Fuel Prices….

I’ve been hearing rumblings along those lines as well. Fuel went up some more here too. It’s a worry for me as we still use quite a little diesel to put up the hay. I cover too much ground to do otherwise. Putting up six to eight hundred ton of hay without a tractor would be hard to say the least.
I worry about the effect of high fuel cost on just about every facet of life. Puts a strain on everything.

High gas gridlocks everything around here. As a suburb, you pretty much need a car to get anywhere within a “resonable” amount of time. Goodness forbid someone should have to break out the bicycle. Back when it was over $4 everybody was conscious and turning off engines at stoplights, etc. As I see it, eventually we’ll need a lot more labor on the land, accept high gas prices, or come up with some alternate which will probably be equally expensive to gas.

Diesel Fuel for trucks on the road has been higher than gasoline since the 2004 hurricane, it used to be cheaper The only good the govt does for farmers is a tax exemption on fuel for off road farm use. Here in NY you used to have to pay the tax and then get credit of your income taxes at the end of the year. There was a push to have it like other Ag supplies, where you get the taxes excluded from the get go as long as you fill out the Tax Exemption form. I am not sure where it is at now because I don’t pay the fuel bill or do the farm taxes.

I am glad that someone over the pond posted, because people in the US don’t know how “good” they have it. We are fooled into a sense that we deserve everything as cheap as possible, where as even our neighbors to the north have much more realistic fuel prices than we do. When the real @#4% hits the fan there are going to be some unhappy people in this country that want their government to bail them out as usual. Eventually our government will have to stop trying to play “God,” and a greedy one at that.

Good points Erika… and Smalltown, another reason we dont drive as far is the uncool cars we have… most have as much grunt as a hairdrier:D…joking aside… things are going to get tight for a while I recon…
John

If fuel prices stay elevated and/or rise to the $5.00/gal range, would that not force the general public to buy things local? And in that end, would it still be feasible for foreign industry to import all the things that are imported now? Would this bring local business more opportunity to gain market share? Less shipping of produce and meats over 3000miles, even to complete other countries? It would seem that local CO-OPs, farmers markets, and local crafts people would all benefit. And with people using less fuel, there would be less dependence on foreign energy products. I guess what I am trying to say is a huge price increase in fuel might not be as bad as CNN (communist news network) FOX, and the rest of the fear mongers would lead you to believe. In the long run, maybe even a good thing.

Gordon

Gordon, I understand what you are saying about forcing people to buy local. That would probably happen, the problem is they would be buying mostly foreign made products locally.

we have 4.5 $ per quart of gasoline, FOR NOW. LOl i remember people thinning gasoline with water when there wasn’t enough of it. but then there were big sturdy cars who could take it, nowdays modern cars can’t.

there are other fuel sources, though. like cooking oil, heating oil, biomass, lng.

if i had the space, i’d seriously consider shifting to wood gas, but for now, unfortunatelly, nothing.

lately the driving’s been: walk up to the car, look at it, and then go and take a tram! LOL