Originally Posted by
recumbenttoad
Unfortunately (or, fortunately maybe) I am getting closer to being forced to ride to work. I like riding to work, so, that isn't such a huge problem but I just don't like the feeling of being forced to do so. My income was 20% less last year than the year before and this year isn't looking much better. My house payment went up 11% this month (in a declining housing market, my county government decided my house was now worth a third more this year than last year meaning higher taxes), phone/internet bill went up about 40% last month plus groceries are getting outrageous. I see rising gas prices putting another nail in the economic coffin, so, I am trying to ready myself by riding more and cutting my outlay of cash (Monday I will be having phone/internet service disconnected). Hope and Change isn't working out so well for me.
This is as planned.
From the wall street journal in 2008 from Obama's Energy Secretary to be
Steven Chu
http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB...307499791.html
Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work. "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September.
2/23/2009 Gas was $1.86 a gallon. As you pointed out fuel prices going up effects everything you buy. Farmers use fuel to run the machines needed to plant and harvest the food on your table. it gets to your store by a truck...the end user pays for that in the price of the product.
I remeber as a kid hearing my dad pitching a fit for the better part of an hour after filling the tank while out on a family vacation because it was over 50 cents a gallon. My family can no longer afford the fuel needed to go camping like I did as a kid. I make more now then my Dad ever did. Unfortunately I have half to show for it because everything cost triple what it did back then.