by Jeff Davis

Ever see one of those big huge RVs driven by an elderly couple, with a bumper sticker proclaiming “We’re Spending Our Children’s Inheritance?” Well, if that sounds like your folks, you’d better track down those old coots and convince them to take a flight back home because the way gas prices are going, they really will spend your whole inheritance this summer.

A recent news article reports “Record high gas prices are prompting Americans to drive less for the first time in nearly three decades, squeezing family budgets and causing major shifts in driving habits, federal data and a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll show. As prices near — or in some places top — $4 a gallon, most Americans say they are cutting back on other household spending, seriously considering buying more fuel-efficient cars and consolidating their daily errands to save fuel. Americans worry that steep gas costs are here to stay: eight in 10 say they doubt today’s high prices are temporary…”

An Associated Press article reports “Oil futures blasted to a new record over $122 a barrel Tuesday, gaining momentum as investors bought on a forecast of much higher prices… oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 within two years… Light, sweet crude for June delivery jumped to a new record of $122.47 a barrel …Oil prices have nearly doubled from about $62 a barrel a year ago, which Goldman sees as a sign that the world is in the midst of a ’super spike’ in oil prices.”

In other words, this business of yuppies commuting from “affordable” housing 100 miles outside Los Angeles every day to their jobs and any similar long distance traveling is going to come to a screeching halt. Those holiday visits to Grandma in Kansas, or driving the kids to your ex in Texas will quickly become unaffordable. Vacations in Europe? The airfare will soon skyrocket if it hasn’t already. From now on travel, for all but the very rich, is going to be a major life event, just like it was in the 19th century. From now on you’ll likely stay where you first sprung up just like a tree, because the necessary fuel costs to cover North America’s huge distances will become prohibitive.

The staggering increase in fuel prices (with no end in sight) doesn’t seem to have sunk in yet. After nearly eight years of Bush-Cheney, people should realize this isn’t some temporary hiccup. And that things won’t change once a new President gets elected. Not at $122 per barrel, it won’t. You need to understand–these changes that are occurring now in 2008 are likely to last as long as the two-party system lasts. We literally will have to pry those puppets and corporate whores out of the White House AND Congress and replace them with a third party. Or we will see our standard of living get worse and worse every year until it becomes completely intolerable. Why people have condoned the two-party system this long is beyond me.