> Gas bill on that Ford Galaxy starting to get to you?
>
>
Volvo 850. Me and the wife both walk to work. Total driving of roughly 4 miles a week. I happen to think that higher gas prices are one of the healthiest side effects of the Greenspan Bubble.
On the other hand, my health insurance goes up 10% every year, the deductibles just jumped 50%, as the care gets ever more mediocre. They no longer even bother making up excuses. College tuition, up its customary twice the CPI. Local supermarkets have been slapping 10, 20 and 30% increases on our staples -granted, we do not eat spam or CrapoBell Frozen Burritos, so we do not take advantage of that great "substituton" thingy. I now buy all of my shoes and most of my clothes (including jeans!) when on vacation in Spain. The minimum price for a decent pair of leather shoes is up from $35 to $55 in about two years. All this is just anecdotal evidence, but I do not know a single person who thinks their cost of living is going up 2% a year. Maybe we just don't buy enough gadgets.
For the record, I think that what "Bubbles" Greenspan is doing (try to slowly rein in his Bubble by choking off the real economy) is idiotic. People who think they are going to make 50% a year in the market will not be deterred by 8, 9 or 13% interest rates. Productive businesses will. It is likely that eventually we will have a burst bubble and high interest rates to boot. But then Al never seemed all that bright to me.
-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 272 4808 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique