SOS: save oil stupid

These higher prices are having an effect in the US, depressing demand for sports utility vehicles. But a surprising feature of energy policy in America, the home of capitalist economics, is that the US does not make more use of the price mechanism by raising gasoline taxes and instead prefers to set Detroit the sort of administrative norms for fuel efficiency that would have done a Soviet Gosplanner proud. One past argument in the US against higher fuel taxes was that they especially hit the poor who tended to own gas-guzzling heaps. But that is no longer so true; many older cars consume less than new ones. Lack of good public transport remains a real problem, in the UK as much as anywhere. But nowhere is car dependency so great as in America’s suburbs that sprawl far enough to be called exurbs. Changing this will take long and must start soon.
FT