$4 gas... question?

Steve, being in construction I can relate to to your situation. I am living of proceeds from the sale of my cabin (my dream, briefly come true). I was just making it a few years ago, but with wage and bennifit cuts I am falling short anywhere from $500 to $1500 each month depending on how many weekends I am willing to put into my own business while working full time during the week. I am thankfull to have the resources but it hurts to see what I thought would provide for my retirement melt away from situations beyond my control. I see political decisons as the major cause of our current economic situation, it motivates me to keep these discussions going. Like obama says, elections have consequences. It amazes me that people vote for those that wish to punish job/wealth creators.

I also know god has a plan, but sometimes I wish he would let me in on the big picture.

On the bright side business for both my full time job and my own business seems to be picking up. I hope you are seing it also. Happily I am doing some of the best work of my flooring career, but sadley I am being compensated the lowest amount for it.

Doesnt it make you feel good after paying all those taxes that the stimulus money (that you know we will have to pay for, only goes to government union projects.)

Hang tough, my thoughts are with you.

Dave.

Hansel wrote: Ernest, I hear you on the "why give money to useless government programs." I think you make a legitimate point, though I wonder if you could provide some more specifics so that we could assess its merits further.

Well, I think a good place to start is a 20% reduction in every gvt program from A-Z. When I say cut I mean reduction in actual dollars going to the agency. I DO NOT mean a 20% reduction in the increase, as a politition usually means. If you dont think the postal service, dept of agriculture, dept of energy, etc has 20% waste they can trim, then you haven't dealt with gvt very often. Sure, they are going to say old people will be eating dogfood, women will be getting abortions in motels, etc. But, when you are trillions of dollars in the hole what are your options? Let the whole thing crash, or cut hard and save some of good stuff? I would also start calling programs what they are: Amtrak-government train; Public school- government school, etc. Where in our constitution did it say anything about trains and schools? Let the free market decide wether trains, planes or cars are most economical.

I dont understand why you, as a young person, is not concerned about this debt? Unless you are planning to be in the ruling class (gvt) your quality of life is going down, and most of your hard earned wealth will be confiscated to pay for other peoples bad decisions. You really need to read "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. A quick glance over the Constitution might be nice as well.

The difference between a centralized economy (socialist, or gvt run) and the free market is information utilization. In a free market system, the owner of the business RECEIVES information from multiple sources and makes decisions for his market based on input of information. The market determines the best use of resources. A gvt beauracrat DOES NOT receive information from his customers, he does not have to be accountable to the market. He attempts to determine the best distribution of resources, usually influenced by politics, for multiple marketplaces. Information/knowledge is going backwards! What people need or want in WI, will be very different than what they want or need in SC. The free market is millions of coordinated transactions (linked like a chain) that no one person or group of people could EVER be able to replicate with any consistency.

all i can say is i purchsed 6 more silver dollars 2 weeks ago at 42.00 apiece, which jumped to 53.00 lately....handed thenm to the wife and said put them away

News tonight reports analysts predicting gas down 50 cents by summer, Woohoooo! Obama has been saying he could not effect the high gas prices, how long do you think before he takes credit for them dropping?

Looks like $3.50 a gallon is what summer prices will be.
Prices escalated from what they could be has nothing to do with the president.   Issues in the middle east are the reasons.