Ah ok. Almost the same as here I think. So basically it costs about £4 per US gallon here. Thats.... $7.53582 a US gallon.
Heh heh. Although the *vast* majority of it is tax (massive massive massive). I read somewhere (about 5 years ago) that the price to get a basic barrel of petrol to the pumps is cheaper in the UK than the US on *average* (remember we don't have to take it very far to put it in the pumps). But our tax is just astronimical on petrol (and fags - ahem, ciggies).
Also read that the average rate of life (ie. how good life is when you take *everything* into account) is about the same in the UK as the US. Although, percentage wise, we have a hell of a lot less really poor people (where most of our tax goes by the looks of it...) and the US has a lot more rich people. All I know is my exact same job was worth about $150k (was about £80k converted) in the US when I had 4 years experience as a team leader. Been doing my job 11 years now, and I don't do bad, but I'm not on that.
Plus at one point I really wanted a new Mustang (really don't sell them here apart from small amount of imports), sod the equipment inside and ability to go round corners
. Must be all those old films. But they cost something like £25k (about $40k+) to import, and Ford even said if they sold it here properly it would cost about £30k. Bloody ripoff. Esp since the sell for half that price in the US. Nice shape though.
Quote: "So, we (joe public) subsidise car exporters by paying for cars with artificially inflated prices? If so, why us?"
Actually I was venting a bit there. Totally basing that on an experience in a bookshop once. At one time books (esp. computer ones) cost about the same in pounds to dollars. eg. A typical $50 computer book cost about £45. But £45 is about $80. Hmmm. Blokey who worked there told me how we had to sell books from the UK cheaper elsewhere to compete better. But books from the US were increased to make the UK more attractive to sell. And of course the UK books were then increased in the UK too. Erm.... Not quite the same now though.
Talking about cars and being totally ripped off in this country. I remember once (a few years ago) seeing a story about Land Rover. Basically there was one model (they are all about £40k aren't they?) that had some exported to Germany, changed to left hand drive (ie. the wrong side
) and sold there. The newpaper said that if you left the town where they made the cars in the first place and went to a place in Germany where they sold the converted versions, and bought one there, and had it converted back, and shipped it back (with all those extra costs), it was still significantly cheaper (think by about £10k overall in those days) than buying the damn thing from the place they made it round the corner. Nice.
Cheers
I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
