Here's my strategy, and it's pretty simple. Keep doing whatever I have to to make my income increase faster than the cost of living. Otherwise, make do with less. It is simple economics to me.

Starting from nothing, you can still manage to find an equilibrium to exist within, so then you trade off desire, convenience, freedom for opportunity. Capitalize on the opportunity, and look for more. Get out ahead of the crowd and stay there. Be willing to do what others are not, and always be in a position to negotiate a better deal.

I don't care if gas prices go to $10 a gallon. I will just use that as yet another point to ask for more with the next opportunity, or I will learn to make do with less.

That's life. Prices only go down in the long term due to obsolesence. Everything else is always going to cost more tomorrow. There are no exceptions. It is a vicious cycle of illusion. The work I am doing today is of no greater value than that which my father did 30 years ago, it's just the money I am paid with is worth a lot less, and will continue to devalue so long as greedy people believe they can still get something for nothing.

Kate Jackson..always my favorite..loved her raspy voice.

You are born, you spend just about every dime, you die...How's that for simple?

I'm with you. Evaluate, Adapt, Morph, Re-evaluate.

That's about it, you can squeeze the peach soft, and get just a few drops of juice, or you can squeeze it real hard, and wring out about as much as the peach holds. You only get the one peach, and it may not be the same as anyone else's, but it is still up to you to decide how much of it you get to enjoy, or not. Either way ends up in the pits, so might as well get what you can out of it.

For those rooting for an alternative to fossil fuel-powered cars, high gas prices do tend to encourage R&D into alternatives and makes them more cost-comparable.

The really frustrating thig is that I've heard that the original Model T got about 25 mpg. Also, until the internal combustion engine got cheap and relatively reliable, there were electric cars competing with early models.

So it's taken us a hundred years of "R&D," to use it loosely, to make cars that's less fuel efficient and environmentally unfriendly that we originally started with.

If work hadn't had to move across town I'd be tempted to try biking it a couple days a week. With the distance and the traffic on the roads I'd have to travel now there's no way, no how, not on your life.

It's almost tripled in the last five or so years & my income hasn't come anywhere near to that. In 01/01/02 the average for regular here was about $1.24. Today the average is $3.09 with the companies making record profits. I don't have a problem with companies making a decent profit but I do with record profits and near record (after adjusting 70's prices for inflation) prices at the same time.

edit: fixed date & added source

"...high gas prices do tend to encourage R&D into alternatives and makes them more cost-comparable."

Where on earth did you get that??? There was a 'gas shortage' in the 70s, and prices went up fast and stayed there. America's response to this was to produce a lot of big, heavy, gas-guzzling SUVs, motor homes and Hummers.

If, during that time, anyone came up with a good idea on how to improve efficiency very much, the oil companies must have bought all the rights and stored them in the same warehouse with the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

For me, gas prices have gone up from $0.25 to $3.50, 14 times. Is there a word for that?

The current level of the stock market is a sign of inflation. The high prices of everyday necessities are a sign of inflation. Inflation is a sign of bad management and an inflated money supply, NOT the natural order of things.

It has been said that the economy of the Roman Empire was a "plunder economy", based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. Does this sound at all familiar?

Just wait.

Sue

"...Is there a word for that?..."

Yes there is, and if I said it, I would be deleted, and have to wash my mouth out with soap...