Gas Prices, Baseball and Whatever else comes to mind!

4/23/11

Beginning Thoughts

I woke up earlier than I wanted to this morning, again to the sound of Aidan's legs pounding on his mattress. Thankfully Dana decided to get up and take care of him so I was able to get a few extra minutes of sleep. I get up, make my coffee and look outside and see rain. More freakin' rain! The one thing I cannot stand any longer is the depressing weather the Northeast has from October until about mid-May. Moving south is sounding better every day. Maybe one day this year we can sell our condo so we can make this a reality.

Gas Prices…..  Going up…. again…..

I had to go out shopping for Aidan's christening so I started on my way down Rt. 1 and started seeing the continued trend of rising gas prices. $3.69, $3.71, $3.75 a gallon or more. This is just absurd! You might be asking yourself "Why are gas prices so high?" I ask myself this very question every day as I pass a good 3 or 4 gas stations along my route to work. So, why exactly are gas prices so high? Speculation. Speculation from oil traders who are scared of the middle east. Scared because Libya is in civil war, Egypt and Tunisia ousted their so-called leaders, and Amadinijad sneezed the wrong way (Excuse the spelling.) There is no oil shortage. No one is crying supply & demand. We have plenty of stock and reserve.

What is going to happen if oil prices keep skyrocketing? We're going to go into another recession or worse, a depression worse than in 1929. How much more can the people of this country take when it comes to gas prices, taxes and all that other fun stuff we pay into? Gas prices drive just about everything. Shipping, commercial airlines, tourism, every day travel, just about everything is affected by the cost of gasoline. How long is it going to take before we start seeing the same things happen from 2008? What market will crumble? How many more people will get laid off from their jobs? One of the worst things we all see is companies actually use the economic troubles, gas prices etc as a marketing scheme. How many advertisements for cars do you see plugging high gas prices and how many miles per gallon this car has over that one? Just about every car ad I've seen in recent weeks has done this.

"These tough economic times"

The next thing I say might get some people a bit excited, but hey, that's what I want! The next politician I hear say "times are tough" or use "in these tough economic times" I want to punch square in the face. How the hell can someone making over $300,000 understand what those terms actually mean? Are they struggling to put food on the table? Are they struggling to pay their bills? NO! There are millions of people in this country who are struggling just to get by and I, for one, am tired of hearing rich millionaires bitching and complaining that they have to pay more taxes when we get tax increases each year that are significantly more than an increase in a pay check.

Good ol' condo association

Now, I'll be clear, I have a job. I work my ass off every day to make sure I still have a job and can still feed my family and give them what they need. I don't get paid an incredible amount of money but I'm doing OK considering living in New Jersey is probably the most difficult state to live in cost wise. Making things a bit worse is my ever-so-wonderful condo association. They felt it was appropriate to give the community a $300 assessment fee for snow removal. The idiots who did the budget didn't take into account that they should have put more money into snow removal this year considering they were over budget $50,000+ in 2009. To make things worse, apparently 15% of the community is short on their association fees now. The cost of this is the EXACT SAME AMOUNT as the community was over budget for snow removal. Two reasons why this happened:

1) People just don't care

2) People cannot afford the 6% increase from last year

So, while I'm not one of the 15% delinquent on the association dues, we have to pay an extra $300 to bail them out. Sound familiar?

The lighter side

Ok, now that I got that off my chest here's some lighter thoughts from the week.

The Yankees are off to a nice 10-6 start to the season. I haven't really been able to watch many games yet this season. Hopefully the game today will not get rained out again. The rest of the AL East has some pretty bad records. That will turn around as I believe the AL East is still the toughest division in baseball. The discussion of expanded playoffs came up this week. Good for you, Bud Selig. I wouldn't mind seeing an extra few playoff games as long as we're not playing into November anymore. I like the 1 game playoff idea and not so much the best of 3 series before the Division Series. I think this will give more cities a better opportunity to have a team in the playoffs.

Easter is tomorrow but we have a full weekend planned for Aidan's first Easter celebration. Today, we will be going to Dana's parents for dinner and will go to my parents tomorrow for Easter Sunday. I'm looking forward to a lot of good food and my sister-in-law's baking! Sadly, Dana did not make her bonnie butter cake. Since she mostly has her hands full with Aidan she is excused.

Well, I think I have rambled on enough for one day. This is my weekly update. This has been the Outlet for my brain to speak, eyes to watch and for you to read. Thanks to all who took the time to read. Please comment as you wish.