Random thoughts. Would voluntary frugality make us more of a cash/barter society? Bankruptcy would decrease. That impacts us all. Financial problems have major impact on marriages. Would less stress save more marriages? Divorce lawyers would have to diversify. A Wisebread article recently adressed what "poor" looks like in this country--cable TV, own home, etc. What happens if we actually stop being consumption driven? Would we become more content with less or different? You know, the basics, food, clothing, shelter. Would we be willing to wait for something instead feel we're entitled to immediate gratification? Would kids stop bugging their folks for cell phones? Would robberies go down? Would people drive 55 or under? Would we need fewer cops? Would individual creativity and problem solving be pushed in schools instead of the group learning, techno saavy model used now. The trade deficit would decrease. Toy stores would be hard hit. Fast food restaurants, rent-to-own places would go under. Less shipping containers rusting on the docks. We might start using our farmland again as farmland instead of turning it into mega developments. We'd put less stuff in landfills. Construction people would learn to fix existing buildings instead of ripping down old and building new. Would the government eventually see the need to live within their means too? Or would the largeness of the machine have to find work for government employees? Would there be a shift to improve public transportation, roads, reinstitute WPA type projects or would the bread and circuses model reign? Would our houses become smaller and more efficient? Would we go to alternative fuels? Would our work ethic improve? Would we start making our own stuff like rag rugs and clothes?
The driving force in voluntary frugality is contentment. Forced frugality is another matter. Both have an immense ripple effect on society and on the economy but it may not be a bad thing if taken as an opportunity instead of an obstacle.
I agree completely. You'll note that I included fruit on my list of essentials (not in the list of unnecessary things). As to tofu, you'll note that I included legumes as a category.
The infrastructure that we have in place to distribute food is flawed, and is often terrible in poor neighborhoods. But I don't think that's the fundamental problem. I think the root of the problem is people having been cut off from their own cultural traditions of healthy eating.
If you're drawing on a religious tradition for your diet, that gives you a huge leg up on people whose parents and grandparents eat some variation of the standard American diet. My point is that almost any tradition of healthy eating will do the trick--and I was trying to provide a worked example. If one tradition is impossible (because the foods aren't available or there's no kitchen, or the people simply don't know what it is), then perhaps another tradition can be pressed to serve.
Some of the European infrastructure was built in response to energy prices that were high due to high taxes. A lot, though--especially the layout of the cities--was built long ago, before energy got cheap in the first place.
That's true to a lesser extent in the US as well. Where I live, it used to be possible to live in any of several of the outlying towns and work in Champaign or Urbana, without needing to own a car, because there was light rail to transport commuters. In the US, though, most of that infrastructure was ripped up long ago.
I understand that your suggestion that ordinary folks start their own mass transit business is a rhetorical device, but there are actually a lot of reasons why that's not practical. The fundamental one is simply that most people are not entrepreneurially inclined. However, there are a bunch of structural problems, having to do with the huge subsidies that the government provides for car-based transportation, that make it impossible for anyone else to compete. (For example, in many places zoning codes require workplaces and apartment buildings to provide ample parking, so workers and residents aren't able to freely choose to take mass transit from a cheaper place to live to a higher-paying place to work.)
1. we consume 25% of the world's fuel
2. we consume 20% of the world's other natural resources.
3. we import stuff from almost every country in the world.
if we were to cut down our spending, it would cause an international economic recession.
I signed up lured by the whopping free 25GB promise... But, all of a sudden the service stopped and has now reincarnated as www.thelinkup.com All the free user accounts have "Gone With The Wind".
I doubt you've lived in an urban area if you are writing things like this. I live in inner city Philadelphia, right at the edge of a ghetto area, and a block away from one of the few grocery stores in about a 20-35 block radius. Yes, it's true that the poor in this country can afford to eat meat and drink juice, which would be impossible in other countries. But that still doesn't mean that fruits and vegetables and other healthy fare are any more affordable or convenient for these people.
