[mommy22]

I work for an agency that delivers meals to the elderly M-F in NEOhio. My boss just told me that the deliveries will be made, starting in Sept.., 4 days per week. We'll deliver a frozen meal on Tuesdays and that will be their Wednesday meal. He said they've played around with the dwindling number of dollars coming into the agency, and, outside of cutting drivers jobs, or the number of elderly we serve, this was the fairest solution. Everyone will feel a bit of pain, but they'll still have jobs (albeit fewer hours).

[girlscout]

I took my son out for a walk this morning, and happened to run into one of our neighbors. His family must own half the town here - apartment complexes, stores, a mall under construction, a retirement community... the guy must be a millionaire, easily. He was complaining to me about the cost of heating oil (and everything else that is skyrocketing), and asked, "What are people gong to do this winter? We're thinking of being snowbirds and moving to Florida just to get out of here!" When the millionaire starts stressing about how he is going to pay to heat his house, it begins to make me a little nervous.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'I')n Texas, in general, and Houston, in particular, no real problems other than folks complaining.

[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('girlscout', 'I') took my son out for a walk this morning, and happened to run into one of our neighbors. His family must own half the town here - apartment complexes, stores, a mall under construction, a retirement community... the guy must be a millionaire, easily. He was complaining to me about the cost of heating oil (and everything else that is skyrocketing), and asked, "What are people gong to do this winter? We're thinking of being snowbirds and moving to Florida just to get out of here!" When the millionaire starts stressing about how he is going to pay to heat his house, it begins to make me a little nervous.

[doodlebug2]

On the VA Eastern Shore, they are planning a Giant Condo/Apartment/marina Complex with Golf courses et. al. The last one they built has not been built and is mostly empty. Understand that most of the people that bought them are from the Northeast, NJ, Conn, NY, PA etc. The distance is great, I am wondering where/how/if all these people are coming or is this complex a bust????

[Fiddlerdave]

Friends looking for office jobs and medium and low skilled labor in this area seem to be hitting stone walls. One friend remarked she had two places in one week wanted AA degrees for a receptionist job, along with good credit.

Traffic is lighter in the Orange County/LA CA area, although someone from outside the area wouldn't notice it. This simply means that Hwy 5 isn't jammed all day, just 4 hours each morning and afternoon.

Just came back from a long weekend in Seattle. We drove from SeaTac to a family gathering in Yakima on the 12. I noticed the very, very few RVs on the road, and that whenever we stoped at a campground for a break, there were spaces available. Once back to the 5 south of Seattle, I noticed the immense RV rental yards without single empty RV space. There has to be some oil demand destruction there.

[retiredguy]

The local paper's business section had an article this morning about a large resort located about a 100 miles northwest of Madison. The owner says he will close the doors permanently in September unless he can find a buyer.

My wife and I took a trip around the northern shore of Lake Michigan a couple of weeks ago and noticed a significant reduction in traffic. Every motel had vacancies. Very unusual for the height of tourist season.

[RedStateGreen]

We went to visit family in southern CA this past weekend, and normally Sunday afternoons have bumper to bumper traffic with people coming back from Vegas and the desert. There was no traffic to speak of, just a few cars going along the freeway.

Of course, gas out there was $4.35, which may have had something to do with it. But I noticed in OK the traffic is much less too, and we're only paying $3.41.

[JJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'I')n Texas, in general, and Houston, in particular, no real problems other than folks complaining.

[Scout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JJ', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'I')n Texas, in general, and Houston, in particular, no real problems other than folks complaining.

[yesplease]

The zombi3z seem to be progressively downsizing in terms of vehicles, and I've even seen some car pooling. The insanity!

[Cloud9]

Big cases for debt collection are walking into my son's firm.

[dunewalker]

As I posted awhile back on the gasoline price thread, our only local public gas station closed a month or so ago due to "unexplained technical difficulties" and has never re-opened. The next-nearest public station is 25 miles away. There is a "cardlock" station in town here but you have to have an account to use it. The grocery store put a sign out saying "Need Gas? Check here". For an out-of-towner the store will send someone with them to the cardlock station and pump them gas with the store's card, charge the person the going rate +$4 fee for the service.

