[Leanan]

A couple of articles perhaps tangentially connected to peak oil:

Fast Food Chains Emphasize Value

The $0.99 value menu has made a comeback. Several company spokesmen and analysts mention high gasoline costs and winter heating bills as the reason.

Personal bankrupties hit record

Not really surprising, given the rush to beat the bankruptcy bill deadline. What is interesting is the pattern. No, it wasn't people affected by the hurricanes who filed. It was people in the Rust Belt and Grain Belt. One bankruptcy attorney puts the blame on the ailing auto industry.

[strider3700]

Wendies being right beside work was my fast food chain of choice until I started this bloody diet. Anyways I've noticed that yes they have the 99 cent menu, but what I found most interesting was they redefined their sizing.

A 1/2 lb burger "biggie" sized used to get you their largest fries and largest drink with the burger for $7.12 cdn (back in 2001) over the years it climbed to $7.37 until about a month ago I discovered that it's now $7.30 and they no longer give you the largest size fries. You now need to specify biggie sized and a biggie size fry which would put it just shy of $8. I remember paying $6.40 or so back in the late 90's maybe 97 but that was in a different town so maybe their transport costs where lower.

Inflation is a bitch.

They also back in august/september stopped putting tomatoes on and you had to request them due to the hurricanes creating a shortage.

Our local paper also had a front page story titles "like a punch in the face" about credit card bills after the christmas binge. They talk about the annual rush of people looking for bankrupty protection and how some people will take most of the year to pay down what they put on in the last month.

Also since I'm ranting about the locals there was a story on a guy that moved into a highend neighbourhood that is on a community water system and then used 1,700,000 liters of water from may until september last year and is complaining about his $3,000 bill for it. He has a beautiful looking yard on top of a rock and it barely rained so it probably mostly went to watering his lawn and flowers.

[Leanan]

Holy crap. A $3,000 water bill??? Unreal.

The fast food places around here all take credit cards now. I can understand the convenience, but jeez, it seems like an easy to for some people to get into trouble.

[strider3700]

$3000 is nothing. Thats almost enough water to fill an olympic sized swimming pool. All going to green grass.

[Ludi]

$8 for a fast food meal?? I frequent an excellent Thai restaurant which offers a complete delicious meal (entre, fried rice, spring or eggrolls, soup) for under $6.

I don't understand the appeal of fast food...except, I guess, it's fast...

[strider3700]

Well that is the major reason behind my enforced diet. I actually quite like the fast food. It's not what I would call good but very satisfying. Anyways I worked out my expenses and found that I could have bought a shiny new 160 watt solar panel for what fast food cost me last year. So hopefully I'll be buying a shiny new 160 watt panel this year.

[The_Toecutter]

If you convert the $3,000CDN to $USD you will find that the water is about $.005USD/USgallon. It usually takes about 25 gallons to half fill a bathtub for a bath, or to allow a 5 minute shower. Not counting in heating, it's not difficult to see where your money might go.


As for fast food, I can't stand it myself in most cases.

[Leanan]

I think the reason most people eat fast food is that it's convenient and cheap. (The prices quoted are Canadian. Probably in the US, the meal described would be under $5.)

That's why fast food restaurants are feeling the pressure; their customers tend to have less disposable income. Energy prices are hurting people. Maybe not the middle class yet, but the low-income bracket is really feeling it.

[Trindelm]

but consider the nutritional value, the pigeons flocking in the area would be better, and despite the various critters and plasmodia pigeon meat may pass more health codes than a big mac.

[Seadragon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '$')8 for a fast food meal?? I frequent an excellent Thai restaurant which offers a complete delicious meal (entre, fried rice, spring or eggrolls, soup) for under $6.

[Chaparral]

8 bucks for a fast food meal? 8 bucks buys me 18 lineal feet of 1x6 redwood or cedar, from which I can fabricate one frame for a 3ft by 6 ft raised bed.

8 bucks buys me enough lettuce, squash and string bean or broccoli seeds to biointensively plant that bed for 3-4 years running with 4 season gardening here on the coast (not that I'd do that...gotta rotate y'know!!!)

