Record fuel prices blow budgets

…Separate from the role energy prices play in the risk-and-reward scenario for speculating investors, the result for Americans’ lives is that energy, and the mobility that it brings, is becoming crushingly expensive.

High oil “makes us poorer than we would otherwise be,” says St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole. “There’s a hit to real income. It’s a drain on your purchasing power.”

How this shows up in everyday life: