As gas approches $5.00 per gal....non essential use will drop like rocks off a cliff

soon, the NASCAR, the NFL, etc will see their crowds diminish, ditto for the sky divers, the cruising drives, etc....

A fillup used to cost $33 for me...now its $80.00 plus....soon, $100.00 plus....

when that happens...all shit is gonna happen.....

Tourism will drop....shopping will focus on food clothing shit needed to live....

Bush and his rich pals have fucked it up...

In their greed and arrogance to dominate/control....they never really realized the unintended consequences....that of upsetting the Social Fabric which is America....

This one of thr reasons the GOP deserves to lose big time in Nov...

Peoples incomes are being disposed of in our gas tanks and the economy will crash and burn.

was to assert control over Iraq instead of being up front and letting the American people know we had to change our dependence on oil.

Bush knew we would be having this problem before he was elected into office, but what has he done to make us more efficient and wean us off oil? Nothing. Then he goes and starts a war which makes the supply problems worse, not better. What an idiot.

Idiots ....all of them GOOPers are delusional.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
--Upton Sinclair

:toast:

we knew we had to cut our dependence. We just didn't want to face it. We still don't.

We needed, and never got, *leadership* on the issue. But I don't think anyone was keeping the fact that we were heading for trouble a big dark secret, you know?

I think we could certainly argue that rather than lead on the issue, Bush persuaded the American public that the problem didn't really exist - at least those who really wanted to be persuaded. And he and the GOP fought like hell to avoid doing anything substantive about it.

But we knew. We knew.

It's easier to pretend it's someone else's problem, you know?

I think people are very, very good at fooling themselves. And if anyone gives them anything to hang on (it's not your fault, it's because of ______________) they'll hang on to that for dear life.

But inside? They know.

Its a sad ship we sail on

when TPTB see advantages in using it.

our addicttion to oil?

I mean we want to blame Bush for everything but I think this was a failure of everyone in Government of years. who began our addiction to foreign oil?
Why hasn't there been a push for electric cars long ago?
Bush Didn't do anything to help it, but the problem has been around for years.
I remember stories about he gas shortage in the 70's.

Why didn't our government begain to make car companies move away from Gasoline back then?

Its was a PUB Congress.

Most of the non-essential use of gas is also the cheapest: the short trips that could be done by walking or biking.

Five dollar a gallon gas won't change people's habits. If they're only gonna save a buck by not making the effort to walk or bike then most people will continue to choose to drive.

I also disagree with your definition of essential. I will always have a need to go to some places that you can only get to by driving. It doesn't put food on my table but it keeps me sane, recharges my batteries and helps me think, which helps me immensely in the work that I do for a living.

car/truck/suv will soon diminish. Some peeps need to travel 200 miles to see a NASCAR race/NFL/NBA

these trips should see a drop soon...especially if the fuel approaches $6 a gal.

I love the photos...

While wishing I was at one of those places instead of about to be heading out to work and dodging multitudes of cars driving less than three miles :)

soon we be seeing a dive in our Society due to limited recources after paying for fuel....heating oil and for transportation.

I can only imagine if it reaches 6 to 7 dollars

back in the good old days, a president ago, I used to drive up to San Antonio for the weekend would cost me at most $20 round trip.

Driving to San Antonio now is what it would cost for me to drive to the other side of the state back then.

There is going to be alot less travel in the world in the future, less mobility upward and otherwise.

they will enjoy the open roads now that they arent crowded by us commoners.

Those trucks transporting goods will also be owned by the rich aswell.

Although I can imagine when things really start turning Mad Max as the poor hordes of us without gas or jobs will be hijacking the caravans of the wealthy for goods and food.

Or weekend at the beach. :silly: I was thinking of going down to South Padre this summer while my granddaughter is visiting. Maybe we'll just go to Corpus, instead.

The one-two punch of rising fuel and groceries is having a ripple effect throughout the economy. The price of gas is on everyone's mind and you will see major quakes in the underpinnings of society. This of course won't affect the well to do folks, but everyone who I know is struggling with how to cut corners and costs. The problem is that for many their haven't been many options for a long time and costs for everything continue to rise. People are shopping down a level or two, doing without some things they were used to having and trying to come up with innovative ways to save, but most of which come out to pennies, when costs are going up by dollars.

