I always find myself to be a "middle of the road" kinda guy. I'm not that old, but I do have recollections of filling up for less than 90 cents a gallon. Ah, the good old days. In the states, we've had a great run of it with influencing our oil prices over the years. Looks like it's coming to an end, at least for the near term.

As Superfreak put it, we are the result of our own luxury. I drive a Chevy Avalanche. Yep, I get 16 miles to the gallon. I knew this when I bought it. Yes, I'm part of the problem. However, I'm not giving up my truck! lol

Whenever I hear people bitch about how much gas costs (and yes, I find myself doing it at times), I like to point out some very interesting things. First, oil is wonderful. It has helped our civilization advance quite a bit. (yes, I know I'll get tons of PM's about the environmental side of oil consumption...) I read how happy many of the Pixies people are that they can fly across oceans and see people and places they've wanted to. We couldn't do that without oil. period.

As I said before, we in the US have been lucky and not had to pay the prices others in the world have. But those of us that complain about paying $2 per gallon of gasoline to fill our own superficial needs don't think twice to pay over $1 for a 20 oz bottle of water (for you non-math majors, 16.9 ounces is roughly half a liter). Doing the math (hold on, I have to take off my shoes for this), that's approximately $3.20 per gallon of water. WATER! The most abundant resource on earth. Something we can get by turning on a faucet.

Oil has to be discovered, pumped from the ground, refined, shipped all over the world, distributed, blah, blah, blah. and we think $2 is a rip.

And I won't even get into the $3 a gallon for milk!


Okay, I've ranted enough for one post.

__________________