The price of a gallon of gasoline was only tangentially connected to the economic problems here. Gas was over-valued due to the unregulated trading of oil futures, to simplify a bit. It was well known that the oil prices would have to come back down, in essence for the bubble to burst. The part that surprised most people was how long it took for that bubble to burst, but that’s just what you get when you allow back room deals to dominate any particular market. It’s my opinion that the housing market crash indirectly caused the oil bubble to burst.

As for the outrageous petrol prices across the pond, I was under the impression that was due mostly to higher levels of taxes rather than the market value of oil. Not sure why I’m supposed to feel bad about that.