Sadly,
Atrios misses the point when it comes to rising gas prices.
I'm very happy to be fortunate enough that circumstances allow me to not own a car.
I could say the same thing. Thank god I don't have to pay $3/gallon (and then some) at the pump! I live in the City precisely so I don't have to own and pay for all the expenses of a car. So, I don't have to worry about skyrocketing gas prices... right?
wrong.
...consider, for instance, the U.S. Postal Service.
The U.S. Postal Service: They deliver "for you." As the country's second-largest employer, with 700,000 employees, a fleet of 400,000+ trucks, and only one means of income (stamps), they are feeling the pinch.
Let's try our hand at a little math:
Let's consider the cost of a single gallon of gas increasing $0.15 in two weeks. If you have 400,000 trucks, that $0.15 increase amounts to a $60,000 increase in the cost of doing business, and for one gallon per truck.
Now let's say that a single truck (conservatively) uses 2.5 gallons a day. That's 12.5 gallons per week. That "little" $0.15 increase is now a $750,000 increase just in gasoline costs for a single week!
Are you beginning to understand?
USPS delivers more mail in one day than all the others carriers, UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc, deliver, combined... in an entire year. Consider that. They delivered 212 billion pieces of mail in 2005. What's more reliable than the mail carrier swinging by every weekday at the same time, no matter the circumstances?
And just how do you expect USPS to pay the bills as fuel costs have increased 40% in a single year? Another stamp increase? Most likely, yes, and that has to go through a whole review process an be approved by Congress. And who pays that extra cost? You, me, and everyone else. Think of how much mail (including junk) that you get every day. Now imagine that all those companies, all those industries (and that includes politics) have to pony up so many more cents to mail that one thing to you. Multiply that by whatever factor you want. And costs of stamps impact a lot more than just USPS - they affect costs of just about... well... everything.
You get the picture.
Better yet, tell me what exactly can get done in the United States without fuel.
<>Shopping? How do you think those groceries/clothes/electronics/etc. got there?
<>Dining out? You think they levitated the food from the farms?
<>Going somewhere for the weekend, maybe visit the family? With what means exactly?
Folks, there's no need to be worried about sounding alarmist - there's no other way to sound. As gas prices leap higher and higher every day, and the Bush Administration and the GOP offer no inkling of a solution, it won't matter if you ride a bike to your naturally-lit greenhouse where you use only hand tools to till the soil. You're going to get hit - and hard.
Our economy will not just "swoon" from these rising gas prices, it's going to get slammed. Even I, as someone who rides a bike, walks, or takes transit, am going to be paying, with higher transit ticket costs, more expensive groceries, and generally a higher cost of business.
Some additional random thoughts...
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A barrel of light sweet crude oil is trading at a record-high $75 per barrel and analysts expect the price to keep rising.
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The conspiracy theorist in me surmises that this is all part of the ongoing get-rich scheme the Bushies cooked up long ago for their buddies in the oil industry. In my screwy worldview, it's why we went into Iraq: not to secure long-term oil interests, but to throw the oil markets into chaos. And continuing along those lines it's why we're now doing a good bit of saber rattling with OPEC's 2nd-largest oil producer, Iran. I see it as all part of the same f'ed up beast... unless you've got a better theory.
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When are the Dems going to say we got our own plan? It's about time they said, "George, you've demonstrated, as with most things you do, that you have no credibility on energy policy. `Addiction to oil' doesn't even begin to describe the road you continue to lead our country down. We need a complete change of course, and that means providing tax breaks to people who purchase low-emission hybrid vehicles, raising the CAFE standards now, implementing high-occupancy vehicle lanes on Federal Highways nationwide, investing in aging transit systems, reducing mortgage deductions for homes with two or more indoor parking spaces, opening the national oil reserve for temporary price relief, and finally building renewable energy resources into our national legacy, with windmills, solar panels, and hydropower as the standard, and oil as the alternative."
