Your hard-earned gas money at work

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Ahh yes, good idea, that'll definitely work. Economies are being strangled by increased oil prices.

No doubt there is some greed involved in OPEC, oil companies, and corrupt government officials. However, gas prices skyrocketing in the US has a primary cause that goes beyond any of this, and almost no one wants to talk about it. Thing is, gas prices aren't going up that much. They have increased nearly 100% in the past three years or so in the US, but not nearly so drastically in countries that use the Euro. If you compare how the value of the dollar has fallen compared to the value of the Euro over the same period, you will see that this makes up the difference. Also, if you compare the price of gold over this same time, you realize that an ounce of gold would still buy the exact same amount of gas today as it would have back in the 90's when gas was in the <$1.50/gal range.

What this means is that gas prices aren't rising, the dollar is plummeting, and there are many other indicators. Soaring health care, college tuition, utilities, food. Everything is going up but our salaries. Our media conveniently won't talk about this, but OPEC themselves have pointed to the fall of the dollar as the reason for the rise of the price of oil. When asked about this at a press conference over gas prices recently, the white house spokesperson responded that she couldn't talk about the value of the dollar and directed them to the treasury dept. When pressed on the issue, she said she would lose her job if she did. Hmmm.

The inflation estimates of 2-4%/year they are reporting are absolute balderdash. The figures they use to calculate this ignore energy and food prices, health care and tuition... among everything that gets hit first by the collapsing dollar. It's difficult to say what the true rate is, but since everyone has to eat, grocery price increases of 35% over the past year are probably a good ballpark.

How to fix the problem? Well, that's why they don't want to talk about it. Since the early 1970's the dollar has been off the gold standard. (No coincidence that the late 70's gave us our first taste of double digit inflation and gas crisis). Simply put, our dollar is backed by nothing but faith in the US government. And if you look at how the US government has been running things for the past decade, it is small wonder the rest of the world has lost faith in it. But that isn't the reason the dollar is plummeting. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. The US is waging a futile war that costs hundreds of billions per year. As unpopular as that is, it would be political suicide to raise taxes to pay for it. So they just have the Fed print more money. And of course we all know the US government has a spending addiction like no other... their annual budget is $2 trillion dollars, and they STILL come up with shortfalls and have to borrow more money from the Fed, and China (to the rate of $2 billion/day). WTF?!

So more and more dollars are being dumped into circulation, but the number of consumers are still relatively the same. Production hasn't gone up at a rate that can begin to compensate. In fact, thanks to outsourcing and bad trade deals, most of our production no longer even takes place in the US. And with the ballooning supply of dollars and the lost faith in the morons running the show in Washington, the dollar is worth less and less every single day compared to actual goods. And there is no end in sight. It costs about 1.2 cents per bill to print US currency, regardless of whether it is a $1 or $100 note. At the rate we are going, it may well get to a point where that is all they are worth.

Throughout history, all fiat currencies (not backed by anything solid) eventually collapse. For an example of what that is like, look at what happened to Mexico. Remember when you could trade a $1 bill for thousands of pesos? If things don't change, and soon, they may be able to change one of those pesos in for thousands of dollars. I am not exaggerating.

The solution:
(1) Allow gold and silver to be used as a competing currency within the US, thereby providing a stable medium of exchange and savings
(2) Get rid of the Federal Reserve System which has created this mess (and is admittedly to blame for the Great Depression and the Hyperinflation of the 1970's)
(3) Renegotiate all the so-called free trade agreements from the past 15 years to protect American jobs and industry
(4) For the gas problem specifically, we don't need it. We don't need to wait around for new technology, and we don't need to start drilling off shore or in wild life reserves. Propane is a renewable fuel source that we have an abundance of here in the US. It is so clean burning that they already use it in indoor fork lifts without worry of pollution. As long as there is life on this planet, there will be propane. I say build pluggable hybrid electric cars, that use propane when a burst of acceleration or torque are needed (the way hybrids use gas now) and use the electric engine otherwise.
(5) For electricity, I still think solar is the way to go. They've made amazing breakthroughs in the past few years. And consider this, for less money than than the US government has already spent on the Iraq war, they could have placed solar panels on every single rooftop in America. I sh** you not.

If you're not furious yet, let me leave you with one final thought. Fiat currency is very much a gigantic pyramid scheme. When additional money is first printed, its added volume does not affect the total in circulation. It is only when it gets out into circulation that its weight is felt and the total volume decreases in value. Therefore, the companies and persons who first receive this new money get the maximum value out of it. Then as it is spread through the economy its value drops along with the rest of the money in circulation. And when this drops, all of your savings that you work for drop as well. When you consider who is getting first dibs on this new money, Haliburton and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex, along with government contractors that acquires their sweetheart deals through corporate lobbying and other shady but legal practices, you realize the truth about inflation. It is theft, from your pocket to theirs.

Quite right - Americans are amazingly blind to the fact that a 50% drop in the dollar WILL impact their cost of living. When the dollar is worth less, it buys less.

what about this as an alternative fuel?

Even the most hardline laissez-faire capitalists know deep down inside that the Oil companies could care less about the US economy, and/or the unhappiness of consumers about high gas prices . Since cars,trucks, and buses all run on oil based fuels the consumers have NO OTHER CHOICES available to them! Its called a Monopoly . I remember hearing DUMB-Ass radio talkshow host Mike Gallagher the other night saying "well, the liberals dont want the oil companies to make any money!" . I DO realize the weakening of the dollar is leading to high gas prices but Ive yet to be convinced that that in itself is the whole story. The war in Iraq really DOESNT F*cking help either . Uncle Sam is spending BILLIONS of dollars to destroy and rebuild that countries infrastructure with the plan of cranking up oil production in Iraq, but guess what?
The Oil glut that was hoped for is NOT happening! A big part of the problem is that oil wells and oil refineries keep getting BLOWN up by terrorists seeking to disrupt the economy and compromise the newly installed government. Maybe its high time to look Elsewhere for oil, like Angola or off the west coast. *sigh*