Oil reached more record highs last week. Hopefully, that gave pause to the folks who drive to their jobs at the U.S. Commerce Department, where they are enjoined to ignore the spiraling price of gas when calculating inflation.
"Despite official CPI (Consumer Price Index) figures claiming 'inflation' at only 3% to 4%, most of us who work and live in the real world recognize that cost escalation is rampant virtually everywhere," he wrote. "These costs are affecting nearly all businesses that make and use stuff. The folks making up the CPI figures obviously don't use stuff.
"If you're wondering where I'm going with all of this: One acre grows about 2,000 lbs. of hops. Hops prices have risen nearly tenfold recently due to these higher fuel costs, plus a bit of nasty weather in Europe. . . . The really demoralizing downside to high fuel costs is that your local brew pub is going to ding you, on average, an extra 25 cents for a pint of beer."
AND for everything else we buy! I am convinced they are cooking the books regarding inflation over at the Commerce Department.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/Four...
The CPI is a fraud! It has been manipulated and distorted for years.
"...if you were to peel back the changes that were made in the Consumer Price Index (the inflation rate) going back to the Carter years, you'd see that the CPI would now be 3.5 to 4 percent higher -- meaning that, because of lost CPI increases, Social Security checks would be 70 percent greater than they currently are."
Harper's Magazine for May, 2008
More: "...The real numbers, to most economically minded Americans, would be a face full of cold water. Based on the criteria in place a quarter century ago, today's U.S. unemployment rate is somewhere between 9 and 12 percent; the inflation rate is as high as 7 or even 10 percent; economic growth since the recession of 2001 has been mediocre, despite a huge surge in the wealth and incomes of the superrich, and we are falling back into recession. If what we have been sold in recent years has been delusional 'Pollyanna Creep,' what we really need today is a picture of our economy ex-distortion. For what it would reveal is a nation in deep difficulty not just domestically but globally."
Higher gas prices are going to end up meaning higher prices for pretty much everything, not just beer.
Pretty soon you'll be lucky to afford milk and bread for your kids.
More conservation, smaller cars, more fuel efficient cars, something that some can remember back to 1973 and 1974, when gas prices went up and then the embargo.
Congress even lowered the speed limits in response.
I just again saw the same 70mpg car from Wildfire Motors parked in front of a small apartment building on Navarre next to GFS (past Krogers?). We need to see a LOT more of those. They are only $5700 new, so you can't claim they aren't affordable. True, they are small, but you can't get the appropriate gas efficiency with large vehicles.
Are you talking about the "car" that has only 3 wheels and is technically certified by the EPA as a "street motorcycle"?
I suppose it would be fine for a single person who only drove him/herself around town, but I wouldn't put my kids in it. Doesn't even come with seat belts...yikes.
I'd imagine that the reason you don't see more of those around is for the same reservations I have.
(Not I'm against changing habits to conserve fuel...I've even been making the work commute from the 'burbs to downtown Toledo via TARTA. But the car you mentioned might not work for a lot of people.)
Oh how I long for the days of these...
Those were the days.
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Just the KAT, thinking out loud again.
