REPORT: Anyone wondering why Americans show no signs of abandoning their vehicles as gasoline fetches almost $4 gallon can find the answer in Europe, where the price of petrol hasn't been that low in at least six years.
Gasoline rose 30 percent in the U.S. this year to a record $3.962 a gallon on May 29, according to AAA, the nation's biggest motoring club. In Germany, a gallon costs $8.33, more than double 2002 levels. The highest is $9.69 in Norway, where taxes are designed to curb consumption in the world's third-biggest exporter of crude oil, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
U.S. prices, which topped the 1981 inflation-adjusted high last month, led Merrill Lynch & Co. chief North America economist David Rosenberg to warn that the economy will expand 0.6 percent this year, half his previous forecast, and may contract 0.3 percent in 2009. Europeans already adapted to higher fuel costs. German unemployment fell every month but one since January 2006, even as gasoline rose 42 percent.
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