Over the next few days, it is my hope to be able to write some interesting content. That being said, we’ll start off with the easiest.
On the Economy:
I keep hearing about how the economy is slow and how gas prices are going up, up, up, and how we have to relinquish control of foreign oil here at home in the USA to help drive prices for gas back down. One line that keeps creeping up into the news is drilling in ANWAR and piping the gas down to the conventional USA. I was against it for a while based on, like any good greeny, the idea of killing off Wildlife Reserve in remote Alaska. Then gas prices shot up and all of the sudden, I was all about taking only 3 miles of it to get the oil. Do it, do it now! I screamed as I choked on my own vomit when oil was a staggering $107 a barrel and gas was $3.00 a gallon. But then, something happened. I was mentally introduced to economics, and intelligent thinking, and I came up with 2 mind bogglingly simple problems revolving around this way of thinking:
1. Why open up Alaska and lay thousands of miles of piping for oil to travel when there’s places closer to the conventional 48 states? What’s the problem of destroying one Wildlife Reserve over another, if you’re going to do it at all?
2. And this is the big reason, and one I have to wonder why there hasn’t been much talk of… How exactly do people propose to keep the oil we drill for and recover IN the United States for much less than what it’s selling for on the world market? Let’s face it, people sell to the high bidder in all of their respective industries. If someone is willing to buy a glass of lemon-aid from a kid’s stand for $5 a glass, why would the kid say “Oh, no, it’s only 25 cents!” I can’t even begin to imagine the outrage when the Government opens up ANWAR, which starts producing oil, only the make the oil companies richer. Chaos would ensue as gas prices rise further. Fun!
But it doesn’t stop at big bad oil. It continues on to the next thing you’re undoubtedly sick of reading about: Food prices. I mean, seriously. What. The. Fuck. Happened. I’m pretty sure the prices at the stores are on a rotating dialer. I blink and the prices of cereal are $6 a box. I’m not even kidding, either. I know corn is expensive because the powers that be think it’s a great idea to take away food for fuel in a terribly unstable economy, but come on, $6 to be able to feed a kid (or yourself) the equivalent of a bowl of sugar? I’ve seen everything else go up by a lot as well. It’s beginning to come down to not putting myself above shopping at Wal-Mart for cheap groceries.
Ok, but even so, with the higher prices, all I hear about on CNN or MSN or the local news is how people are spending close to $160 a week on groceries whereas a year ago, they’d only be spending around $70. Food prices just can’t be that different, so I have to wonder what these people are buying. My grocery spending fluctuates so much I couldn’t begin to give an average, but I do know I’ve walked out of a store carrying no less than 8 bags including milk and bread for less than $50. Other times, I can go to Costco and spend over $120 on 6 things. It all comes down to how one shops, really, but I can’t get over these people who can’t afford $1.50 for eggs. If you’re living so close to the edge that an extra $25 a month for groceries, or heck, $200 in expenses will bring you to your knees financially, maybe it’s time to take a serious look at your living situation. I understand that this is the USA, the grandfather of living in excess, but maybe it’s time to pay the piper.
