There might be some undesirable "illegals" or "Islamo-fascists" sitting next to him.

I was being sarcastic and showing his duplicity. On the one hand, he propagates "kicking ass and stealing gas" from "sub-humans" in the Mid-East but then he gets all Al Gorish..cut me a break...

Okay... I ride and advocate riding SEPTA which exposes you to other people. Other folks, like youself it seems, are scared of that. But then you call me xenophobic?
Did you just use a word that you don't know the meaning of? Xenophobic means afraid or disdainful of those who are different.
I find it breath-taking that you actually edited your post and left this statement in.
Hey, if the cost is still so low that people will drive just to avoid sitting in the same car with another person, then what are you complaining about? Again, a non issue and you prove it again and again with your disjointed, scatter-brained arguments.
You really don't have the slightest idea how economics and free markets work, do you?
Why don't you settle back and read a little Adam Smith and quit typing with your fists.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

To quote Jesus, 'You strain at a gnat...'...none of this matters...the world's elite families, through their multi-national corporations, create artificial shortages through various manipulations, and prices rise...the commodity can be oil, grains, precious metals, whatever...this is the name of the game, and the game is 'Monopoly'...we are in an era of global consolidation on the part of the aformentioned elites, and the result is that we are going to have to 'adjust our lifestyles' so that Americans, and to a lesser extent the European economy can be brought into alignment with the Third World...you might think this is a drastic assessment, but mark it...the wild cards here are Russia and China...we will have to see what their ultimate reaction to the 'globalists' will be.
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This is related to what you're talking as far as the American way of life which some have said is "non-negotiable"

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...547317,00.html

The Madness of Ben Bernanke

By Gabor Steingart in Washington

The dollar is in a tailspin, the trade deficit is growing and a recession is on the horizon. The American way of life is in serious danger. But the head of the Federal Reserve keeps on pumping easy credit into the system -- a crazy policy that will worsen the crisis.

Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have more in common with the big cat entertainers Siegfried & Roy than any of us can be comfortable with.


The Las Vegas magicians call themselves "Masters of the Impossible" and have been fascinating audiences for decades by getting snow-white tigers to leap through burning rings.

The legendary Federal Reserve Chairman and his successor were equally adept at fascinating their audiences -- with a policy of miraculous monetary growth that gave America one of the longest periods of economic expansion in modern times. Many saw them as "Masters of the Universe." It seemed as if the central bankers had tamed predatory capitalism with their constant interest rate cuts.

Siegfried & Roy at times seemed at one with their cats, until the day everything went out of control. A tiger bit Roy in the neck during a show and looked as though it were about to devour him alive.

Greenspan and Bernanke too have lost their magic touch, and their image has been shredded by the real estate crisis and the dollar slide. The ravages of the financial markets aren't doing them any personal harm. But devalued stocks, bad mortgage loans and the diving dollar are damaging millions of small investors and savers.

It's as if the tiger has leapt of the stage and is mauling the audience. We can't blame wild cats or financial markets for being ruthless. It's in their nature to be brutal. Their unmistakeable message is: you can take things this far and no further.

In the case of the real estate crisis which reached the banks and is now unsettling the stock markets, the markets are now showing what G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting last weekend in Washington for their annual spring get-together declined yet again to admit publicly: Americans must change their lives -- or it will be changed for them by force.

American Way of Life Under Threat

The credit-financed consumer boom of recent years is coming to a painful end. Today's American Way of Life has no chance of surviving the coming years undamaged. The virus will continue to ravage its way through the financial system.

The property crisis is likely to spread to credit card providers soon and will then probably infect car manufacturers, furniture makers and all the other firms that owe their sales increases to the growth in credit finance. "The virus will keep on infecting the system," one management board member from a large bank said, requesting anonymity in return for the candour of his analysis.

His argument is that banks that grant mortgages to home buyers virtually unable to pay their bills are unlikely to be especially scrutinizing when it comes to lending cash to the buyers of fridges, cars and furniture. Indeed, a furniture store in Miami recently tried to lure consumers with the following offer: buy now, pay your first credit installment in three years, and no need for a down-payment.

The credit-financed way of life is typical of the US these days. Many people resort to credit to plug the gap between the lifestyle they have become accustomed to and their declining wages.

Dulling the Pain With Credit

The borrowed cash is like an anaesthetic against the painful impact of globalisation. Private household debt has been growing by $4 billion each business day for years.

All this wouldn't be so bad if the US economy were at least doing well in foreign markets. But it isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Despite the depreciation of the dollar, which makes imports into the US far more expensive while making US exports cheaper in foreign markets, US manufacturers are finding it hard to sell their products.

Contrary to forecasts by both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, the trade deficit has continued to grow, by 6 percent in February alone. America imported $62 billion worth of goods more than they exported in February, including a disturbingly large number of cars, computers and pharmaceutical products. Try as they might, most private households in America can't keep up this consumer miracle. The savings behavior of many Americans means that many of them now live from hand to mouth.

But Bernanke is doing nothing to dampen this hunger for credit. The former advisor to President George W. Bush is even trying to whip up credit-financed consumption by lowering interest rates. This is helping to fuel inflation because the monetary growth isn't being matched by growth in real economic output. Inflation in the US currently stands at 4 percent.

It's a paradox. The private commercial banks which have just had to make billions of dollars in write downs have become more cautious. They're scared of further risks. The management resignations at Citigroup and Bear Stearns have had a sobering impact.

