Julia, I agree with you. When gas prices were $3, I told the motorist at the pump that I wish that they would go to $5 to drive the Suvs and pick up trucks(sorry cousin Leroy) off the road because they obstruct my view and etc.(trucks are dangerous to be around cars). The high price of food is also good because 2/3's of Americans are overweight. We have twice the major illnesses(e.g. cancer, heart disease) as Europe where gas prices are higher and people are not pigs. We live in very exciting times.

Once again, no foresight in solving the oil dilemna. We are in such a rush to clean up this world and by that I mean extinguishing the demand for oil and carbon polluting products that we forget to take the time to see the cause and effect of a new technology like ethanol.

Gordon Gekko said it best, "Greed is Good", and that is what the oil companies and car manufacturers live by. You think that these pricks can't develop more energy efficient vehicles. Look at their marketing ploy to get consumers to buy those bastard SUV's. Big is SAFE. Come on who is kidding who. The rise of oil is a good thing like you said but it is manufactured by people who just think that money is what the human being is all about.

Ernie, have you read the book, "Economic Man". According to Marx, money is what the human being is all about. Unfortunately, former Communists have become greedy capitalists. Even the gangsters that ran the Communist eastern bloc were, well, just greedy gangsters. Greed is human nature. It is as natural as the sexual drive and the lust for fried food. Some people with great discipline can overcome these vices, but for most, it is not within their grasp. Look, 60% of Americans are obese. You just have to work within the system and lead by example. Are you doing that Ernie?

While I like some of the effects of high oil and gas prices - like causing people to begin car pooling and leaving their SUV's at home occasionally - there are some serious negative impacts on people who can least afford it.

Though things are going well for me and my family now, it was not always the case. I guess I am just really, really glad that our economic hard times coincided with $1.00 per gallon gas (mid to late 1990s). I cannot imagine what people who work as plumbers, construction workers, carpenters and others who need pick-up trucks and vans are doing.

It also concerns me that the money is not going to help us become less dependent on oil and gas, but it is being added to the already overflowing coffers of companies and countries that love being hydrocarbon "pushers". They are spending a large portion of that money either on fancy planes, big mansions, or big cars of their own or on finding even more complex ways of extracting more oil and gas from the depths of the earth.

If you want high prices to discourage consumption and to find alternative lifestyles, push to make those prices high through taxes, not through profits for oil, gas and coal suppliers and their supporting industries.

Disclosure - if oil and gas prices remain high, I fully expect personal profits because of my investments in effective alternative energy suppliers who work in the nuclear energy field.

Rod, look at history, whenever the economy changes there are winners and losers. In Europe, the craftsmen that you mentioned get along just fine with fuel efficient vehicles. As for the people that had the bad judgment to produce too many bastards(in the legal sense of the term), too bad. That is life. Bad judgment and decisions have a price and don't ask me to pay for another person's folly. As always, be gay, be green.

NEW DELHI: Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy and go on a diet, say a growing number of politicians, economists and academics here.

Criticism of the United States has ballooned in India recently, particularly after the Bush administration seemed to blame India's increasing middle class and prosperity for rising food prices. Critics from India seem to be asking one underlying question: "Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?"

The food problem has "clearly" been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India, said Pradeep Mehta, the secretary general of CUTS Center for International Trade, Economics and Environment, a private economic research organization based in India with offices in Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam and Britain.

If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, "many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates," Mehta said. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead, he added.

I been telling you fat farting Americans for sometime. Now the Indians are waking up to. Over 2billion people against your 300million. On a scale, you 300 million people still out weight us 2billion people.