Gas Up $6 A Tank In 1 Week?      

I know the economy hasn't been too great, the jobs have been going down, the housing situation isn't that great (although for some - the rich - now is perfect), gas prices have been going up...I tend to just fill up my car every week and just move on with it. But today I looked at the price to fill my tank and it was up to $46, from $40 just ONE week before. That is 15% in ONE week. Now for anybody that understands the significance of that, that is a HUGE number. As an example, most people will get 3-4% raises each year, the rate of inflation (this year I got a whopping .9%...yeah that's right, not even 1% - it was blamed on 'corporate'...yeah, right). That's 3-4% in 365 days, this was 15% in 7 days. My measly 'raise' of $4 a week has already been engulfed, and more, by the raise in gas this week.

This situation goes back to the all-famous saying, 'The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.' This is so true. Say you have some money to invest into these oil stocks or any other company that is doing well, you can make a few pennies or a light chunk of change from the amount you put in. But the people that have lots of money already, have an even easier time getting even MORE money.

Take a look at the poor, they already have trouble affording rent and buying a car or riding the bus. With a raise in gas prices, everything else goes up too, food prices, going out to the bar (beverage prices), in reality - anything that needs to be shipped, goes up. These people had a hard enough time to begin with and now with the prices going up they have a harder time. I saw on TV this morning, that they were going to raise the tax fairs. Last year when the gas was $2.50 I guess, I'm not quite sure, I try not to look at the prices - it cost my mom $40 to travel 12 miles from my place to the airport when I had to leave for work that morning. Now that same trip with the rise in gas prices and fairs would easily be $60-70 dollars. I don't know about you but I sure as heck don't want to spend almost a whole days worth of salary (after taxes) just to go a few miles to the airport. Some people give up and don't take on the challenge when they are working 50-60 hours a week and either not being able to pay their bills or just barely paying them, so then they go on to some government system to help them pay for things.

This affect, in turn, screws the huge middle-class as well. The taxes will go up to pay for the poor that can't afford their rent or food. So the middle class is out more money and then that means there are less people going out to eat or spending money on luxury items, so that again screws the poor and some middle class.

All of this also affects the economy because there will be less research on new technology items or improvements to things already in existence, who can afford to buy them? Not many people, so why invest in that. And all of this time, the rich have hardly become affected. They can take their excess money out of one stock and move it to another that is doing well at the time, or - in the housing situation we are in now - buy property to renovate and resell when the market goes back up.

The economy is really having a hard time right now. Some people blame it on the banks, some people blame it on gas. I think it's both. People would be able to handle one OR the other, as with most situations, but BOTH is a double whammy, too much. The government, from what I've read, has done it's deal to 'help,' by lowering interest rates. And I put 'help' in quotes because, from my understanding, when the feds lower the interest rate on mortgages, that makes the value of a dollar decrease, which - in the long run - screws us all, unless you invest in stocks over seas or buy another currency now before it's too late and when the dollar gets low enough, buy the US dollar back - but with any of those ideas, you need money.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.