You advise people to buy the cheapest vegetables they can find and eat them. At the closest store, most of the produce is fancy organic stuff, and what little produce is available that isn't organic is similarly pricey; this is the way with all innercity stores, for if I walk two blocks further to the rundown chain store, the prices are still about 50% more for the produce I buy in my homestate (NJ), but the quality of the fruits and vegetables is really poor. I am lucky enough that I am a student who lives fairly close to my parents' place, and I can go to my ethnic grocers and chainstores in Jersey to pick up all the produce I need. But for the people that live in the city and truly are the urban poor, the only grocery store option they have are the two within walkable distance, and the two stores have very similar pricepoints.
As for "unnecessary" things like eggs, milk, juice, and meats, I say for every diet, a certain amount of those things must be included. I'm a vegetarian so naturally, I don't need the meat. I drink very little juice, but what I drink is 100% juice. I don't begrudge children their daily juice, but those same stores always have HiC on sale (10% juice) instead of low-sodium V8. If I was on foodstamps or a limited budget, of course I'd go for whatever was cheapest; it's a poorly informed decision, but who says I'd have all this knowledge at that poverty level. Also, I'm vegetarian for religious reasons, and in my culture dairy is not only sacred, but essential. A purely vegetarian diet needs a little protein there somewhere, and since I see you aren't including tofu on your musthaves, I say milk is a perfectly acceptable way to get what you need.
Finally, many of those people are working jobs that require intense labor and long hours. Single moms working 16+ hours a day don't have leisure time to agonize over purchasing decisions, research/plan/test out recipes for fickle kids, etc. And if a person living that kind of life needs a MickeyD's every once in a while, I won't stand in judgement.
So far (2008 May 11) it seems that several stores or chains offer a ten percent bump if you buy their prepay card. A couple of used car dealers offer a 100% bump -- but when was the last time you knew the true value of something from one of them?
I do appreciate 10%, and work hard to achieve that kind of gain, but I think I'll hold out for a bit and see if a better deal materializes.
BTW I am not in financial difficulty, just parsimonious.
Better mass transit is the answer, of course, but as of yet there is very little push toward increasing the amount available.
So what is stopping you from buying a fleet of buses and hiring workers to provide mass transit?
I think it rather misses the point to suggest that Europe can't be a model for the US, simply because their infrastructure--roadways, railways, structure of the cities--is more suitable for walking and using mass transit. Those structures didn't just spring up there; people built them.
People built the infrastructure in response to high gas prices.
The same will happen here; high gas prices creates too many incentives to keep such a thing from happening.
I'm not sure why you'd make fun of the person who commented on what they thought was a source of fluoride absorption ("It's just hilarious to me that people are so concerned over things like fluoride ("It'll be absorbed through your skin!!!!"), but not the pollutants created in the process that it took to get that water from a tap to your mouth."). If they're concerned about fluoride (regardless of their concerns over pollutants created in the process of bottling and shipping water), then they'd naturally be concerned about absorbing it through showers or baths, and that's their right. There's plenty of evidence that the type of fluoride that gets added to drinking water, can be bad news.
But the person who was concerned about absorbing fluoride through the skin during a shower or bath, may not actually have that to worry about--from everything I've read, fluoride is not absorbed in significant levels through the skin. One might be concerned about the effects of fluoride on the skin itself, but at least it may not be a systemic problem from showers and baths. I don't know about the skin absorption of chlorine, however.
Anyone concerned about absorbing things from water during a shower, can buy a shower head filter which is supposed to do a pretty good job in removing at least chlorine. I don't have any references handy, but as usual, Googling will turn them up.
we bought I bonds in 2001 and 2003... the yield on the 2001 bonds is 6.08% since the beginning... on the 2001 bonds, it's 4.43%... the current rates, respectively 6.51 and 4.54.
certainly not a great return, but we looked at it as keeping the capital secure, being very afraid when Enron went down.
by next year, we won't have the 3 month penalty ( minor point, but several hundred dollars).
max bond buy is $30M per person per year.
