小偷说：忘掉钻石和银器吧，车库里有一桶5加仑的汽油

　　Americans have a lot to think about these days, but in a nation of drivers one problem comes to mind every time car owners pass a service station: the rising price of gasoline.

　　With crude oil selling at $40 a barrel, a gallon of unleaded regular gas now costs an average of $2 in the US [= 4.3 yuan per liter], a third more than it did a year ago.

　　As usual, the going price in most Western European nations is triple the American. Europeans, however, are accustomed to living with high fuel prices and generally have excellent public alternatives to the private auto; Americans, in contrast, have neglected mass transit for decades. Moreover, in the 1990s, an era of low fuel prices, Americans took to gas-guzzling SUVs in a big way. The result: by 2002 the average fuel efficiency of US passenger vehicles had sunk to its lowest level since 1980.

　　Wayne Stayskal's cartoon plays on popular fears of future price rises. The two housebreakers in his cartoon are ready to forego precious stones for precious fuel. This, of course, is a wild exaggeration, but it is true that the outlook is for expensive gas for some time to come①. Two pressures are driving prices upward: increased demand as developing countries like China import more fuel for industrial use and private consumption; and uncertain supply, as the turmoil in Iraq generates fear and instability throughout the oil-rich Middle East. Higher fuel prices are an important component of the inflation now beginning to affect the US economy.

　　Are current US gas prices unprecedentedly high? No. Back in the mid and late 1970s, when the OPEC oil cartel was more effective and the Middle East was an arena of instability, gas prices (in real terms, i.e. adjusted for inflation) rose to considerably higher levels. But that is scant consolation to suburban voters with long daily commutes to work, summer travel plans and big, inefficient cars.(听英文53574,文章注释535741)

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