Fuel Costs, Food Costs & Everything Else Is Rising!

Are you ready for Armageddon? I’m not talking about the biblical sense of the word, but rather the life changing alteration of most everything we know without the massive deaths that are associated with traditional Armageddon. I hope you are as it is upon us now. Look around and see if you see the same signals of life changing forever and the “new normal” beginning to form inch by inch. The signs are everywhere; first and foremost, the Middle East is on fire both figuratively and in some cases literally. The people of the Arab world are showing the anguish they feel after decades of suppression, torture and death. So how does that affect me, you ask? Since the late 60’s and early 70s, the United States has had a policy of allowing a large portion of our energy needs to be fulfilled by imports from other nations. The majority of those nations are located in the Middle East and though they may be marginally friendly to us now, once their governments change, they most likely will be somewhat hostile if not outright angry towards us in this nation. In fact as of 2-22-2011, the oil production workers in Libya are now being evacuated and though Libya is only 18^th on the list of oil production, it means a million or so more barrels of oil are no longer available on the open market.

Couple this with fears that Egypt will now ally with Iran, that Bahrain is in turmoil, Algeria has already fallen, and several more Middle East nations are teetering you could very well make the case of $5.00 per gallon costs for gasoline before the end of the year. Not possible you say? Actually it is very possible, nationwide we are looking at $ 3.25 gasoline now and in states with higher tax rates, it is even higher, (California $ 3.55 on average). Oil has already hit $ 100 per barrel in the last few days and if the turmoil in the Middle East continues for too much longer, the price of oil could reach and hold at $150 per barrel. Remember, we have shut down virtually all of our Gulf Oil exploration and drilling and have banned drilling in a number of other areas, so our dependence on outside sources of oil will only increase and we have no ability to pump our way out of the shortfall so prices will rise. Thus if you had a 20 gallon tank on your vehicle, that cost of filling it will move from $60.00 to nearly $100.00. How many tanks a week do you use? Do you have an extra $40 or more per week in disposable income that you can use to fill the gap?..........