big question, Phil, about the state of the market. you're probably right, but I see "real" problems with the money that's on the books in banks, pension funds, endowment funds, insurance funds, and the like... I don't think the money's there. As long as these funds carry unresolved securities as assets, I think they're at risk. the term "mark to market" equals "armageddon". so far, Bernanke et al, have dodged the bullet, and it's possible that if we have triple digit inflation, they'll bail out the debt by paying back in cheap dollars... but, ya have to remember that the '29 market didn't recover until 1954.
that 537 trillion dollars in derivative "notional" dollars... may not be what it sounds like, but it ain't smoke, either.
credit derivatives were supposed to protect the leveraged hedge funds and commodity accounts, but anyone who truly believes that this is happening, is still feeling good. reality is the great leveler.
I've been wrong for the past five years, so can't lay claim to being a guru, but for the life of me, can't imagine how we'll be back to the "normal" that the financial pundits claim.
Best way i find to eat frugaly is to eat for free. Today i had nettles and wild garlic with beech leaves.... followed by a knotweed crumble.... very tasty...
I did cheat a bit and brought flour, sugar and olive oil mind....
I think it all depends on how you plan to use your space. We have 2400 sq. feet: 2 adults, 2 100-pound dogs, twin 1-year olds, and a toddler. We bought an 80 year old home and have renovated it--it is PERFECT for entertaining since the rooms are very large. We happen to be people who entertain a lot and tend to fill whatever space we're in. We wanted a house that had a dining room big enough for our big table (seats 12 easily; we regularly have 10 people for dinner). Our home is used for church gatherings and all sorts of things. Our big space has also been great fun for the kids--they run and cavort all over the place. We could get by with less, but big, open space definitely has its uses. And, we've helped recycle an older home! So, I say, get whatever space you can afford and will use.
A case in point is Japan in the early 90's after the collapse of their financial system. Saving rates went up significantly as people moved to cash and reduced their spending. 15 years later the country is still recovering. While this is more than just due to frugality, it has been shown time and again that consumers are the drivers behind economies. If they start cutting back en masse, the whole economy and country will suffer. Too long to go into it here, but what makes discretionary consumer spending so powerful is the multiplier effect, where every $1 spent ends up a $6-$7 effect on the economy.
"It still seems like a good deal for the body-only. Why not go on Ebay and get chargers and batteries?"
The scam company is selling you the body for a huge $ loss to them, trying to make up the loss by over charging you with other items. If you refuse to buy other items and try to get them from ebay later or something like that they will tell you the order is delayed 6 weeks. If you are stupid enough to wait that long you will just continue to get other delays until you eventually call and cancel, maybe you'll have to pay a fine too. In other words you can not buy just the body itself.
Maybe in some other blog my post would have produced some controversy. Here in Wise Bread, not so much.
There may be some hazard if everyone suddenly decided to live frugally, all at the same time--the drop in economic activity would look a lot like the start of a recession--but that doesn't seem very likely. Much more likely at the moment, is the combination of a looming recession together with a credit crunch forcing more and more people to live frugally whether they want to or not.
I hate the suffering that poverty causes, but the minor squeeze facing ordinary middle class folks seems more like a good thing to me. I'm thrilled at the idea of people combining trips to save a little money on fuel, buying cheaper cuts of meat (or less meat altogether), and getting books out of the library rather than buying yet another video game.
What makes me sad are people having to choose between filling a prescription or putting food on the table, or between keeping the heat turned on and new shoes when the kid outgrows the old ones. If what we have turns out to be a recession, there'll be plenty of that. Choosing to be frugal without waiting for circumstances force our hand can help.
I think it rather misses the point to suggest that Europe can't be a model for the US, simply because their infrastructure--roadways, railways, structure of the cities--is more suitable for walking and using mass transit. Those structures didn't just spring up there; people built them.
People built the infrastructure in the US as well. Most of it was built when oil was cheap, so there was public preasure to build for cars. It's sad that we're starting where we are. If we'd started building walkable communities and rebuilding our rail systems back in the 1970s (after the first energy crisis showed us how vulnerable we were), we'd be in pretty good shape by now.
Starting from here, it's going to take a long time and a lot of money to get something that's really satisfactory. Very possibly more time and money than we've got.
That's why it's important that individuals make their own plans. You have to start from where you are, and it may be that none of the choices may look particularly good. But that's no reason to throw up your hands and say that it's hopeless. If you do that, you'll most likely find yourself in just the same position five years from now. You'd likely have more company in adjusting to high energy costs then than you will now, but I doubt if that'll make the adjusting easier.
I always thought the economic stimulus checks should be used to pay down debt and boost savings. In this way, the checks would be used frugally instead of providing a short-term boost to the spending economy.
As long as our govt keeps printing out dollars that it borrows it's that dollar's value dropping... THAT is the problem, it's not the price going up, it's the dollar value dropping hence the need for more dollars to buy that same gallon of gas, or food, or whatever... Govt's runaway spending IS the problem, if that is curbed then the dollar gains and then it will take fewer dollars to buy consumer goods, energy, etc... Duhhhh... I read on the net the other day some financial guru applauding and thankful the dollar was so weak that certain products were more affordable now, what an idiot.. I'm sure he had foreign currencies stocked away in the Caymans...
OK here is my idea to Screw OPEC
I want to build a still to create fuel for my car from , get this : Lawn clippings. I think with the right formula I can do it. So throw out your ideas for the brew to work. If we can pull it off just maybe we can miz it with reg fuel to run a vehicle.
OK so I am just an engineer but what do you think???
gress clippings-mulch fine
sugar- fine like powdered
yeast- 20%
I need your ideas, we need to get OPEC by the balls!!!
We are americans, we can do this.
imagine 1 million home stills running a year from lawn clippings~
Random thoughts. Would voluntary frugality make us more of a cash/barter society? Bankruptcy would decrease. That impacts us all. Financial problems have major impact on marriages. Would less stress save more marriages? Divorce lawyers would have to diversify. A Wisebread article recently adressed what "poor" looks like in this country--cable TV, own home, etc. What happens if we actually stop being consumption driven? Would we become more content with less or different? You know, the basics, food, clothing, shelter. Would we be willing to wait for something instead feel we're entitled to immediate gratification? Would kids stop bugging their folks for cell phones? Would robberies go down? Would people drive 55 or under? Would we need fewer cops? Would individual creativity and problem solving be pushed in schools instead of the group learning, techno saavy model used now. The trade deficit would decrease. Toy stores would be hard hit. Fast food restaurants, rent-to-own places would go under. Less shipping containers rusting on the docks. We might start using our farmland again as farmland instead of turning it into mega developments. We'd put less stuff in landfills. Construction people would learn to fix existing buildings instead of ripping down old and building new. Would the government eventually see the need to live within their means too? Or would the largeness of the machine have to find work for government employees? Would there be a shift to improve public transportation, roads, reinstitute WPA type projects or would the bread and circuses model reign? Would our houses become smaller and more efficient? Would we go to alternative fuels? Would our work ethic improve? Would we start making our own stuff like rag rugs and clothes?
The driving force in voluntary frugality is contentment. Forced frugality is another matter. Both have an immense ripple effect on society and on the economy but it may not be a bad thing if taken as an opportunity instead of an obstacle.
@Bitsy:
I agree completely. You'll note that I included fruit on my list of essentials (not in the list of unnecessary things). As to tofu, you'll note that I included legumes as a category.
The infrastructure that we have in place to distribute food is flawed, and is often terrible in poor neighborhoods. But I don't think that's the fundamental problem. I think the root of the problem is people having been cut off from their own cultural traditions of healthy eating.
If you're drawing on a religious tradition for your diet, that gives you a huge leg up on people whose parents and grandparents eat some variation of the standard American diet. My point is that almost any tradition of healthy eating will do the trick--and I was trying to provide a worked example. If one tradition is impossible (because the foods aren't available or there's no kitchen, or the people simply don't know what it is), then perhaps another tradition can be pressed to serve.
