Gas

A couple of weeks back I was going to rant about why gas and electricity prices haven't come down when petrol has... and then I read an article on MSN which asked the same question and came up with the answers. It was partly obvious ie. the providers are not passing on any kind of discount so as they can ramp up their profits and rip us off and the other part of the puzzle was that the gas producing countries (Russia, Iran etc) have decided to form a cartel much like OPEC so as they can charge an inflated price for gas. For every bit of economic downturn some git is making a mint.

On a separate note but still to do with cartels... I didn't realise what the penalty was if you are caught conspiring to form a cartel in the UK. The authorities throw the book at you (wrapped around an anvil!). Massive and I mean massive company destroying fines plus a lengthy prison sentence. So when you think about it those nice chaps in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia... in UK terms are nothing but criminals.

Rant over.