Stuff

The gas price wheel of fortune was spun once again today and yes, another new record!!! All we need is Chuck Woolery to complete the picture.

$3.21 per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline....wow.

If I remember correctly last year the highest price went to $3.04 so question is where do we go from here?

Economies of the world keep growing. When someone becomes more affluent or at least is welcomed into the middle class with increasingly open arms one thing for certain is to happen. Forget the death and taxes speach, one thing that always happens when one makes more money....one spends more money.

Take 31 year old Xiang who until four years ago lived in rural Guangxi Province in China. Xiang was a farmer and one of the top carpenters in his village. Desiring a better life for himself and his future bride he left the village for more opportunities he hoped to find in metropolitan Wuhan, a city of some 7,000,000 people.

Xiang went from farmer/carpenter to working in a worksop making furntiure. He found himself quite skilled then others and soon he moved up to master carpenter. Today Xiang and his wife of three years and their daughter have a combines household income 15 times that he was earning as a farmer.....and consequently

he buys stuff.

since he has more money than before, Xiang has more stuff, Xiang buys more stuff. The stuff Xiang and others like him come from factories that put out more stuff than the year before cause there are more people than last year who want stuff.

Alot of stuff

Think of yourself and what were to happen to you if you suddenly earned 50% more in your job. How would you spend it? Or...would it be saved?

So, as economies of the world expand thereby advancing people up in class and giving them the opportunity to have more stuff than before, they will elect to have the stuff, the stuff they couldn't have before.

More and more people getting more and more stuff.

Problem is, the energy that went into making that stuff is not keeping up with demand and how high will the price of gas go before you start buying stuff???

That's the magical question. How much pain will be felt before the average person will cut back on stuff. Consider paying $4 per gallon of gas this time next year (an economic downturn notwithstanding). Is it $4 or perhaps $5 when you cringe so much your teeth start to crack??