more politics

[mamajoan]

techn0goddess has a nice post about other Republican scandals going on at the moment in case you're getting tired of snickering nastily about the Rove thing. ;)

Also, I was reading an article yesterday in the local rag that basically talked about the "hidden" costs of rising gas prices. To wit, when gas costs more, it's more expensive to haul goods from place to place. The example they used was blueberries. If you live in Pennsylvania and the blueberries at your local supermarket were grown in Maine, it costs more now for your supermarket to get those berries; so they will start charging you more for them. And the same goes for everything: not just food but furniture, toiletries, misc household stuff -- anything that typically gets hauled from production locations to stores via truck, is going to start costing more and more.

And the more I think about this, the more it upsets me. It's like when I read that the cost of living in the US is rising at a much faster rate than the average worker's salary. So, if you're like me, you're running to catch up all the time -- as time goes on, you're still making the same amount of money, but everything you buy costs more, so you fall farther and farther behind even though you aren't doing anything different. That just makes me feel so damn hopeless, about my own situation and about the country in general. When does this insanity end? How rich do the rich have to get before us poor and close-to-poor will rise up and say, "Enough!"?

And don't EVEN get me started on the headline from today's paper, saying that "Americans' willingness to pay more for fuel drove oil prices to a record high...." Willingness?????? Dude, I am so not "willing" to pay more for fuel. I filled up my car this morning and it cost me TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!!!!! That is fucking RIDICULOUS! Six months ago I could have filled up my car TWICE for that. This is a *severe* impact on my quality of life -- but willing? NO. What I am, is fucked. I am over a fucking barrel. My office is twenty miles away from my home. What are my options?
A: Quit my job. Yeah, that's a solution to my financial woes right there.
B: Move closer to the office. Not gonna happen. Aside from anything else, that would cut me off from my support system, which would have an even longer-term negative effect.
C: Carpool. Can't do it because no coworkers live near me who can coordinate with my schedule.
D: Take public transportation. No such thing in this area; the nearest train station to the office is 1.5 miles away.

Meanwhile George Bush and his cronies are fat, dumb, and happy capitalizing on the LIES that they spewed to get us to go to war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and meanwhile they're cozying up to the oil barons from the country that had EVERYTHING to do with 9/11 -- cozying up and letting this guys get away with murder, not just four-year-old murder, but daily murder as they force the oil prices up and up to line their pockets even more, while I sit here scraping the bottom of the barrel just to buy diapers for my child. These assholes Bush, Cheney, et al. WANT oil prices to keep going up; it makes their Saudi friends happy, keeps us peons down, and keeps them in power.

So don't fucking tell me that MY "willingness" to pay more for gas is to blame for rising oil prices. DON'T YOU EVEN FUCKING TRY.

Comments

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

I think they mean willingness by the decrease in number of people taking mass transit and the lack of demand for hybrids (which is totally bogus, if you ask me, hybrids are flying out of the dealers).

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the world America! The rest of us have been paying over $25 a tank for some years now. In this country, the pump price is begged to the cost of a barrel in Sing, which means that $35 a tank is not far away. The big difference between this country and yours is that the major beneficiary of higher prices is the government, whereas in the US it is the oil companies.

One solution to your financial woes would be to send me your mailing address.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't realize your gas was so pricey too. How does the Aussie dollar compare to the American?

Oops, I never replied to your email, did I? Sorry!! My address info is here.

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

One Australian dollar is worth 75c American. Gas costs AUD $1.04 per litre = US 78c/L = USD $3.78 / US gallon I think.

Filling up my 50 Litre tank costs 50 x AUD $1.04 = AUD $52 = USD $39.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

D: Take public transportation. No such thing in this area; the nearest train station to the office is 1.5 miles away.

I'm sorry but I must comment on this. You live near where I live. I moved here because, after living in non-San Francisco Northern California and Atlanta, I needed to live someplace I didn't need to have a car, and the Boston area is one of the few remaining places where an live without a car. Which I have done for five years.

I have not owned nor driven a car since 1997, and I never will again.

I'm just confused because you say there is no such thing as public transportation in "this area," yet I live in this area and I take it every day.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I meant the area where I work, which is Acton, a very suburban suburb. The options for people who live in Acton and work in the Boston area are pretty good; you can drive to the commuter rail, park there, take the train into the city, then walk or get a subway/bus to your office.

But if your commute is the opposite -- from within the city to the suburb -- the options are basically nil, because there's no way to get from the commuter-rail station to your office. Unless, I suppose, you bring a bike; but I'm not going to do that with a toddler along!

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Ah.
I just refuse to work in places I can't get to on my own. So Acton...yeah, I've heard of it...but I'd never go there.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Sure, that attitude works if you can FIND a job closer in. But when you're desperate, you take what's available. And the job is fantastic in so many other ways ... sigh.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm desperate. I still won't work in the burbs. There's enough companies hiring people here in town that I don't see any need to go away from the Red Line.

[nonethewiser.livejournal.com]

One additional thing, though, that you haven't considered, is the very scary thought that the blueberries you're eating in Pennsylvania have come from Maine! The western world is far, far to attached to having everything all the time, no matter how far we have to ship it, and I think that's a trend that's going to have to reverse very, very soon. For the good of all of us!

[white-and-nrdy.livejournal.com]

So many places I could go with this... :) (All of them agreeing with you, by the way)

More and more train tracks are getting torn up and/or disused these days. More and more semis are on the road these days. Trucks have mostly replaced trains for large scale transportation of goods. Railroad engiens consume a lot of fuel, of course, but then they pull a train a mile or two long full of stuff behind them. Can't do that on the highway (and I wouldn't want to try and pass one of those in anything slower than a McLaren F1 :) ) So transportation costs are tied directly into diesel costs. Of course, the the companies aren't going to cover the increase out of the kindness of their hearts (they don't have them), so they get passed onto us. So we pay more for gas, for blueberries, for everything.

Someday, the oil's going to run out. It's not like you'll wake up one morning and *poof* it's all gone, but it'll reach a production peak, and then start to decline. Demand will rise, because in our society it always does, but supply will go down instead of up. Prices will skyrocket, making the situation you're talking about many, many times worse, to the point where I think it'll shatter our oil based civilization.

For even more happy thoughts like these, I recommend The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann, among other books...

"Willingness"

[techn0goddess.livejournal.com]

I think part of what is behind the talk in the press about what price people are willing to pay is based on the assumption that people do a fair amount of leisure/inefficient/optional driving. If the amount of gas (in gallons) sold this month is approximately the same as it was this time last year, then people have not reduced their driving, and are thus judged to be willing to pay the going price per gallon.

I'm not convinced this analysis is all that accurate. How far back are they going when they look at gas consumption? Prices have been up for a couple of years, so people probably have already cut back on their driving. If you pretty much only drive where you really need to go to get to work, childcare, and buy groceries, what choice do you have over spending $2.50/gallon versus $4.00?