Last time I filled up, I paid $1.43. Down quite a bit from what I had been paying, but still , I believe, not quite as cheap as it should have been, even taking into account our falling dollar. Of course all public companies do have to try to pay a dividend to their shareholders.

Topped up yesterday at $1.22. Heard that it could be down to the $1 mark by Christmas, but couldn't find that prognosis in the paper this morning. Don't use a real lot of fuel nowadays. $30 every fortnight or so keeps the tank reasonably full.

With regard to fuel prices, I am convinced that the motoring public is the brunt of a national joke. I have yet to see a satisfactory argument for basing fuel prices on exports from Singapore. Why use ANY formula other than the import cost of crude and the true cost of refinement? This has been going on since I was a child and the Oil companies continue to get away with passing on rising oil costs immediately while falling prices are passed on much later. For all their howling about offering the best price they can and denying any collusion or conspiracy to fix prices, they consistently post record profits year after year and our gullible government accept their platitudes virtually unquestioned.

Am I just in a whingeing mood, or perhaps getting grumpy in my "sunset" years.....?

I think that governments an oil companies are always in collusion with petrol/diesel/gas prices the amount of excise revenue collected is astronomical and so goes by without any regulation or guidelines daily. No matter where you look in our daily living costs the fuel running costs can be the cause of increases to everything we need to buy. As the prices go up on everything so does the GST so its a win win situation for the tax collector and a lose lose situation for us. The prices never come down at the same rate that they go up. Heres somethng interesting Ive found out which maybe everyone knows but I didnt realise it. Many stores offer a cash back buying scheme pay $200 for example and receive $100 back, n the surface one wonders why they dont just knock off the hundred dollars and save the bother. Reason......they charge the GST on the $200 so they collect double GST........not bad eh.

For my money, the REAL villain here is pure and simple government mismanagement. While I agree with all the criticisms laid against our governments at all three levels (local, state and federal), just take a look at the present debacle in NSW.

Even after raping squillions from the tax paying populace, the state government does not even have the foresight to plan for a downturn. They have structured their budgets year after year on historical income streams.....taxes, excise, stamp duties etc. It did not occur to them that in an economic downturn, commerce would be stifled and those "transactional" incomes would be stunted. The result of this appalling lack of forward thinking is the current plight of NSW. In an already disastrous national economy, NSW is further exacerbating the situation and dragging the rest of Australia down. The recent state budget here is a disgrace and a clear indication that our politicians are blatantly incompetent.

Even so, we seem to be powerless to change the reward system for politicians....their perks, pensions, allowances (both whilst in and after their term of service) only rewards and entrenches poor performance.

Too hard to read these poste,,, surely someone knows hoe to put the adds where they should be, and that is NOT covering half the massages I have reached the stage where if it comes up with the adds over the message I am not even going to bother trying pity, cos apart from that the site is good