[patience]

Our town has lost 2 woodworking plants, a wood flooring plant is down to half capacity, and a lawn mower transmission plant is expected to close soon. The only other factory in town is an auto parts plant, that is running at 75% capacity, soon to be less than that. Some people drive 40+ miles to a Cummins engine plant, which just laid off the entire second shift, since their weekly production for light truck engines went from 3,600/week to 320/week. The GM car dealer has a couple acres of unsold cars on the lot. Several small sawmills closed down, and a lot of loggers are bankrupt, from what was thriving industry here. Farmers are squeezed by fertilizer and fuel costs, and aren't buying much. Two gas stations closed.
Local retailers complain to me that business is slow, yet there is a new mini-mall being built on the main street in town. Across the street is a new Family Dollar store going up, too. Meanwhile, my friend who works at Lowe's says they cut from 2 to 1 person on each shift in his department, making the workload unbearable. All the car dealers have big sales promos going, but nobody buying. A local JayCee foot store, owned by Kroger, rebuilt its' store and expanded last year to the size of a big box store. The prices went up, and the customers left. Only half or less as many cars in their lot now. Sales people follow you around in there, offering help. But the discount grocery up the street (Ruler Foods, ALSO owned by Kroger) has twice as many customers, so service is slow there. Another bank goes under each week, but our town has TWO new banks! And one of the old ones was discretely merged and renamed early this year. Restaurants are pretty empty, but we have a new one being built. All this in a town of about 5,000 people.

Duh. What's wrong with this picture? Are business managers nuts? Maybe we could call it Peak Oil Madness....

[Farknight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')uh. What's wrong with this picture? Are business managers nuts? Maybe we could call it Peak Oil Madness....

[JustaGirl]

Not really TSHTF, but some school districts here are going to a 4 day school week, the state agencies already have. Bus routes have also been cut to use less gas.

[JJ]

the customers in the grocery where I work are HURTING. All day long I heard stories of finacial hardships. the bag of potatoes that was 2.99 and went to 7.99 overnight went up overnight again to 8.49.

My electric bill was 409 dollars, doubling from two months ago, and our local power supplier said they will be raising rates again Oct.1
The garbage service just announced they are doubling their rates (35 a month to 70 a month) They already doubled earlier this year when the city anounced they were contracting a new garbage disposal service and rates would increase slightly. Rates increase "slightly" while the new service cut pickups 1/2 from 2 a week to once a week. They also charge rent for their plastic garbage cans.

Now in all fairness, one of the reasons my electric went up so much is that my college grad kid moved back home (can't find a job "yet" in his field (international business. international economics)) and is using one half of our duplex.

For US, there is a LOT of pork we can cut.

[Farknight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')J said-My electric bill was 409 dollars, doubling from two months ago, and our local power supplier said they will be raising rates again Oct.1 The garbage service just announced they are doubling their rates (35 a month to 70 a month) They already doubled earlier this year when the city anounced they were contracting a new garbage disposal service and rates would increase slightly. Rates increase "slightly" while the new service cut pickups 1/2 from 2 a week to once a week. They also charge rent for their plastic garbage cans.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JJ', '
')My electric bill was 409 dollars, doubling from two months ago, and our local power supplier said they will be raising rates again Oct.1

[patience]

Ludi,
Maybe JJ is all electric? Our home is all electric, and our last bill was $155.70 for 1600 KWH, or just under 10 cents /KWH. How much are these bills per KWH? It's hard to believe that there are 5x regional differences in rates. There must be a difference in usage.

My bill above covers the house AND the shop, with a HUMONGOUS welder (up to 440 amps AC), a bunch of lights in the shop, and AC going. I feel like that is cheap for what we get out of it. There is absolutely no reason for us to go for alternatives on the basis of present cost. But: 1) It ain't gonnas stay that cheap, and 2) The national grid in the US is pretty shaky from what I read. And I'm looking straight down the barrel of retirement age, so income is going down.