Some of the European infrastructure was built in response to energy prices that were high due to high taxes. A lot, though--especially the layout of the cities--was built long ago, before energy got cheap in the first place.
That's true to a lesser extent in the US as well. Where I live, it used to be possible to live in any of several of the outlying towns and work in Champaign or Urbana, without needing to own a car, because there was light rail to transport commuters. In the US, though, most of that infrastructure was ripped up long ago.
I understand that your suggestion that ordinary folks start their own mass transit business is a rhetorical device, but there are actually a lot of reasons why that's not practical. The fundamental one is simply that most people are not entrepreneurially inclined. However, there are a bunch of structural problems, having to do with the huge subsidies that the government provides for car-based transportation, that make it impossible for anyone else to compete. (For example, in many places zoning codes require workplaces and apartment buildings to provide ample parking, so workers and residents aren't able to freely choose to take mass transit from a cheaper place to live to a higher-paying place to work.)
i agree. especially the US economy.
1. we consume 25% of the world's fuel
2. we consume 20% of the world's other natural resources.
3. we import stuff from almost every country in the world.
if we were to cut down our spending, it would cause an international economic recession.
I signed up lured by the whopping free 25GB promise... But, all of a sudden the service stopped and has now reincarnated as www.thelinkup.com All the free user accounts have "Gone With The Wind".
Great, so the world is going to end on my 34th birthday. I'll make sure to have one hell of a party!
I've been looking around for information like that.
The only thing that I wonder about is if it's very safe?
I would probably do it alone.
I doubt you've lived in an urban area if you are writing things like this. I live in inner city Philadelphia, right at the edge of a ghetto area, and a block away from one of the few grocery stores in about a 20-35 block radius. Yes, it's true that the poor in this country can afford to eat meat and drink juice, which would be impossible in other countries. But that still doesn't mean that fruits and vegetables and other healthy fare are any more affordable or convenient for these people.
You advise people to buy the cheapest vegetables they can find and eat them. At the closest store, most of the produce is fancy organic stuff, and what little produce is available that isn't organic is similarly pricey; this is the way with all innercity stores, for if I walk two blocks further to the rundown chain store, the prices are still about 50% more for the produce I buy in my homestate (NJ), but the quality of the fruits and vegetables is really poor. I am lucky enough that I am a student who lives fairly close to my parents' place, and I can go to my ethnic grocers and chainstores in Jersey to pick up all the produce I need. But for the people that live in the city and truly are the urban poor, the only grocery store option they have are the two within walkable distance, and the two stores have very similar pricepoints.
As for "unnecessary" things like eggs, milk, juice, and meats, I say for every diet, a certain amount of those things must be included. I'm a vegetarian so naturally, I don't need the meat. I drink very little juice, but what I drink is 100% juice. I don't begrudge children their daily juice, but those same stores always have HiC on sale (10% juice) instead of low-sodium V8. If I was on foodstamps or a limited budget, of course I'd go for whatever was cheapest; it's a poorly informed decision, but who says I'd have all this knowledge at that poverty level. Also, I'm vegetarian for religious reasons, and in my culture dairy is not only sacred, but essential. A purely vegetarian diet needs a little protein there somewhere, and since I see you aren't including tofu on your musthaves, I say milk is a perfectly acceptable way to get what you need.
Finally, many of those people are working jobs that require intense labor and long hours. Single moms working 16+ hours a day don't have leisure time to agonize over purchasing decisions, research/plan/test out recipes for fickle kids, etc. And if a person living that kind of life needs a MickeyD's every once in a while, I won't stand in judgement.
So far (2008 May 11) it seems that several stores or chains offer a ten percent bump if you buy their prepay card. A couple of used car dealers offer a 100% bump -- but when was the last time you knew the true value of something from one of them?
I do appreciate 10%, and work hard to achieve that kind of gain, but I think I'll hold out for a bit and see if a better deal materializes.
BTW I am not in financial difficulty, just parsimonious.
Better mass transit is the answer, of course, but as of yet there is very little push toward increasing the amount available.
