[Ferretlover]

The people of Camden, Ala., pay a bigger chunk of their income for fuel than anyone else in the country - meaning tough choices for the ever thinner family budget.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer Last Updated: 29 Mar 2008:
CAMDEN, Ala. (CNNMoney.com) -- Corey Carter spends a quarter of his paycheck on gas.
The 30-year old Carter, who earns $7 an hour making car parts for a Hyundai factory near Montgomery, Ala., spends $65 a week on gas, double what it cost just a few years ago. Paying $30 more for gas out of a $240 paycheck makes a big difference. …
Carter, and other residents that live around Camden, are having a particularly hard time - they devote more of their budget for gas than anyone else in the United States. So, like Americans everywhere, people here are cutting back on spending, and that's threatening to send - or may have already sent - a shaky economy into recession. ...
Get rid of that Jeep

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')e's also seen a growing interest in smaller cars, a claim backed up by the local Chevy dealer.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]For people like Carrie Frye, 33, a mother who commutes 70 miles each day, the choice is about much more than simply cutting back on entertainment.

Either way, she says the $60 a week she now spends in gas comes out of money for food, the doctor, and buying clothes for her kids.

"I just hope they don't grow that fast," she says, filling her tank of her Jeep Cherokee at the Camden BP.

[BrazilianPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]For people like Carrie Frye, 33, a mother who commutes 70 miles each day, the choice is about much more than simply cutting back on entertainment.

Either way, she says the $60 a week she now spends in gas comes out of money for food, the doctor, and buying clothes for her kids.

"I just hope they don't grow that fast," she says, filling her tank of her Jeep Cherokee at the Camden BP.

[BrazilianPO]

Ok, Google is my friend. I found it. SUVs are better in collisions than normal cars.

I have decided. My next car will be a M1 Abrams (or a M4 Sherman - less expensive). Safety comes first!!

Edit: Bad grammar

[MrBill]

Its just physics. In any collision it is usually the object that is larger and/or going faster that escapes the most damage. Ice hockey, billiards, rugby, etc. So if everyone is driving an SUV during head on collisions then they cancel one another out. Personally, I would sooner avoid a head on collision by driving defensively.

On the other hand modern vehicles are designed to collapse like a beer can outside, while keeping the passenger (relatively) safe inside if they are using seatbelts and have air bags. This is really just a red herring argument that the US auto industry uses to avoid stricter CAFE standards.

Not to be a Euro snob, but our cars are safer even at higher speeds AND they get better mileage. In twenty years I have never owned anything larger than a 4-cylinder, 5-speed manual transmission - even in my (small) SUVs - and I never felt under powered or unsafe. To be honest I would sooner have all wheel drive as opposed to a larger vehicle, although it is nice to sit high enough to see over traffic. But again if everyone drives a larger vehicle that advantage is negated.

However, what amuses me to some extent that here on peak oil dot com we have spent the better part of the last several years arguing that our current system is unsustainable. By definition anything that is unsustainable cannot last forever. Therefore, I am curious why regular posters start a new post every time they read an article that gives anecdotal evidence that truckers are going bankrupt or consumers are now working for gas?

These articles remind me of the kind of journalism where consumers say they cannot afford milk and eggs, but you see they are buying cigarettes and booze. It seems obvious, but maybe it is just me? ; - ))

[Cashmere]

God I hate Mr. Bill.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'G')od I hate Mr. Bill.

[pup55]

Sorry to make you deal with this rambling post. There is a point below, somewhere.

The limit to this type of commuting will be reached when it starts to make more sense to rent a place close to work.

Camden Alabama Real Estate

You can buy this delightful mobile home (tornado bait) near Camden for $49K, close to the boat ramp, 3 bedroom 2 bath, for about $290 per month, with an 8% loan, probably all that a hillbilly with bad credit can get.


Camden AL

The median gross rent in Camden is $280 per month, so that is one week's pay for a $7 per hour plant worker.

Selma Classifieds

$280 per month is $14 per day, so when the cost to commute is higher than that, it will start to make sense to move. At the current cost of gas, that is about 3.83 gallons worth, which might mean that at about 50 miles away from the plant, it is roughly breakeven, depending on the efficiency of your car.

Here is the budget for a plant worker making $7 per hour, living 50 miles away from the plant:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'Gross pay/mo 1120

Net pay after tax 952
gas 280
rent 280
food 180 ($6 per day, eating cheap)
utils 50
other 100

Total living expenses 890
Disposable income 62')

So, it's looking bad, particularly if you are a single mom with kids, paying a babysitter, or have a lot of other expenses that you have to deal with.

You will have to quit smoking, for sure. $2 per day is not enough for a pack of cigs, which I think is about $4 right now.

Also, this assumes that you do not have to pay any co-payment or contribution for medical insurance, which most everyone has to do at this point.

The most sense would be for you and two work buddies to share this 3-bedroom trailer close to the plant. Less commute (maybe carpool) only 1/3 of the rent and utilities. Some of the local immigrants in my area use this strategy, sleeping 10 per house, etc. to get cheap on rent.

I guess what this all boils down to is: someone is going to have to change. Either change how you live, change the car you drive, or some combination, in order to work at this plant.

[MrBill]

pup55 wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') guess what this all boils down to is: someone is going to have to change. Either change how you live, change the car you drive, or some combination in order to work at this plant.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
')However, what amuses me to some extent that here on peak oil dot com we have spent the better part of the last several years arguing that our current system is unsustainable. By definition anything that is unsustainable cannot last forever. Therefore, I am curious why regular posters start a new post every time they read an article that gives anecdotal evidence that truckers are going bankrupt or consumers are now working for gas?

[jlw61]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'H')ere is the budget for a plant worker making $7 per hour, living 50 miles away from the plant:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'Gross pay/mo 1120

Net pay after tax 952
gas 280
rent 280
food 180 ($6 per day, eating cheap)
utils 50
other 100

Total living expenses 890
Disposable income 62')

So, it's looking bad, particularly if you are a single mom with kids, paying a babysitter, or have a lot of other expenses that you have to deal with.

[MrBill]

We're a content driven website, ferretlover, so regardless of who posts what, so long as it generates positive discussion it is a good thing! ; - ))

jlw61, I am curious about your comment. It seems to me looking at my family that only one generation in the past four could afford to live comfortably on only one income like the factory salary you mentioned.

My grandparents suffered, struggled and saved their whole lives having lived first through the Depression and Prairie droughts and then the second world war.

My parents had it pretty darned good as far as generations go except my father died when he was 51 before he could collect any of the taxes and money he paid into the system in the form of pension and benefits. Tough luck for him, eh!

However, my mother retired early at age 55 after 30 years working, and will collect a pension until she dies. Not likely before she is well into her 90s based on her family history. God willing.

Everyone else - her children and grandchildren - are or will be worse off in absolute and relative terms with regards to lifetime earnings and more importantly relative living standards if we just compare likes with likes such as such comparisons are even possible given so many changes. That is even without post peak oil resource depletion.

So really we are talking about two 27-year cycles post WWII. From 1945 to 1972. And then from 1972 to 1999. We are now on the backside of the next 27-year cycle (approximately of course), but I doubt that living standards will be higher in, say, 2026, than they were between 1945 and 1972, for example. That might be considered a Golden Age so to speak to the single income family that could still afford everything their neighbors could afford.

Is that not the nexus of the peak oil argument? That increasing inputs of energy made those higher living standards possible? Then we had peak US conventional production circa 1972? Followed much later by a peak in worldwide conventional production?

But of course that is also misleading as it ignores large swathes of the population between, say, 1945 and 1972, that were at the margins of society much less those not born American.

And it also ignores that when my grandparents were born there were 1.5 billion people give or take; when my parents were born approximately 2.0 billion; and when I was born around 3.0 billion. There are now 6.8 billion, and that is set to grow to at least 9-10 billion between 2026 and 2053. So naturally everything has tended to become scarcer, more expensive or our expectations and basic needs have gone up at the same time.

Cetainly as hard as we try we do not live as economically as my grandparents were forced to live or how my parents started out in their early married years. Smaller house. One car. Meals at home prepared from scratch. Cash only. No personal debts. Mortgage paid off early. No second mortgage. Perhaps if we did we would find that one salary and a lot of sweat equity and frugality would mean that we could live on one income or one and a half incomes?

So I think every generation lives with its own problems, challenges and opportunities. I resent the intergenerational wealth transfer and passing along of debts and unfunded liabilities to future generations of taxpayers, but I still feel that this notion that the recent past was "normal" and that what we face in the future is "an abberation" is misplaced.

As it were labor shortages after the second world war meant there was excess demand for unskilled and semi-skilled workers that justified those high salaries. But that was the abberation. Population growth has now caught up with that. And technology and globalization has certainly not helped to maintain those high real wages. Post peak oil resource depletion is just going to be the final nail in the coffin. Lower living standards are going to be the end result.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'W')e're a content driven website, ferretlover, so regardless of who posts what, so long as it generates positive discussion it is a good thing! ; - ))

[vision-master]

Lot's of poor ppl have these ol gas hogs and can't afford replacements.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', '.')...
I guess what this all boils down to is: someone is going to have to change. Either change how you live, change the car you drive, or some combination, in order to work at this plant.

[JoeW]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]For people like Carrie Frye, 33, a mother who commutes 70 miles each day,
...
she says, filling her tank of her Jeep Cherokee at the Camden BP.

[Twilight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'I') guess what this all boils down to is: someone is going to have to change. Either change how you live, change the car you drive, or some combination, in order to work at this plant.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')hings are bad enough for people to want changes made on their behalf

[ORCA]

Hello. I'm new here, having registered just today. I am always in search of new information that may assist both my family and me to weather whatever crisis awaits us due to the current energy circumstances.

I read quite a few posts chastising some people about the vehicle they are driving, like the woman who owns the Jeep.

One point that seems to get overlooked as to why owner's of these type vehicles do not trade for a newer, more fuel-effecient model is that there's currently not a real market for vehicles of this sort now.

Let me give an example. I own a Chevy Surburban. Its a great vehicle with plenty of room, and I use it often for towing a trailer that a smaller vehicle could not tow. It gets lousey fuel mileage - 15 to 17 mpg. But, it's paid for. If I were to trade it for a car/truck that gets much better mileage, 1. I wouldn't be allowed much for the trade-in, and, 2. I would be stuck with a monthly car payment (and I would still be buying gas, just not as much). I spend far less per month in gas than what a car payment would cost me. That doesn't mean I don't complain about the high cost of gas - just like that woman driving the Jeep. Maybe she has looked at this and drew the same conclusion that I did.

Just a thought.