High Cost Crisis

April 22— More than half of Americans say record-high gasoline prices are causing them financial hardship, and three in 10 say it is a "serious" hardship, up significantly in the last few years and a potential hazard to broader consumer confidence.

In a new ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, 54 percent say recent price increases in gasoline have caused financial hardship in their households — about as many as said so two years ago.

But the difficulty is now deeper: 31 percent say they are experiencing "serious" hardship, up from 20 percent in spring 2002, and 17 percent in 2001.

An Energy Department survey says pump prices now average $1.81 a gallon — an all-time high, up 22 percent in just the last four months. No respite is in the offing; the department reports that "conditions are likely to remain volatile through the summer."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/WorldNewsTonight/gas_prices_poll_040422.html

gas prices.

I guess living in a poor quarter of Baghdad should be called serious hardship.

This does not mean peoples style of life is not affected by high energy prices - just to put a different angle to first-world-perception.

Say someone uses 10 gallons a week. The increase in price (22%) is about 30 cents a gallon. $3 a week is a lot for a few people, but not that many.

On edit: I just looked at the full article (yeah, I should have done that first). 11% of those with an income of more than $100,000 say it's caused them 'serious hardship'! Words fail me!

on conservation. Serious conservation.

Technology exists for cars to have extremly higher mpg capabilty. We could legislate a minimum for all new vehicles...but we won't.

More companies could embrace remote workers and flexible schedules...but we won't.

We could incite more "off-peak" useage by allowing in conjunction with businesses initiatives for decentralized management...but we won't.

Instead of more businesses becoming 24x7 there are less of them. The war alone as consumed an enourmous amount of fuel. We tend to be very short sighted.

manual transmission, that gave 50 miles per gallon (highway) and was very reliable. The car was built by Suzuki more than 15 years ago, and yet there are few models sold today that even approach that kind of mileage.

Just wait until Bush hits the Congress up for another $30 billion for Iraq. Then we will see what the costs are really going to be like and that is just a glimmer.

This is going to be a long long fiasco. When it ends - maybe none of us will live to see it. Who knows?

Gasoline prices are just the tip of the iceberg IMO.