Sunday, April 10, 2005
When will high gasoline prices make a serious impact on Bush's approval rating? Have you seen the price of gas? Of course you have. It's affecting everybody at the pump and beginning to cause prices of goods to rise. Yet Bush isn't being held to account. In the 1970's Carter was pilloried when gas prices shot up. Back then there was rationing and long gas lines. Is the public less riled when the price is sky high, but still available? And without waiting? That seems to be the difference. Still, it's a puzzle why there hasn't been more political fallout. RELATED: gaspricewatch.com for a nationwide perspective, losangelesgasprices.com for Los Angeles. NOTICE: We are having trouble with Blogger again. Even the 'restore post' feature doesn't seem to be working. (It was supposed to put a pending post into a cookie should the connection fail.) Thus, the irregular posting schedule.
posted by Quiddity at 4/10/2005 10:43:00 PM
6 comments
My theory is that when facing rising gas prices, the American consumer sees no alternative. They think the government cannot or should not do anything about this - having been well trained by the corporate media.
I think we will see no real action until the price gets to $3.00/gal, at which point we will see sharp drops in sales of autos & trucks, a significant drop in leisure travel, and a drop off in sales at shopping malls and fast food drive-ins. That will lead the government to act, or at least to give the appearance they are acting.
Then again, maybe they are reading Rolling Stone
Three reasons: (1) today's price in constant dollars is still lower that in Carter's time; (2) the percentage runup in price hasn't been as great (or as fast); and most important, (3) there are no lines.
It's already $3.00 a gallon in Humboldt County, Northern Californiia. And all theae macho men just bought those huge Ford trucks.
It's already $3.00 a gallon in Humboldt County, Northern Californiia. And all theae macho men just bought those huge Ford trucks.
There hasn't been a panic (yet) because the voices on the zombie's televisions are couching things as being "temporary" or "a result of the war on terror" or any number of half-assed lies.
Eventually the gears will start moving in the heads of the masses and they'll start looking at the monster parked in the driveway and picture feeding it $6.00 a gallon gas, $8.00, $10.00 a gallon gas and they will freak! They will be calling collection agencies themselves, begging them to "take this shit outta my driveway". When that happens, GM will fold. GM is holding *at the very least* 300 BILLION bucks worth of debt. That will kick the ass of our economy so hard that the dollar will be worth zip and we'll all be trading in gold, guns and grub.
You know why we went to war in Iraq in spite of how bad it made us look in the eyes of the world? It's because the clowns who are running us into the dirt have the real facts in front of them and the facts are? That our economy is ALREADY DEAD and they're counting on lies acting like "life support" whilst they grab as much power as they can before the world bursts into flame. Do yourself a favor: wake up and start stocking up! My suggestions would be canned goods, .22 ammo, junk silver, hand tools, sewing kits, sturdy shoes.....
Since you made your post, some polls have shown that people are cutting back on other purchases because of high gas prices. So it is having an effect.
Also, as one of your commenters noted, the price of oil in real terms hasn't reached the 1981 peak yet. I just read that oil would have to hit $80 a barrel to equal the price in real terms that it was in 1981.
I think the news media mistakenly believes this will all go away. And you don't have politicians railing about high gas prices. Big Oil owns the GOP, including the presidency, and the Democrats are, well, they're running true to form.
Make no mistake: This will cause a recession. Whether it's mild or serious remains to be seen. But the politicians and the pundits who believe this won't have an effect are either truly stupid or hacks shilling for the Bush White House.
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