8 bucks buys me one 1gal Southern highbush blueberry or 12 asparagus plants or four Heritage raspberry bareroots.

8 bucks buys me 3 cu ft of redwood compost and 1 cu ft of basic garden topsoil.

8 bucks is almost one 1 oz silver ingot from kitco.

[grabby]

8 bucks bought me 50 gallons of gas when I was in high school
that same 8 bucks the very same 5 dollar bill and three one dollar bills now buys me 3.5 gallons of the very same gasoline.

our money has lost 15 TIMES its value in 30 years.

a car is 40,000 now to buy and they were about 3-4000 back then.

All of you who have saved your money for 30 years got ripped off.
shoulda spent it all.
when it was worth somthing.

now I hear in the last three years we lost 60 percent of the value of our money.

it is called hyperbolic runaway inflation.

No wonder greenspan quit. He didn't want to get blamed for what is about to happen.

[thorn]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', '8') bucks bought me 50 gallons of gas when I was in high school
that same 8 bucks the very same 5 dollar bill and three one dollar bills now buys me 3.5 gallons of the very same gasoline.

our money has lost 15 TIMES its value in 30 years.

a car is 40,000 now to buy and they were about 3-4000 back then.

All of you who have saved your money for 30 years got ripped off.
shoulda spent it all. when it was worth somthing.

[Leanan]

That's a fascinating graph. The rate of decline slows after the inflationary '70s, but it doesn't stop.

Makes you wonder if you really should spend it now, while's worth something...

[thorn]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'T')hat's a fascinating graph. The rate of decline slows after the inflationary '70s, but it doesn't stop.

Makes you wonder if you really should spend it now, while's worth something...

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', 'a') car is 40,000 now to buy and they were about 3-4000 back then.

[nero]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'T')hat's a fascinating graph. The rate of decline slows after the inflationary '70s, but it doesn't stop.

Makes you wonder if you really should spend it now, while's worth something...

[strider3700]

The doomer in me loves inflation in one sense and hates it in another. If I can get 5-10 more years of normal living with our rampant inflation and wage increases to make up for it then I can pay off my mortgage and debts easily. I'm not convinced I have 5-10 years to prepair though so I'm spending all of my money on preps that will hopefully be better then inflation eating away my mortgage. These things include gold and silver bullion and methods to produce my own electricity.

What bothers me most about inflation is I like to keep a slush fund around in the event of bad times since I've been through the unemployed for long periods grinder a few times. the rampant inflation is making my slush fund not worth keeping other then to pay my fixed debts. Lately I've been depleting it to get gold though. I'm easily outpacing the interest I got on it in a year in a week of profits. Of course I have to sell at some point to get the profits.

on the $8/meal thing any real restaurant here is $10-$12 when you sit down for a coffee and a burger. coffee is from $1.25 - $2/cup same with softdrinks although I've seen $2.50. Refills included of course. But minimum wage here is also in the $8-$9 range. $8 is about 3% of what I make in a day and I'm not doing amazingly well or anything, just slightly above average.

Prices depend a lot on where you are.

[thorn]

from :
Harvard Mag.

The rapid disappearance of America's middle class

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The danger, Warren finds, comes from both ends of the financial spectrum: a decline in real wages for full-time workers and huge increases in basic family expenses. As a result, families are staying afloat only because both partners work.

Male full-time workers in 2003 earned $800 less than their counterparts in 1970, after adjustment for inflation. Enter the second paycheck, and the family's combined income goes to $73,700 a year, a huge 75 percent increase from 1970.

Sounds great, right?

Not so, says Warren, and most of us would agree. Extra earnings increase costs for transportation, child care and taxes. Additional higher costs of mortgages and health care simply erase the added earnings — and then some. Warren estimates today's two-income family actually has $1,500 less per year in discretionary spending.

[TheTurtle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', '8') bucks bought me 50 gallons of gas when I was in high school that same 8 bucks the very same 5 dollar bill and three one dollar bills now buys me 3.5 gallons of the very same gasoline.

our money has lost 15 TIMES its value in 30 years.