Finally something I can really get into……. Hey Gary, my truck gets awesome mileage btw, if I’m nice to it I get 18mpg, when I tow my race trailer I get about 12mph, through the mountains I get 8mpg, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s easy to say tax the gas, tax this tax that, but when it happens you will complain with the rest of us. The deficit will not be gone for a long time, just like middle class Americans, the more we take in, the more we will spend. And you can spend what you don’t have, the wonders of credit cards and loans.

When you find that Accord that gets 40mpg you let me know. Might also want to do some more research on alternative fuel before you praise them, we are a long way from being even slightly independent of oil, from a technological standpoint.

PS – The mileage tax is gaining ground, once this passes the hybrid people sure will be complaining then.

In regards to the higher mpg cars and expensive gas I think that’s a viable suggestion however I think what really needs to be looked at is our middle class (or lack there of). Not necessarily the little things. Although if you take John Cleese’s letter to our president seriously, we should increase gas to $8.

America’s middle class has always carried the vast majority of our taxes and made up most of our working class. However with the recent tax breaks for the rich and Warren Buffet’s 3% tax against his secretaries 30% we’re destroying (if not already wiped out) our middle class. That leaves the poor and the extremely wealthy to pay our way out. I’m pretty sure the wealthy will find loop holes and that leaves the debt with the poor.

There were a few articles mentioning factories being built back in America. Does that mean we’ll be the next China due to our growing poor? Cheap labor due to lack of education (see no child left behind) seem to be one of our futures. Does that mean we as entrepreneur’s should utilize the working class of the US (poor) just like we’re supposed to utilize the working class of China?

By the way, Hybrid doesn’t save emission because people would buy a Hybrid would have bought a Honda for example. Honda has 40mpg while Hybrid has what? 50, 60? But how about people who drive a Hummer that has a mpg of 20?

When you move from 20mpg to 40mpg and from 40mpg to 60mpg, the savings are drastically different.

If you drive 12,000 miles a year. With 20mpg, it costs you 600 gallons.

For 40mpg, it costs you 300 gallons while a 60mpg car costs you 200 gallons.

Do you see how moving from 20mpg to 40mpg, you save a whopping 300 gallons a year!! While moving from 40mpg to 60mpg, you only save 100 gallons? ONE THIRD of moving from a Hummer to an Accord!

So what we really should do is punishing gas guzzler than to encourage buying hybrids.

Just kidding, Jesse.

You were right in pointing out the dependency on Chinese economy. I too find the fiscal irresponsibility of the current administration far deviated from GOP doctrine of fiscal conservatism.

However global economy depends on America just as banks depends on borrowers. Our deficit is less of an advantage for other countries than a liability shared by all. As America goes, so goes the globe.

This morning for the first time since 1981 inflation and recession appear at the same time on the horizon, making any interest rate adjustment difficult, thus rendering Fed powerless to an extend.

Perhaps we just have to bite our teeth, hit the trough in one grand stroke so to allow the market to correct itself. Unlike Austrian School economics, I believe no stable growth could occur without cyclic adjustment.

The only bright spot for me on a topic like this is that people under 30 (i.e., most of you) will have to deal with this and pay these bills, which my generation and older have rung up, for most of your lives, as folks like me will either be in the retirement home or long gone to the next life. Just please pay it all off before my daughters graduates from college. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!