Got Hummer?

If you do have one, I'd like to know: Are you still enjoying your ride? I imagine by now you either hate the monstrosity with a passion or remain completely enamored with it.

If you live where I live (Lake Forest, CA) right now per gallon 87 octane gasoline is running at about $3.51 per gallon. Hummer owners are probably not only the most-frequently-seen customers at the local gas stations (8 miles per gallon city!), but they are likely dropping somewhere between $81.00 (H3) and $112.32 to fill it up all the way!

Holy crap!

I don't own one. I rented one (not by choice) on a business trip in Denver and was pretty unimpressed. Power, handling, driver comfort, road visibility...no good. But maybe that's just me. I drive a 2000 Honda Civic. But a number of people in Orange County do own Hummers, Exploders and Escalades, etc. A number of them are realtors...but don't get me started there.

But I guess you don't even need to have a Hummer to experience a coronary at the gas pump these days. Today, May 7, 2007, gasoline prices in the United States of America are only cents away from the all-time highest per gallon price in our nation's history.

And unfortunately, my opulent Orange County friends, there are few reasons to expect any future price declines as we approach the summer months and then the cooler fall and winter seasons.

So, I really do hope those of you are enjoying that gigantic beast of inefficiency and impractical machinery! Enjoy it, for the sake of the rest of us, who ride in your wake.

Now for all of you Hummer owners, if you ever see someone you've never met before at the gas station or on the road tell you to "f*&% off!" by flipping you the bird, view this site and it will help you with some background information as to the reasons why.

Good Wages, Low Unemployment Preventing Full Blown Recession

By now it should be clear to everyone "with a pulse" that the U.S. housing market is in the shitter - and it is getting progressively worse.

The Economist this week objectively points out two key factors keeping the U.S. economy from going into a kamikaze nose-dive altogether: Low unemployment at around 4.4% nationally, and for the most part, good wage earnings across the American nation.

We Americans continue to spend like there's no tomorrow, saving as little as f***ing possible, and running up massive debts that can be easily repayed by an anemic and declining U.S. Dollar.

Meanwhile fuel prices are rising and inflation remains uncontrolled.

For now people living in the United States must hold out hope that there will not be a substantial drop in employment in the coming months, despite serious job hits in the real estate, building, construction, raw materials, finance sectors. Substantial jobs losses might be more than enough to send the current teetering-on-the-brink economy over the edge and into full blown economic recession.

But alas, summer is coming, so bring on the bounce of summer employment figures! But it won't necessarily mean a rise in wage earnings - and that is what fuels the insatiable spending that keeps the titanic-sized American economy afloat.