Restaurants in my area have seen a drop...

as tastes have changed to the extended strip center. Even the upscale malls in this area (St. Louis) are suffering. All brick & mortar businesses are seeing shifting sales patterns as people combine trips and/or cut out frills. People are using more coupons, shopping down brands (from national brands to store brands) and chains (from Macys to Kohls or from Target to Dollar General). Stores are seeing changes in deliveries from vendors as more of them try to find ways to cope with rising fuel costs. In the grocery store in which I work Pepsi & Coke have cut out one delivery per week, several bread vendors are doing the same (supplanting the delivery with a pull up service on the days they don't deliver), Liquor Houses are shifting routes and increasing minimums for delivery, Nabisco has shifted to night drops to put their trucks on the street when traffic is of a lower volume. The down side of this, is that many (particularly newer) stores have been built with very small back room areas (with just in time delivery in mind) and don't have the space for lots of backstock, that means you could very well see increasing out of stocks when you go shopping, particularly for ad items or specials.

And of course prices are increasing like crazy across the board.

I believe we are in for a rough ride.

My local Kroger market has barely anything on some shelves, especially the meat department. And certain things run out and stay out for weeks before replenishing. That's very odd.

however, we are going to see trends in that direction everywhere.

"trying to come up with innovative ways to save, but most of which come out to pennies, when costs are going up by dollars. "

Which has been true of medical costs for ages. (right, choir?)

Appreciate your comment and I added the phrase as my sig line.

exactly what it wants - I'm beginning to here talk from a lot of usually sane people that goes like this, "Fuck the environment, let's drill!" That's paraphrasing of course - they don't say fuck.

I think this is EXACTLY what the administration* wants. After all, they're not stupid, just evil.

reserve, set aside for the animals and our future.

This high prices will soon level off as consumption levels off to supply production...but, unless we find solutions soon, those prices will again increase as demand exceeds supply by 20 % or more

But a lot of generally well meaning people don't seem to know that. They've heard on teevee from some "expert" that we need to drill, and they apparently think that doing that will magically make our problems go away.

It certainly isn't what I want - I, along with a lot of other folks, fought 20 years ago to keep Mobile from drilling off the coast of North Carolina. Drilling in the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" for a recourse that may or may not be there just didn't seem wise. People seem to be forgetting this now though. :(

Altruism is an unknown term....

Empathy is another term under the bus.

They refuse to see it....

so do most dems

Many would like to put blame on the current administration for the high price of energy. They share it with an allful lot of people. Though their energy policy is a failure, They are too closely tied to the oil companies, they are not solely responsible. Yes, their energy policy was written with the help of the oil companies and is for their benefit.

We are the problem. We have failed to educate ourselves and demand that Congress fix the problem. We were happy as pigs in shit with cheap gas. Let the good times roll. The majority of Americans fell in love with big cars. Conservation was a dirty word.

With deficit spending over the course of the past 60 or so years and the failure to curb our thirst for oil we have done this to ourselves. The dollar has fallen and continues to fall. We went from a manufacturing power house to a country living on debt and the refinancing of it.

You want real leadership to get out of this mess. Find a leader of the Federal Reserve Bank with the courage of Paul Volker. One who will drive the interest rate up to say 17% and stop this runaway inflationary policies of the current leader and our government.

That will drive this country into recession which will also decrease our demand for oil. Those two actions would go a long way to decreasing the bid price for oil. This leader would need to be deaf. The howls coming out of Washington and the rest of the country would be horrible.

Find a President and members of Congress who realize that debt isn't but a short term method to run a government. Who have the courage to face the fact that the decisions they make have deep ramifications for generations to come. Balancing the budget must be a priority for our government with a push to the rest of us that personal savings is the way to go.

Its been mostly the fault of both, citizens and bad leadership....The GOP has to take some massive hits as they helped the worst president we ever had, not once, but twice....

But I hear you....cheap is History and essential is becoming the norm...

It started in the 1950's. They built the suburbs but not the public transit. In some cases where there was public transit they ripped out the rails and built roads.

How do you undo it all?

coupled with safety.efficiency. and good living.

How do you undo what has already been built? Seize property through eminent domain? Tear down inefficiencies to build efficiencies?

That might have happened if the transition was planned adequately and was long term.

The way it's going to happen? We are going to get lots of smothering.

Americans aren't like Japanese, polite enough to live cheek by jowl with minimal friction..

If you think the inner cities are violent now, just wait a few years.

