"...the financial squeeze of gas prices>>>"

I saw someone buying a $3.50 cup of coffee at a coffee shack while I filled up on $2.99 gallon midgrade. It's still too cheap. Unless you are lower income and payment straped.

I think we could have riots here in the US. I want to look as poor as possible, an old beater car that smells bad and some crappy looking clothes!

I don't see your logic.

Did you only buy one gallon. Did the coffee drinker buy 10 to twenty cups of coffee each day.

Cheap is relative to other options and long term pricing.

Do you need it to make money and function in society is another question.

I like ice cream. A local grocery has it for 5dollars a 1/2 gallon. Two miles roundtrip. I also need several other items. Sams sells the same ice cream for 3dollars a half gallon. I am buying two so thats a 4 dollar savings. The trip will require one gallon of gas for a 24 mile round trip for my vehicle. This savings more than allows for me to pay for the gas to drive my car. I will save more buy making he longer trip, because other items will also offer savings.

I have used more gasoline, but I have saved money.

thats a problem

Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria

"Cheap is relative to other options and long term pricing."

Cheap is relative to income, period. If I make $10,000 per year, then gas at X price is ten times more painful to me than if I made $100,000 per year.

For most people in the U.S., given their incomes, gas is still givaway cheap.

RC
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom

Actually, it's more than ten times as painful, because in both cases your necessary, fixed costs (food, heating, etc.) are the same - so you have to subtract that first before comparing. If you need, say, 5000$, your disposable income is 95000 vs 5000 - 19 times as much.

if you make 10k or 100k you just have to find a way to live within your means. shoe leather(er.... i mean shoe vinyl) is waaaaaay cheaper than gasoline.
of course our federal government doesnt have a clue about living within it's means and maybe that is the source of the problem.

The point is that as the price of fuel rises then so rises the cost of everything else.

Pretty soon that CUBIC MILE doesn't mean much for we will all be digging groundhogs out of the banks for food and making shoeleather soup.

In case it's not known there are huge number of folks on FIXED INCOMES!!!!

As fuel(oil.energy.whatever)goes..so goes our economy. Its far far more than something to drive to work. Its life. Its "death on a stick". Your lifestyle means more than driving. Its electricity,food,medicine,fertilizer and ...........

Airdale-screw bicycles..I'm getting back to horses. Yeeehaaawwww
(or mules maybe....giddap Sal)they make such nice road apples..so handy you can even cook with em. Mules is where its at.

We are one cubic mile of muleflesh from freedom.
(sorry,couldn't help myself RC)