Sign of the times........

Most people I know and work with do not seem that outraged about these gas prices. They just laugh it off as if humor somehow makes it easier to deal with. The prices have tripled from less than ten years ago. I seem to be the only one ranting about food and gas prices...etc. This is so frustrating. Apparently most folks are trying to keep up appearances amongst their peers and not complain too much, publicly. Nevertheless, I noticed while I was window shopping at Goodwill, that a lot more people are shopping there as if it is a mainstream department store. It made me realise how bad the economy has gotten when I see more people shopping for second hand clothes than for new designer clothes...i.e...Kohl's or Belks. I feel consumers need to band together and form protests and boycotts. We should take a page from the writer's guild playbook, about the gas prices, and demand answers. Thanks, DU, for allowing me to vent.

you'll hear the whining then. :evilgrin:

So they vote for other people that they think will do it for them.

Americans have become so complacent?

See: Michael Franti. ;-)

You said it exactly how I see it. Television has way too much influence and control. It's kinda scary when ya think about it.

standing up and FIGHTING pretty hard. Keep hearing how he's hitting back too hard, and how bad it makes him look! We wanted to have Democrats stand up for us, and when he does I see so many threads here putting him down! Can't win for losing!

But I'm with Edwards anyway! And I'd gladly join a REVOLUTION any day!! Apathy abounds!!!

I respect that about him. I wish the other candidates would make that issue more of a priority.

instead. The prices at the Goodwill store right up the road have gone UP & UP & UP!! Went in there a couple of months ago and saw a pair of name brand shoes that I liked, but soon decided I DIDN'T like them. They were selling them for $35.00! This IS a very TRUE story! I couldn't believe my eyes! They've added these little "groups" of shopping items such as boutiques, antiques, etc. I live in Florida and believe me, things are really not doing well!

But you know, THE IDIOT Decider says things are going well! And the economists seem to be singing the same song too!

I made up my mind that I won't have ANY Christmas decoration at all this year!! Trying to save on energy for the EARTH!! Sounds kind of like Scrouge... but I'm not changing my mind. My daughter tells me I can't "just not" put a tree up, but I said "watch me!"

My daughter tells me I can't "just not" put a tree up, but I said "watch me!"

You will not regret this; I've gone tree-less for years now and not only do I not miss a tree, I love being "needle-free."

There are many other ways you can decorate for the holidays. I personally prefer some greens that I pick up at the recycling center and tie together with some cording. I put on a $1 ribbon from Martha Stewart's K-Mart collection and voila. One year I got some boxwood tree trimmings from there--very nice as those are expensive at the nurseries.

I'm aghast at some of the price increases. I was in a supermarket the other day and saw they'd taken a price increase of an entire dollar on an item.



Cher

I put it on my dining/living-room table. It's only two feet tall. I turn it on at night and watch the lights flashing. It's the simplest and coolest thing! B-)

I gave up most of it years ago. Will never go back to it. I do enjoy simple fairie lights though. I am a Solstice person.

getting gas last Saturday and needed milk too, so while paying for the GAS... I grabbed a gallon of milk and the thought struck me... A gallon of milk costs MORE than a gallon of gas these days!!

I DREAD going to buy groceries these days!! I'm not wealthy by any means, but I'm still making it, still I worry every day HOW will others less fortunate be able to swing it!

commercialism for the greater good of humanity is a bad idea at all. More of us should follow your example. But we cave to the pressure. That is a brave move by you.

it is the size of a Home Depot and crammed to the seams with stuff.

I picked up a new (with the tags on it) Talbot's sweater for $5.99 just the other week when I stopped in.

I am also fanatical about donating things to them. eBay is too much of a PITA and I feel like I am helping people out when I turn in those non-returnable "but they looked great on the hangar" items I pick up in clearance sales.

were from people who brought things to me to sell because they didn't use them anymore... my neighbor actually gave me a treadmill he wanted to sell for $75.00. After the sale he didn't want it back... so off to Salvation Army!

We MUST begin the END of buying many things that simply entertain us for a short while and then just end up in a corner waiting either to sell at a yard sale or give away for nothing. We have a huge barn-like building and people are always bringing stuff to us and I have sales. I'm getting tired of the sales, a LOT of work. I LOVE going to them, and find so many brand new name brand costly clothes for almost nothing!

We can do better, but I wonder if we will. Being a Boomer sort of dates me I guess.

Holler of ya hear me.

I don't understand it, either.

It's just seems like SUV drivers aren't affected by the recession. I suspect that those who are less well off/middle class are probly strugging as much as the rest of us. Mine is a Saturn gas sipper but still requires at least $30/full tank. Back before * took the WH, it just seemed like I had more money to spend, even though I made less then.

Are we consumers going to sit idley by and allow these injustices to happen? We cant be this helpless. Something needs to done about it before election day. Our leaders (in congress) have betrayed us. How can we pull together and take a stand?

Thanks for your replies, my fellow DUers.:hi:

Party til you puke. Go for broke.

People are technology illiterate. It doesn't take a degree in engineering to know how things work. I knew when I was a child. But then I was raised by someone who knew. Turn off the lights when you leave the room. Maybe it was the stories he heard from his mother. A mother who saw genocide. A world without plenty. And the Depression. But more than that, someone who knew the basics of how this modern society works. It's not complicated. In fact it's quite simple. It runs off of oil. There is nuclear. There is hydroelectric. There is organic gardening. But primarily, it runs off of oil.

I am appalled by the behavior I have seen. I remember people taking the Concord to New York for lunch. But now that there is an internet, I have been able to look over people's shoulders, and see what they're up to. In an espresso forum there are people who fly all over the world to make coffee with their friends. How great is that. It's fantastic. But that's a cup of coffee with a hell of a carbon footprint. One of the worst surprises I've had is from my bicycling forum. These guys drive and fly all over the planet to go on bike rides.

People aren't thinking about anything but themselves. We're a selfish and undereducated society. And when I say undereducated, I mean people with phd's, even. I don't mean these are illiterates. These are just people who haven't realized, or don't want to realize, that gas comes from somewhere under the ground, and it's extremely costly to get it to the tank of their Lexus. Wars are subsidizing our standard of living. We've been a very comfortable nation because of that. It at least paved the way.

My prediction is that as gas prices get to a certain level, even the well off will have to begin to think and plan and become somewhat responsible. No more going to work, coming home for lunch, running off the kids to their soccer practice, shopping, dinner, movie. And somewhere around a half dozen trips around town in their car every single day. Because that's what I am seeing. But the hardest part of this is going to have it's effect on the poorer in our society. It's almost always that way. Even global warming is going to work that way. First in Bangladesh, and then in Manhattan.

Nobody wants to change from comfortable to less comfortable. And there is one way I look at petroleum that most people don't seem to see. Power. It gives all of us the ability to have the power that kings of old would have died for. And with power comes corruption. Oil gives us absolute power. And you know where that leads. And that's where we are.

But isn't oil from 'fossil' fuel?
Sooner than later it seems the world will run dry of it. We will be forced to use other resources. I have heard others say that it is too late for us to truly change the affects of global warming and protect the world from emminent climate change. Some say this could climax within the next 5 years, by the year 2012. That makes me wonder if all of these events were inevitible, based on what I've read about the Mayan calender and other prophecies. Who knows what we're in for? :shrug:

Thanks for writing what I was thinking