[RuneLancer]

The truth is, milk is the most efficient fuel there is. Milk-powered cars could go for days without requiring a refill (and everyone knows that milk is good for growing cars!)

However, there's a very big cover-up conspiracy that jacks up milk prices along with gas prices so that gas always remains less expensive. Think about it: would you want to own a milk-powered car when it costs more than gas? I don't think so! Pure genius on their part, really.

It's all true. Really. Happened to a cousin of a friend of mine's dog's aunt's pet rock's father. :P
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Endless Saga
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[biggerUniverse]

If it's of interest, http://www.evproduction.org has resources for the DIYs. Unfortunately, OSCar died long ago. Also, http://www.nrel.gov/ has lots of interesting resources.

Barring major political discussion, China and other World Bank nations are buying US Dollars to backroll its deficit. Although it would never happen, if the World Bank were to dump Dollars in favor of the Euro, the US would spiral into a deep depression. You're right, we aren't rich. We're barely stable. Urging China to unpeg the Yean was a big gamble for the US that we're not likely to win.

Anyway, I'm debating retrofitting my car as a hybrid or EV. It'd cost up to US$6000, but that's way cheaper than a new car.
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We are on the outer reaches of someone else's universe.

[tcaudilllg]

[Mokona]

For comparison, here in the UK the government puts a lot of duty on petrol bringing the price way up by comparison:
£0.90 per litre (unleaded)
-> about £3.40 a gallon
-> around $6.00 a gallon at the current exchange rate

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4133430.stm

So think yourselves lucky :-)

Of course, I don't own any form of motorised transport, so it doesn't really affect me...

[tcaudilllg]

You also have socialized medicine. :) And your nation is much smaller. MUCH smaller. To get around in the states, where there is no overcrowding at all and there is very little impetus for alternative transportation, one MUST drive at least five or six miles to get from a decent home to one's workplace. Although this is not the case in the inner cities, in the much larger rural/suburban America this is the case every day.

Also, I should mention that you do pay fares in Britain, right? So it's like, for us, seeing our daily transport fares go waaaaaay up. :)

The big deal is, it's going up so FAST. Like there is nothing controlling it. It's like the government does not have any level of control over the economy, and has no prospects for one in the future.

[biggerUniverse]

[ThousandKnives]

The cost of gas is embedded in the cost of milk, and every other product you buy in the store for that matter.

The worst part about rising gas prices is not what you pay at the pump or even what you pay for your heating oil. It's what you pay for all the goods that have to be trucked from the farm 1000 miles away all the way to your corner convenience store. Truckers need to pay the same ridiculous gas prices you do (diesel usually tracks pretty even with 87 octane unleaded).

But that's not something most people like to think about.

[tcaudilllg]

[tcaudilllg]

Crazy. Gas to reach $4.

Intolerable. Completely intolerable.

Depression seems imminent.

[biggerUniverse]

And? Recessions aren't bad things. They create a sustainable, long-term average growth that is more moderate.

Just watch for it, and plan for it. Buy a hybrid, or invest in hydrogen.
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[tcaudilllg]

With what money? The very idea of a recession is that the availability of money contracts!

[LeoDraco]

Which is bad why? In America, we have these institutions --- funny story --- which help regulate what we perceive to be this mystical facet of our capitalistic society called, "The Business Cycle". The first institution is the more historic one: Congress. They have this ability to tax constituents --- which, as opposed to our current government's thinking, is actually a good thing --- and spend money --- which, obviously, is how the government can provide those pesky public goods that nobody else would logically provide. Unfortunately, due to the way our government is set up, members of Congress tend towards lowering taxes and raising spending --- during portions of the business cycle, when we have hit the trough of the cycle, and the economy needs a kick in the pants, this is a good thing; otherwise, it really is not.

So, enter the second institution that our country has constructed: the Federal Reserve. The Fed has various powers it can enact, but its chief ability is to affect interest rates; when it perceives that we have inflationary activity in the economy, it attempts to rectify matters by raising those rates. This has a cooling affect on the economy. Depending upon how you want to look at it, they ideal is to flatten the business cycle: lessen the economic peaks, and fill in those economic valleys. Our current (that is, for about the past 20 to 30 years) mode of thinking is to minimize the difference between these two extrema; while the economy is not allowed to overheat too badly --- which is good, in theory, as it keeps the value of our money relatively stable --- it also means that we should not hit the depressions that occurred during the 19th century. (Roughly every 20 years, from about 1800 up to the 1930s, our country experienced a series of "panics", wherein the GoodTimes stopped, money stopped flowing, and Galbalans the country over preached DoomAndGloom. Since then, regardless of one's political ideaology, the best that can be said is we have avoided such "disastrous" occurences, and, if one would like to make the claim, prevented radical factions --- i.e. Socialists/Communists --- from overthrowing the government. Note! In order to prevent the establishment of a different economic order, we had to sacrifice certain liberties we previously had. Depending upon one's viewpoint, that is either good or bad. For instance, the government now takes a more active role in the stock market, something it previously (i.e. prior to 1930) did not.)

For the past six months --- or so --- the Fed has been raising the interest rates by about a quarter point each time, in the hope to avoid inflation. This is an instance of the government doing something. You will also note that, ipso facto, Congress cannot affect the federal budget more than once a year. We also have this silly war thing going on, and Religious infringements upon the Constitution, and other such matters that are more important to those Republicans in Washington.

The ultimate advice that a member of this (Great? heh.) State can make to another is this: if you do not care for the way the country is being ran, vote for somebody else. Be proactive. Instead of bitching and moaning about what you perceive to be problems on a forum that will --- ultimately --- not result in any societal change, do something more beneficial: write your Congressman/Senators. While the probability is high that your letter will not be read by anything more than an intern, supposedly, you will increment a counter for an issue somewhere.

Oh, and the DoomAndGloom thing? A bit tired, I think.
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"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake

[tcaudilllg]

I never said "Doom and Gloom". I said "an entire nation is completely gripped by something they have no control over, and they are panicky." Now there are even more things they feel they have no sense of control over than before.

New Orleans is destroyed. Wow. And the ocean is literally spilling into it. The entire ocean. Sure, they'll get it under control, but not before the nonexistence of the port city becomes evident in the economy. Nevermind that no one in the city outside of the government can work.

You'll be happy to note the hospitals are being evacuated. Relief workers are calling on the president to declare martial law. (in the city)

There does appear to be a silver lining. I see the immediate ratification of the Kyoto treaty on the horizon.

[tcaudilllg]

A political realignment of American conservatism and the Republican party appears imminent. Even the fatcats are facing ruin. Gas is higher today than at any time in American history.

[RuneLancer]

Yet the whole "ruins and lethal price inflations! Economical catastrophy!" isn't a portent of glood and doom, nor were you getting at any negative situation affecting the world at large?

Don't get me wrong, regardless of LeoDraco's comment on gloom and doom, I do think that is pretty much the case for the residents of NO. I was quite stunned when I saw an aerial view of a residential sector with rooftops barely sticking out of the water. That is, quite frankly, fucked up.
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An OpenGL RPG in the making. Now with new hosting!