So we reap what we sow. If you or your parents income is immovable and you or they, are financially secure for the rest of your lives then the term "Fixed Income" is totally irrelevant.

And, I am not sure that I have ever seen the term "Fixed Income" used in the context of, or relating to, people that are very well off.

Those widowed grandmothers out there who came from a generation that kept women at home will be happy to hear that they are being conned. Living off their husbands Social Security Check and possibly a reduced benefit retirement check from their husbands place of employment. It will surely comfort them to know that these higher prices are not going to create hardships for them. Or make them have to decide between meds or food.

It mattesr not, today, what decisions they may have made years ago. Today their income cannot be adjusted and today,...higher prices will have an impact on their quality of life.

 

It matters plenty what decisions they may have made years ago. They must live with it. Their fault, not mine or anyone else's.

 

For some, the decisions were made for them.

But, you have made your position very clear.

 

There's no nice way to put it, really. Capitalism is a game of 'screw them before they screw you'... Guess who's bitin' the pillow now.

Greenspan certainly didn't help the situation by printing way too much money and basically singlehandedly causing the subprime fiasco.

 

FTE_Ken - I think you got the cart before the horse here, at least partly. One reason oil is such a burden is the low-and-still-sinking dollar, which is caused by way too much borrowing from other countries by the US. Where is a large part of that borrowed money used? Imports - to buy high tech "non-necessities" such as large screen tvs from other countries.

This is the problem with an economy where the middle class only appears to be getting wealthier due to overused credit. The "great" US economy of the past few years has basically been a highly over-financed house of cards - payment is coming due now.

If you listened to the news last night, there's even the first rumblings of maybe seeing the dollar no longer being the currency of world business...

 

Those rumblings have been going on for quite some time now. OPEC has been wanting to switch to the euro for over a year now. If that happens, you can come to your own conclusions.

 

You are "right on the money" with this statement. The value of the dollar is falling more every day. WE ARE 9 TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT!




What do we have to show for it.

 

Believe me, I am not sayiing that people don't have limits to how much they are able to make or do make. What I was saying is that the elderly are always said to be living on "fixed income". A better term might be to call it what it is....low income. But even that wouldn't account for the retired couples who have low or no income but have lots of assets.

 

High gas prices are a hardship for people who spend a large portion of their income on fuel. But higher interest rates would be a catastrophe for an economy running on borrowed money.

Most of that money comes from OPEC. A few small countries, producing almost half of the world's oil. These nations have more oil revenues than they can invest in their own economies. This money supports the American. Cheap credit from oil-producing nations.

The world has plenty of oil. What we don't have is enough money. Bankers tinker with interest rates to keep the economy growing at a healthy pace. To keep borrowing costs low, they need more money. Simple supply and demand. As long as speculators can keep oil prices high, oil revenues will be high, and our Saudi and Kuwaiti partners in the global banking system will have plenty of cash for our bankers.

Banks are happy, oil companies are happy, politicians are happy. But all this borrowing and printing of money has sunk the value of a dollar. If you got a tax cut and an executive salary then you came out ahead. If you work for wages or live on a fixed income, then you lose.

 

The bankers at the top, who lived through nearly the same situation with the savings and loan problems in the 80s, played just as big, if not bigger, hand in this. Based on the history they should have learned from, their part in this was nothing less than criminal, overlooking bad loans and ignoring common sense.

How quickly we forget all the praise once heaped on Greenspan, and burn him at the stake now. He made some mistakes, but plenty of others did too.

What about all the idiots (and any society has a lot of them) who closed on loans they should never had gotten? Each of them, as individuals, are guilty, and now those who didn't make such stupid decisions are asked to bail them out.

 

Much of it comes from OPEC, but most of it comes from elsewhere - the Far East and Europe.

This in no longer a given. There's much evidence that it's different
now that in the past. Shortages now are often caused by competition for limited resources, not by OPEC closing a few valves. China and India are huge comsumers of oil compared to a few years ago.

And this is not just oil - seen the price of copper or aluminum lately?


I originally started this thread asking for opinions as to whether the state we're in is different from the same old same old "shortage, crank the price handle a little" thing. Here's a link which says it is:

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/11/the-age-of-oil-.html

I'm not sure about the credibility of the info at this link, but it's pretty alarming! (FWIW - the US is a member of the International Energy Agency)

 

hey guys lets do something about instead of complain about it!!!

lol

 

What????? Where do we start?

 

i dont know its what captain ken said

 

I heard on the local news this morning that, When the price of a barrel of oil hits $1.60
The pres. will put a ban on driving Sundays. OOOKAAAY.