Hello All,

I stopped by the store (Cub/SuperValue) last night to pick up some cheese for home made pizzas and I though I would grab a few things for the family's storage and I noticed that they have raised the price on our brand of bread flour yet again.

About a year ago the 10 pound bag was a 1.99 for the North Dakota brand that we use and they have raised it about 5-6 times now. It is going for 5.23 for the same bag. :-( I noticed a lot of other things have gone up as well and some of them a 1.00.

I guess we are inching more and more to the haves and the hungry.

Dave

Part of the reason wheat prices (and other food prices) are going up is because farmers are growing corn for ethanol. Corn is getting huge subsidies right now to make ethanol to burn instead of gasoline. After all, home grown biofuels are supposed to be better then imported oil. Of course the corollary is you can either burn food or eat it, but you can't do both. Food gets more expensive and gas doesn't get cheaper, so like you say the people who are just making ends meet suffer.

We have to face the facts and realize that automobile and airplane transportation is too expensive and inefficient. Cars get about half the energy efficiency of power plants in terms how much of the energy present in the fuel gets turned into actual work and not lost as heat exhaust. Airplanes have the added problem of injecting their exhaust directly into the upper atmosphere where it can have the greatest environmental impact. My vote is for a huge increase in commuter trains around the country, along with development of high speed trains along major air and highway routes. Trains are inherently more efficient, safer and environmentally sound then cars and planes. But I doubt we'll ever see it happen with out a very rude wake up call.

I agree that trains are the way to go. I wish they had them going everywhere like in Japan, even though train transportation is supper expensive there and other than work ect, most people stay home.

Dave

Just to clarify, but Corn is not getting huge subsidies. Ethanol is getting the subsidy and Corn and Soybeans are just following the market. It will come back down eventually. Will the price of food? Probably not as much.

Ya your probably right. Even sugar and yest is going through the roof. I wonder how long and how high prices have to get before there are social issues.

Dave

I've said it before, and unfortunately will have to say it again, and again, and...

"Everything goes up except my pay"...

Pretty much....

Dave

The problem with commuter trains is the Bodies/tie problem

Basically it comes down to - you have to have enough riders for it to pay, even with subsidies. Most places that have that many people HAVE Mass transit

The other problem is - Let's say you have train service that will get folks to the office say from 7:00am till 10:00am, and have outbound service from say 4:00pm till around 8:00pm (very common)

Anyone who sometimes gets stuck late will end up NOT taking the train - and does it really pay to run a train say at 9:00pm for the 5-15 people who got stuck late?

"Anyone who sometimes gets stuck late will end up NOT taking the train - and does it really pay to run a train say at 9:00pm for the 5-15 people who got stuck late?"

Don't stay late. A lot of people think they're indispensible, and they're not. Mostly, they're kissing hinies and getting management to think they're a team player.

The people who stay late need to realize that if they were run over by a truck tonight, they would have a replacement at their desk by 8:30 the next morning.

Sue

Don't stay late is nice, except when the boss says "you have to stay late" - which happens often enough. In that case, NOT staying late means you'll NOT have to take the train again