Patriotic Madness

Meanwhile the Federal Reserve is urging the banks to go on taking risks. It has been injecting cash into the banking system for the past half-year while urging bank CEOs in confidential chats to offer more credit. The aim is to keep on financing consumer spending and even to stimulate it further -- for reasons of patriotism.

There's a word for this policy -- madness.
But because there is method in this madness, the meeting of mighty central bank governors and finance ministers in Washington over the weekend remained silent about it, at least officially. Outside the meeting rooms, though, there were murmurings about the poisoned legacy of Alan Greenspan and Bernanke's irresponsible behavior.

One participant told me: "There's an unwritten code of honor that says central bank governors should refrain from criticizing each other." Not least out of respect for the independence of central banks.

But the US is unlikely to realize the error of its ways on its own. "The Americans will always do the right thing," British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, "after they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Central bankers and tiger tamers have something else in common -- obstinacy. Roy has recovered from his wounds and wants to return to the stage in Las Vegas. "The magic is back," came the defiant announcement.

Alan Greenspan cut a similarly indestructible figure at the weekend. Even though criticism of his cheap money policy was only murmured privately, the 82-year-old legend of central banking said: "I was praised for things I didn't do. I am now being blamed for things I didn't do."

Not that he ever complained about getting false praise.

$114 and the world didn't explode...

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I Rather Talk About HurricanesThen Pregnant Teens

I don't think the world will collapse with the price increase. If anything it will just up the demand for alternatives. Hopefully this will be feasable and the oil companies won't somehow stifle it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGg0ATfoBgo

Don't most of the other countries around the world already pay the equivalent of 8 dollars a gallon? Green building in Europe are becoming more and more mainstream because it makes sense, whereas here, it still makes sense to pump 200 cfm of air conditioned air out onto the sidewalks as a marketing ploy.

yeah it will cost us but maybe thats a good thing. Collectively, we are all part of the problem.

You need to work in PR for one of the oil majors, or perhaps one of their enviromentalist subsidiaries...you would probably have great success, if they are hiring.

Well if it isn't costing us then the problem goes unnoticed. Measures that will help offset the financial burden still cost more to invest in and implement then "driving" with a leaky tire or a hummer or a suv.

It's close to $118 now. Remember way back last Christmas in the business forum where I said $100 was on its way here, and fast?


Believe it or not, this is healthy, the commodities bubble going up as it is. Here is why:

Americans are:

• Paying attention to Sunday coupons now, and carefully selecting what they buy
• Consolidate trips to save gas
• Hybrids are no longer vehicles for flamboyant gay guys and whacko environmentalist lesbians who worship the Indigo Girls; considering the tax credit for them is still out there and their resale value on these cars is very, very good. You are stupid for not considering buying a high MPH vehicle right now if your present vehicle is about to give up the ship.
• Americans are no longer looking at super-commuting as a "lifestyle choice", but more like a hardship which has to be endured. This will place downward pressure on home prices on those small clusters of homes which are located far, far away from jobs. i.e., Cotesville is not a good suburb to be in if your job is down in Philadelphia.
• Not against moving back into the cities. This was unthinkable back in the 1980s and early 90s. The downtowns of most sunbelt cities in the last 6 years have condo towers and new residential development. People are wanting to move back in to the cities to be close to work. The big water-hungry yard isn't as important as it once was. A lot of households think a 1/2 acre yard is easier to handle than a 4 acre. Sometimes it's better for your family if you DO walk around and meet other people, than hide out in your enclave.
• The savings rate amongst Americans has finally gone back to zero. Maybe next year, it will become positive. [How on Earth did we thing a negative savings rate was a good idea???] According to Men's Health this month, in 1985 $11 out of every $100 dollars a man earned went to savings. Today, it's $0 out of every $100. How about we shoot for $1 this year, guys?
• Despite what people thought after SEPTA raised its fares, SEPTA is enjoying the largest passenger volume boosts it hasn't seen since the 1970s. Good news for transit.
• The economy is finally a #1 issue in the election cycle. It hasn't been this series an issue since 1980... way back when energy prices were about the same level of pain as they are right now.

If there is any time for Americans to figure out how to develop, invest in and deploy alternative sources of energy, this is the best time now that it's in the forefront of everyone's minds; and the days of cheap energy seem to be gone.

At some point, the commodities bubble will burst quickly without much fanfare. This is because consumables don't appreciate forever and they are a poor way of storing value over very long periods of time (even gold!). Commodities are vehicles for temporarily parking your money during the beginning of a down cycle, but at some point there will be classes of investments which will be attractive enough that investors will unpark their money and run out of the Chicago Board of Trade to invest in something that will appreciate better than inflation. The herd has been stampeding towards corn, wheat, oil, copper and gold lately--but as soon as we see several weeks of stagnant price changes in commodities, you will see a massive drop in value as investors get upset and leave.

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Buh-bye.

I agree with your general point, but don't necessarily share the suny outlook. One only needs to read this article to appreciate the possibility the commodity prices may not eventually setle down:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080421/...d_qTNFr4gDW7oF

With China and India on the rise for the forseeable future, there will be a constant, unrelenting pressure for energy and food. High energy prices are here to stay, and on some level it's a good thing. It'll put financial pressure for on middle and upper-middle class Americans to live a more sustainable lifestyle. However it's probably going to hit the poor pretty hard. There's no room to adjust your lifestyle if you're barely getting buy as it is. Higher food and transportation costs are really going to smack the lower classes pretty hard.

On the other hand, maybe this means more people continue to move back to the cities, ride public transportation and contribut to the tax base. Or so I hope.

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"What's up Pops!" - Lebron James to Bush 41.