The End Of The World As We Know It

Yesterday, I had a brief conversation about gas prices with an over-the-road truck driver. I mentioned that a lot of us would be shocked if we had to pay the real price for gas. He said, "We don't as it is; we pay over 60% in taxes." I knew where he was going with it: Gas is over taxed; we need cheap toilet paper; and government is going to tax the working man out of a job. I more or less bowed out of the conversation and took in what he had to say.

But before I went on my way I did mention that no matter what the government does I'm afraid the price of gas will continually rise until a lot of us can't afford it anymore. I pointed to the fact that in the mid-eighteen hundreds the first oil well in the United States was only about 60 feet deep and produced a gusher of oil. About 150 years later we had the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was at least a mile below the ocean's surface and a couple more miles below the bottom of the ocean. "I'm afraid we're running out cheap oil. It's becoming harder to find." I said. He said, "We have all the oil we need in Alaska. It's just that pipeline that's holding it up."

I wished him a nice day

Welcome to the end of the world as we know it. (Thank you to the band REM for this line)