I haven't noticed one iota of difference in the traffic patterns. It boggles the mind really.

not all, but increasing

We are spending billions on highway construction projects here. I'd like to think that we should be reaching the point of "Peak Highway", where it would be much smart public policy to invest that money in building economical, effective public transit systems.

Certainly SUV sales are down, but I don't see where this has translated to any reduction of traffic on the highways.

Frankly, part of me welcomes $8.00 gas. It will come sooner or later. I am thinking that our country will be better served if it comes sooner because that has more of a shocking effect to wake the sheeple out of their deep sleep. We have to change a lot of things in this country, and transportation is one of them.

Another positive effect of high energy costs is that it increases the incentive for goods to be produced locally, rather than being outsourced to the cheapest labor market.

now they're full to bursting. Naturally there are no plans to add more buses or anything like that. This was on local TV news just the other night.

This leaves those of us who don't have a choice about riding the bus at the mercy of those who are merely looking to save a few bucks on commuting. :grr:

Oh yes, Opihi is screwn, because TheBus boasts that it serves the whole island, and it mostly does -- except for the tiny area down by Da Pond! :eyes:

In a lot of areas, when manufacturing/extractive industry/whatever the dominant business sector was dried up, there was a push for tourism promotion and development as an economic "recharge." Of course, this moved people from fairly decently paying jobs to frequently seasonal, low-paying jobs, so it wasn't that much of a benefit to begin with, although I suppose it beat having no jobs at all.

Regardless, these towns (frequently small, rural areas) that have followed this model, often because they (a) felt they had no other choice and (b) were told it would be an economic magic bullet, are about to see another crash that will put them on even worse footing than before.

I really feel for these people. They've been screwed twice, sometimes more.

soon be feeling a higher level of discomfort....The GOP and Bush as really screwed us...

worst, they want us to trust McCain...gimme a break....

These prices are going to force people to conserve gas and/or stop buying gas inefficient vehicles. Everyone needs to worry aboug global warming because we will be royall screwed if we don't deal wiht that now. People had their chance to change their wasteful ways, but didn't and won't...unless it costs them.

It may be an inconvenient truth, but high gas prices are going to help us in the long term.

Sporting events, probably not as much.

they are pigs all of them. Or maybe what *'ie said "You're with us or against us" that met all of us, have we had enough now???

Some people will cut back on their driving. Others, however, will drive the same amount but start putting all their gas on their credit cards. People will do anything to avoid changing their habits.

I've been riding my bike to work for a month now. Luckily it's only a 2 mile ride and it has really saved me $$. Can't imagine what a longer commute would do.. er well, yes i could and it would truly suck.

Fuckers! :mad:

There is no turning back for our economy. We will be deep into a recession.

we ran off the cliff a while back and have just figured out that we are standing on nothing.

are you driving that takes $80 to fill up.

That is around the 4th of July, another big travel time in the US. They are preparing us now because it is inevitable.

My cities public transportation is a joke. There was a test to determine how long and the cost to get from point A to B by bus and by car. The city bus took 1.02 hours with 2 transfers, 3 buses rode and a cost of $1.50 one way. By car 1/2 and $2.36. If you take the Express which is not offered for all routes it is $2.50. Public transportation is not an option for many people.

While fuel was cheap....they played....now that Winter is approaching....the Grasshopper begs at the Ants Door. Aesop

but I disagree...
"they never really realized the unintended consequences"

I think they did this on purpose. I think they hate America.

I read a story with a link posted at another site within the last month or so!

I don't watch "sports" that don't involve biological fuel. It's like watching people play videogames ffs.

As one poster mentioned upthread- we may be see a big increase in local production as this drags on. Maybe this will put a HUGE kink in globalization. Now if we just had trains!

Bush actually went into the Mideast to grab more oil.

We fucked it up by building a society on a finite resource. And we're fucking it up now by a failure to imagine any other way of living, which is causing a crucial delay in setting up a new society.

And it's gonna get ugly.

Bush takes a mean hit cause he is the president...he has a staff to think of solutions to our national Problems...

But it is evident they are not thinking for the masses....

Most Americans were ignorant and happy when gas was $1.20/gal or less in the 90s, and didn't give a shit about the future.

Now they can't avoid the reality of their choices. This goes for repubs, dems, independants, and nonvoters. THe problem was brewing long before Bush came around.

sometime.....Now there will be hell to pay.