High gas prices are here to stay. We're going to have to learn to deal with this (and one way to deal with it is to work for yourself at home... and I know a great book that'll help

Anyway, in regards to gas prices, let me repost something I posted on another messageboard. The topic was gas prices, and the general battlecry from the cheap seats was that everything would be fine if only "the liberals and treehuggers" would let us drill for our own oil. Anyway, here was my first post:

Change your habits, folks. Buy a smaller car, live closer to work, and drive less. It *is* an option.

Trust me, even if we drill everywhere and find oil, it won't be sold for one penny less than the world market will pay. And taxes will remain the same, or go higher. Nobody is going to take any less $ for oil so we can sit at the end of our driveways in our idling SUV's so little johnny doesn't get cold waiting for the schoolbus.

Prices are not coming down, no matter how much we drill. This is how it will be going forward. In fact, it will get worse. We're going to have to change our habits, and our lifestyles.

Then someone countered with:

I guess I fell for that whole supply/demand scam they tried to teach me in economics...

To which I replied:

The demands of the world market will almost certainly continue to exceed supply, no matter how many Caribou we drill through. Just my opinion, but I can't see demand leveling off even a little - it will explode, in fact. And more oil will only make it explode even more. And, since oil is finite, that's a problem.

We're also not going to drill our own oil and then keep it all to ourselves, and take less money for it than the world will pay, just so we can pay $1 a gallon (or whatever) at the pump to continue "our way of life". That's not happening.

I hate to say this, but (again, imho) those who built a lifestyle that depended on cheap fuel (either for gas or heat) are screwed.

My general feeling is that it is pointless to place the blame on high gas prices on "treehuggers" (the minute I see that kind of talk, I know I am dealing with an unthinking idiot). The simple fact is we've built a lifestyle that is dependant on cheap gas. And now it's not so cheap anymore. And a lot of people are unhappy about that.

Well, put that anger and energy into finding an alternative fuel, or, change your lifestyle - buy a smaller car, drive less, move closer to work. Start walking more. Stay home more. Ride a bike some... that all sounds good anyway. Being forced into that isn't so bad, is it?

Anyway, that's my thoughts today (since I'm keeping all the web marketing and writing stuff for the book :)

I'll tell you one reason we're in a recession - it's because parents spend to much on their kids (fair warning - this is a good old days post)...

Seriously, while I'm busy with the new book, I'd love a little help around here. One thing that would be nice to scratch off the weekly 'to-do" list is cutting my lawn. I live in a "neighborhood", so I figured it would be pretty easy to find someone.

It wasn't.

I offered $20 to several neighborhood kids to cut my lawn. It can be done in less than an hour. That's more than $20 per hour, or approximately 6 times what I made at 18.

There were no takers. They preferred playing X-Box or whatnot. To the 12-15 y/o's in my neighborhood, $20 is completely meaningless to them.  

Now, on the surface, I don't fault them - heck, *I* would rather play X-Box too. But, and this is kind of the difference - when I was 12, if I wanted something (like, say a new game for the Atari), I had to buy it myself. I would have literally jumped at the chance to earn, say, $7 for cutting a lawn (have no idea what $20 today was worth in 1978 - that's a guess.)

But today, nobody is jumping. That tells me parents spend too much on their kids. So you know, I don't want to hear or read any "pain at the pump" sob stories until the kid money stops and someone actually wants to cut my lawn because the mom and dad well dried up.

THAT will tell me we're truly in a recession.