About two and half months ago, my colleagues at work walked to a near by restaurant for lunch. We passed by a gas station and IIRC the gas price for unleaded (the lowest grade) was about to approach 3 dollar and I out of nowhere said, " I predict that gas price is going be $4/gallon by the first week of June." As time passed by I was getting closer to my prediction and obviously I was not happy about it. Today the average gas price is $4/gallon or more. Everyday I hear and watch how people are having hard time buying dairy products and regular groceries.
There are many factors that have caused this and I am not going to talk about obvious ones such as demand/supply, dollar getting devalued etc.
I believe it was year 1999 or 2000 when sales of SUV surpassed sales of compact cars in USA. I think it was the same year when sales of salsa surpassed sales of ketchup. I don't remember many news analysts talking about the long term impact of this shift in America's vehicle choice. It was proud endorsement of "Everything is big in America". I have seen many times in little city parks that parents wait in car with ignition on while their kids play. I have seen folks circling around gym to find a parking spot nearby the gym gate when they could easily get a spot in nearby spaces. So, what's the point? When people have abundance of resources, they tend to use them without any inhibition and without thinking even for a bit where all these lead to. I think wisdom is not to live in present only but to think about future as well. One should try to have a living standard which they can at least maintain throughout their life. You don't want to ride Mercedes one day and a Kia other day.
These days I read that the demand for fuel efficient cars have gone up. People are no longer looking for space but for fuel efficiency. Only sad part is that they had to be pushed by rising fuel price to change their riding habit.
Rising fuel price has ripple effect on price of almost everything else that you need in life. I am primarily concerned about food price. I heard Miss Condy Rice and President Bush saying that price of food in America have gone up because people in India and China are able to afford more food and they are consuming more. I do not deny this observation but I wonder about mentality and citing that as cause of rising food price. I don't care whether American people eat a lot or not. You eat based on how hungry you are even if you have more than you can eat. But I have observed in many restaurants that myself and my American friends can not finish all food in most of lunch plates. We simply throw them away. Why not have less quantity to begin with? Some food for thought.....
My apology to all my friends and American people who do not need to be told these things. I have many friends who care about environment, who care about rest of the world but I wish majority of people were like them.
