The cost of gasoline and food is rising. There are a number of reasons for this increase, and outsourcing by United States corporations is one of these.
Our manufacturing jobs are being sent to China and information technology jobs to India. This creates wealth in the form of high-paying jobs in these countries. With this increased wealth comes a greater demand for goods, primarily gasoline-powered vehicles and more and better-tasting nutritious food. Oil for fuel and arable land for food production are limited resources. Thus, increasing demand for products from these limited resources is resulting in higher prices.
This situation is being made worse by the unconscionable practice in this country of producing ethanol for fuel from corn. Ethanol for fuel requires more energy in its production than is obtained using it as a fuel. Adding it to gasoline reduces the mileage obtained by trucks and cars, thus they use more fuel, which further increases the cost of driving. Obviously [using] corn for fuel reduces [the amount of] land available for food production, be it corn or some other crop.
What can be done about this? Probably not much. In the short term, people are resistant to meaningful change that reduces their living standard. Only when prices of fuel and food become very expensive will consumption be reduced, and this will mean a severe reduction in our current living standards.
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2011.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
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The reasons for the current crash of the USD are many. We cannot do a thing about -any- of them at the national level, or politically. The Parties that created these problems cannot be expected to solve them. It’s not in their interest. For them, they have -met- their goals. Wall street is booming. The biggest corporations and the greediest citizens are dripping in riches, while the average JonDo is underemployed and almost homeless.
The time is passed where we can vote for a Green President that supports more ‘clean coal’, more nuclear power, and more offshore drilling. The time is passed where we can expect CHANGE from a military complex run by a man that since winning the Peace Prize, has increased the scope of one war, and involved us in another.
That being said, maybe some of us will now become people of vision and see that it is now time to seize-the-day and walk like an Egyptian, or Libyan, or Syrian.
We are at the end of an ERA. We are at a time where Bendafarians are rediscovering that -real- power, and action, and -real- prosperity, is right here at home. This is indieBENDence, I define as economic and environmental sustainability.
We will rediscover that as we rethink money, and rethink what is of Value, we will figure out that the best bad habit to break is sitting in line with our car running while waiting for sub-standard fast-food products that cheat our bodies, so we can give our money to corporations that take more from our communities than they give, and do most of -their- business with other corporations that do the same.
It’s US vs. Them. We didn’t start the fire. They are trying to own our right to produce local healthy food, and local healthy medicine. WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS, you ask. A hell of a lot.
The answer is Community Gardens.
The solution is YOU.
Thank you for your consideration.
“a.k.a. Rondo”