So what is stopping you from buying a fleet of buses and hiring workers to provide mass transit?
I think it rather misses the point to suggest that Europe can't be a model for the US, simply because their infrastructure--roadways, railways, structure of the cities--is more suitable for walking and using mass transit. Those structures didn't just spring up there; people built them.
People built the infrastructure in response to high gas prices.
The same will happen here; high gas prices creates too many incentives to keep such a thing from happening.
It is up to each person to decide how to adapt to economic reality.
Andrea:
I'm not sure why you'd make fun of the person who commented on what they thought was a source of fluoride absorption ("It's just hilarious to me that people are so concerned over things like fluoride ("It'll be absorbed through your skin!!!!"), but not the pollutants created in the process that it took to get that water from a tap to your mouth."). If they're concerned about fluoride (regardless of their concerns over pollutants created in the process of bottling and shipping water), then they'd naturally be concerned about absorbing it through showers or baths, and that's their right. There's plenty of evidence that the type of fluoride that gets added to drinking water, can be bad news.
But the person who was concerned about absorbing fluoride through the skin during a shower or bath, may not actually have that to worry about--from everything I've read, fluoride is not absorbed in significant levels through the skin. One might be concerned about the effects of fluoride on the skin itself, but at least it may not be a systemic problem from showers and baths. I don't know about the skin absorption of chlorine, however.
Anyone concerned about absorbing things from water during a shower, can buy a shower head filter which is supposed to do a pretty good job in removing at least chlorine. I don't have any references handy, but as usual, Googling will turn them up.
we bought I bonds in 2001 and 2003... the yield on the 2001 bonds is 6.08% since the beginning... on the 2001 bonds, it's 4.43%... the current rates, respectively 6.51 and 4.54.
certainly not a great return, but we looked at it as keeping the capital secure, being very afraid when Enron went down.
by next year, we won't have the 3 month penalty ( minor point, but several hundred dollars).
max bond buy is $30M per person per year.
big question, Phil, about the state of the market. you're probably right, but I see "real" problems with the money that's on the books in banks, pension funds, endowment funds, insurance funds, and the like... I don't think the money's there. As long as these funds carry unresolved securities as assets, I think they're at risk. the term "mark to market" equals "armageddon". so far, Bernanke et al, have dodged the bullet, and it's possible that if we have triple digit inflation, they'll bail out the debt by paying back in cheap dollars... but, ya have to remember that the '29 market didn't recover until 1954.
that 537 trillion dollars in derivative "notional" dollars... may not be what it sounds like, but it ain't smoke, either.
credit derivatives were supposed to protect the leveraged hedge funds and commodity accounts, but anyone who truly believes that this is happening, is still feeling good. reality is the great leveler.
I've been wrong for the past five years, so can't lay claim to being a guru, but for the life of me, can't imagine how we'll be back to the "normal" that the financial pundits claim.
Someone else has already mentioned this but...
Best way i find to eat frugaly is to eat for free. Today i had nettles and wild garlic with beech leaves.... followed by a knotweed crumble.... very tasty...
I did cheat a bit and brought flour, sugar and olive oil mind....
I think it all depends on how you plan to use your space. We have 2400 sq. feet: 2 adults, 2 100-pound dogs, twin 1-year olds, and a toddler. We bought an 80 year old home and have renovated it--it is PERFECT for entertaining since the rooms are very large. We happen to be people who entertain a lot and tend to fill whatever space we're in. We wanted a house that had a dining room big enough for our big table (seats 12 easily; we regularly have 10 people for dinner). Our home is used for church gatherings and all sorts of things. Our big space has also been great fun for the kids--they run and cavort all over the place. We could get by with less, but big, open space definitely has its uses. And, we've helped recycle an older home! So, I say, get whatever space you can afford and will use.
People need to start factoring higher gas prices for the forseeable future and budgeting for $5 gas for example. I had a recent on this topic and $5 gas can make a $600+ difference to your budget.
A case in point is Japan in the early 90's after the collapse of their financial system. Saving rates went up significantly as people moved to cash and reduced their spending. 15 years later the country is still recovering. While this is more than just due to frugality, it has been shown time and again that consumers are the drivers behind economies. If they start cutting back en masse, the whole economy and country will suffer. Too long to go into it here, but what makes discretionary consumer spending so powerful is the multiplier effect, where every $1 spent ends up a $6-$7 effect on the economy.
Andy.
"It still seems like a good deal for the body-only. Why not go on Ebay and get chargers and batteries?"
The scam company is selling you the body for a huge $ loss to them, trying to make up the loss by over charging you with other items. If you refuse to buy other items and try to get them from ebay later or something like that they will tell you the order is delayed 6 weeks. If you are stupid enough to wait that long you will just continue to get other delays until you eventually call and cancel, maybe you'll have to pay a fine too. In other words you can not buy just the body itself.
Thanks for all the good comments.
Maybe in some other blog my post would have produced some controversy. Here in Wise Bread, not so much.
There may be some hazard if everyone suddenly decided to live frugally, all at the same time--the drop in economic activity would look a lot like the start of a recession--but that doesn't seem very likely. Much more likely at the moment, is the combination of a looming recession together with a credit crunch forcing more and more people to live frugally whether they want to or not.
I hate the suffering that poverty causes, but the minor squeeze facing ordinary middle class folks seems more like a good thing to me. I'm thrilled at the idea of people combining trips to save a little money on fuel, buying cheaper cuts of meat (or less meat altogether), and getting books out of the library rather than buying yet another video game.
What makes me sad are people having to choose between filling a prescription or putting food on the table, or between keeping the heat turned on and new shoes when the kid outgrows the old ones. If what we have turns out to be a recession, there'll be plenty of that. Choosing to be frugal without waiting for circumstances force our hand can help.
I think it rather misses the point to suggest that Europe can't be a model for the US, simply because their infrastructure--roadways, railways, structure of the cities--is more suitable for walking and using mass transit. Those structures didn't just spring up there; people built them.
People built the infrastructure in the US as well. Most of it was built when oil was cheap, so there was public preasure to build for cars. It's sad that we're starting where we are. If we'd started building walkable communities and rebuilding our rail systems back in the 1970s (after the first energy crisis showed us how vulnerable we were), we'd be in pretty good shape by now.
Starting from here, it's going to take a long time and a lot of money to get something that's really satisfactory. Very possibly more time and money than we've got.
That's why it's important that individuals make their own plans. You have to start from where you are, and it may be that none of the choices may look particularly good. But that's no reason to throw up your hands and say that it's hopeless. If you do that, you'll most likely find yourself in just the same position five years from now. You'd likely have more company in adjusting to high energy costs then than you will now, but I doubt if that'll make the adjusting easier.
I always thought the economic stimulus checks should be used to pay down debt and boost savings. In this way, the checks would be used frugally instead of providing a short-term boost to the spending economy.
As long as our govt keeps printing out dollars that it borrows it's that dollar's value dropping... THAT is the problem, it's not the price going up, it's the dollar value dropping hence the need for more dollars to buy that same gallon of gas, or food, or whatever... Govt's runaway spending IS the problem, if that is curbed then the dollar gains and then it will take fewer dollars to buy consumer goods, energy, etc... Duhhhh... I read on the net the other day some financial guru applauding and thankful the dollar was so weak that certain products were more affordable now, what an idiot.. I'm sure he had foreign currencies stocked away in the Caymans...
Well, as my husband says, FAT IS FLAVOR! :P
OK here is my idea to Screw OPEC
I want to build a still to create fuel for my car from , get this : Lawn clippings. I think with the right formula I can do it. So throw out your ideas for the brew to work. If we can pull it off just maybe we can miz it with reg fuel to run a vehicle.
OK so I am just an engineer but what do you think???
gress clippings-mulch fine
sugar- fine like powdered
yeast- 20%
I need your ideas, we need to get OPEC by the balls!!!
We are americans, we can do this.
imagine 1 million home stills running a year from lawn clippings~