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Friday, December 26, 2008

Cheaper Gas = Economic Stimulus You Can Count On

Gasoline prices are at a 58-month low, thanks to good old-fashioned conservation. We're driving less—nine billion miles less in October alone. Thanks to our conservation (not more drilling), we are now paying one billion dollars less a day than we were in July. We may already be spending that dividend at Amazon.com. Feel free to amuse yourself thinking about what else Americans could do with a billion dollars a day.

If we keep conserving, we won't need any silly little economic stimulus checks like Congress and Bush wasted on us last spring. We've got our savings at the pump: let the government focus its stimulus on lasting infrastructure projects!

6 comments:

  1. Hopefully, we become a kinder, gentler nation and focus on the needs of our hungry, homeless and families that are hurting with a billion or so each month in this new year. Wouldn't it be nice to alleviate hunger at home, then share our wealth with other countries.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hunger? Poverty? Poor living conditions? They'll always be with us. All the churches in all the land love their big halls of faith and their expensive Christmas shows.
    Habitat for Humanity? Sure, they'll help a quarter of one per cent of the need...it makes them feel good.
    The Arabs and the Swiss bankers and insurers are figuring out a way to get their billions being ripped from their pockets. Part of it will come from our government as gifts. Stabilize the economy for whom? The rich. So they can sit in their yachts in their gold bathtubs and count their millions rising on their computer screens. You'll be lucky to get a small kitchen appliance with the savings people are making on gasoline now...because the extra money is going to pay the debt you incurred to the credit cards companies, etc, when the gas prices were high. You're not going to win. So just be happy in your poverty and with your little corner of indebted earth. You'll be thrown off it when the big boys want to drill or dig...or take it for their next big building or farm project. Economic recovery? Yeah, right.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Corey,

    I don't think we are conserving by choice. Do you think the hundreds of thousands of people that are out of jobs might be the reason that we are "conserving" so much oil?

    Don't get me wrong. I think the lower oil prices will certainly help things, but what happens when things start to turn around again? Do you think we learned anything by this? It seems to me the traders aren't getting so "oil-driven" when they hear OPEC is cutting production and when they hear one country is upset with another. Where do you think the blame lies for our countries troubles? I am not sure it is on one person, but it does seem sort of odd that things have changed so drastically.

    What's your take? (And no, I don't think the government should distribute stimulus checks, but if they are trying to get rid of the $700 billion dollars, if they want to see an economic boom, give it to the people).

    ReplyDelete
  4. The banks and Wall Street learned nothing of this mortgage crisis and the securities that many of us held, other than if they squeak loud enough, the politicians that have been getting greased all along for their campaigns, will listen quickly. Pennypincher is right, throw money into the hands of the consumers and they will consume, bring their mortgages current and maybe buy a car, all resulting in more jobs and an uptick in the economy. Sometimes you need to prime the carburator to start the engine. All the banks did was pack the $700 Billion away to make themselves look solvent for regulators.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We need to dramatically reduce the size of government and rein in the free money Republicans.

    People are conserving gas becasue they have fewer jobs to go to and fewer vacations to waste their money on.

    Things are going to get much worse than the Great Depression was. We are going to see widespread starvation in 3 or 4 years.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anon 9:55,
    Do you mean to say that we will see widespread starvation in the USA? If you believe so, why?

    ReplyDelete

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