Wake up, and smell the diesel

by Wrinkled Weasel

I wonder what you are going to eat for tea/dinner/supper tonight. The reason for this is that, recently, I have been making a lot of things from pulses, eggs, potatoes and stuff from the back of the cupboard. Apart from my little break, I have had to be a bit careful of late. Careful with money.

I think I know what's on your mind. It is not the revolutions that are sweeping the Middle East. It is not the latest by-election which humiliated the Lib Dems. It is not even the role of the Church in society today. What it probably is is the cost of fuel and food. Curiously enough the cost of fuel is linked to the problems in the Middle East, so in a way, you are thinking about it. But what is on your mind is the increasing cost of your journey to work, and your stagnant income and the erosion of what you might call (if you are wealthy enough) mad money. This is different to standing still money or walking around money. Mad money is what you spend on a night out or a new pair of shoes or a Ryobi bench saw.

Right now, you may not have mad money. You may not have much walking around money, but what you have to have is standing still money. That is the money that you must, absolutely must spend each month, and it includes petrol and diesel.

Alan Duncan, a former oil trader among other things, tells us that £1.30 per litre of petrol will look like a luxury in a few months time and foresees auto fuel reaching £2 a litre.

What will this mean to people like me who are already beginning to make the kind of economies that you only saw during the days of food rationing? It means at least a doubling of your standing still costs. Not only on the journey to work, but on everything you need.

Right now, governments and regimes all over the ME are falling. What will make a government shudder in the civilised world is the cost of basic commondities. They have you by the balls. Very few people will allow their minds to wander when someone has them by the balls and perhaps now, after all the spin and the lies and the stealth taxation, people, ordinary people will wake up and smell the diesel.