but the difference is that their government has seized the properties of many international oil companies, kicking them out of the country, I think that near 2007~2008 they seized ExxonMobil assets and kicked them out, making their refineries state-controlled, which is really awful.
Psst buddy: here's a new year's resolution for you:
Starting in 2013, I will no longer use the made-up word "sheeple" which instantly brands me as an underemployed political talk radio addict.
In the US all public non-toll roads are maintained by the government. The fun part is figuring out at what level of government.
Most/all of the maintenance is done by the local governments and individual states. Not only do individual states tax gasoline sales, they also receive money from the federal government. This is how the US government forces the individual states to do things which would otherwise be unconstitutional.
For example, the US constitution gives individual states the right to set a minimum drinking age. However, if the states wish to receive federal highway funds they must set the minimum above 21. Basically, the federal government implements taxes that should be on the state level, then extorts/bribes the states to pass laws that the federal government constitutionally can not pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera