As long as people keep voting for Democrats and Republicans, it's going to be nothing but status quo for the foreseeable future.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Each party sucks up to their own set of billionaire corporations. For Republicans, it is clearly oil. For Democrats, it has been the billionaire AgriCorps, the same people that got a mandate to replace MTBE with ethanol while at the same time getting subsidies for the cost and pollution inefficient corn ethanol production.

That depends on the bike.

My city's school district contracts out with the public transportation to get kids to and from school. The kids get on or off at regular bus stops (or the train stations for the metro rail).

In a number of communities, living even 1.5 miles from the school makes the kids eligible to ride the school bus.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

That is done through the balance of supply and demand, price speculation is used to lie about the demand and make it appear that the demand is different than what it really is (in this case, higher) in order to adjust the price away from the free market price. Ergo, we are adjusted away from the free market price and so not in a free market.

How does cooking your own food and having no debt reduce your need for gasoline?

I do all of those too (for the most part, I still have a student loan, but that's almost gone, be debt free by this summer). There is still a baseline of fuel that you need to use to get to and from work each day, to and from the grocery store. You can only save so much before you hit a wall.

Actually, the people most hurt are those that make minimum wage, that can't afford that 35k car and are driving in a $500 1988 toyota (because that's all they can afford).


The nearest station to me (that gets it's gas not from US or Britian) is 13 miles from where I live, and not on the way to work.

Yes it is, in a free market, too bad this isn't. Gas consumption drops in fall and winter (with a spike at thanksgiving and christmas), so by the free market, the price should also drop. This year, the prices dropped during summer (when consumption was high), took off in fall (when consuption was low), dropped again in the time between TG and Christmas (when it should have shot up momentarily), than took off again through winter (when it should be at it's lowest of the year). That shows very clearly that the price of gas is not following consumption in the least and is not being dictated by the free market.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

So when have you not see gas stations all over town not within 2 to 5 cents of each other in prices?

In some places it is supposedly the law that they have to keep their prices within a certain number of cents of each other.

__________________
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

When I can, I try to make to Costco (only 6 miles past my work), their prices are usually about 15 cents cheaper, but so many people use it that you burn that much gas just waiting in line.

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Price speculation is used in all sectors of the economy to SPUR demand in addition to raise prices, it is an element of the free market. It doesn't just measure demand, it also analyzes supply.


Right, you need gasoline, you don't need credit cards, a big screen tv, or a fancy car, and A LOT of people making $35k a year have all of those things. Do the math on this:

Gas is $2 a gallon, you have 16 gallons in your sedan's tank = $32
Gas is $3 a gallon, you have 16 gallons in your sedan's tank = $48
Gas is $4 a gallon, you have 16 gallons in your sedan's tank = $64

Assuming you fill up once a week, the monthly price hike from $2 to $4 a gallon is $128. If you can't come up with $128 a month, you're doing something wrong. Higher gas prices irritate me just like the next guy, I like paying low prices, but it's something you need and certainly you can cut $128 from your budget to apply to gas. If you can't afford $128, it's time to get a second job or find a better first one.


The people making minimum wage also have the hourly flexibility to take on a second job, and can take public transit or walk. I lived well below the poverty line in college (I pretty much lived on rice and ramen), I managed to get to work and pay my bills....while going to five classes a semester, what's stopping other people? People must take responsibility for their actions and FIND A WAY TO SURVIVE, it's not hard if you play it smart. Made bad choices? ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES and MOVE ON.



And you choose to live where you live, there are alternatives, you simply didn't choose to exploit them.


That was true before global demand spiked as a result of Chinese, Indian, and South Korean modernization, now when America slows its consumption, those countries pick up the slack. You can't blame companies for selling their products, it's sort of their job.

You don't live in an insular economy anymore, you have to consider GLOBAL demand and GLOBAL pricing. Life's tough, but you've got to learn to survive. Americans have become fat and complacent and we've been overtaken in manufacturing and raw material exports. Our workers are overpaid because we've all got this idea in our heads that EVERYBODY should be rich, and that simply isn't possible. You're trying to defend a system that is indefensible using economic analysis that hasn't been in use since that idiot Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize.

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"Bring me that horizon".

Oh, puh-leeze! Everyone's "alternatives" are limited by what one can afford. Also, when you own a house, it isn't as easy to just pick up and move when circumstances change. My office is being moved within the year, which will double my commuting time. As long as the housing market remains as stagnant as it is now, my ability to move to be closer to the new office is likely to be iffy.

A consumer's alleged freedom is sometimes an illusion.

When used properly, not when exploited.

You're makeing a lot of assumptions about the poorer people. Many of the poor have kids, so they can't work 16 hours a day. They are finding a way to survive, by voting, making a difference, and making the oil companies stop gauging prices. They are trying to change the world, or do you feel that is shooting to high and they should just accept the world and change themselves instead?

As for me, I can't live any closer to my work, I don't have the money for the nice side of town and those fancy homes. But I managed to get lucky enough to get a job over there.

I don't think I even need to be in this debate, you are argueing against yourself. You began with saying that we should stop complaining and if we want the price to go down we need to stop consuming, now you shoot your own argument by saying "when America slows its consumption, those countries pick up the slack."

All the nations have the same consumption pattern. Unless the countries in the southern hemisphere began using a heck of a lot of oil (as their summer is our winter, so their driving season is our off-driving season), then those other countries are not picking up the slack. The price is going up even though demand goes down. That's not free trade, that's price gouging.

What are you talking about?

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides