[who knows what evil?]

Seriously, what concerns me is that the weekly gas budget is gobbling up people's disposable income, and that's going to effect the economy in places where money is tight.

You're dead right. The poor and middle class are getting squeezed here in New England, and they have yet to be hit by this coming winter's heating costs. We're going to get murdered. If heating oil reaches four or five bucks by the winter of 2006-2007; you're going to see a hell of a lot of people heading south and west.

[VOR78]

The poor and working class are getting squeezed all across the country. A good chunk of this country lives paycheck to paycheck. A lower income family with two vehicles can't afford to maintain their levels of discretionary spending when they're paying $200-300 more a month for gasoline than they were a couple of years ago. As I posted a few days ago, this is all going to come home to roost when the holiday shopping season rolls around. That's when we'll finally have indisputable evidence that this is affecting our economy in a noticeably negative manner.

Something's gotta give, folks.