Name:Swarup Country:United States State:Illinois Metro:elgin Birthday:7/17/1980 Gender:Male
Interests:Longhorn football & baseball & basketball ... hell, anything Longhorn, sports, music, guitar Expertise:Sarcasm, cynicism, giving people hell ... all the fun things in life Occupation:Engineering Industry:Computers (Hardware)
In a matter of weeks, Ford motors announced they are scaling back production of their line of SUV's and Trucks by 20%. GM has also announced they are closing 4 of their SUV and Truck production facilities in Oshawa, Ontaria; Moraine, Ohio; Janesville, Wisconsin; and Toluca, Mexico. While 2500 employees get the axe, they should have an oppurtunity to pick up jobs by about 19,000 employees retiring or being bought out, but that is beside the point.
We've already been seeing a shift of consumers to smaller cars in the latest crunch as the dollar falls and investors seek to hedge against inflation by sucking up commodoties such as oil, sending it's price skyrocketing, especially as foreign investors buy in as the dollar falls. We've seen gas prices rise to match the price of crude oil and oil futures. Is this a sign of a greater paradigm shift in America?
Oil prices are bad right now and it's not going to get any better. China and India have become much greater industrial powers. Russia is sucking up more oil. Other countries are beginning to industrialize, and at the center of it all is oil. America is no longer alone as a major consumer of the world's oil supply. Demand is not declining at a world level. We've seen the price of crude oil double since last year. It's not long before gas prices hit the psycological $4 national barrier. It's already about $4.15-4.23/gallon for regular unleaded gasoline up here in Chicago.
How high do gas prices have to get before people lay down their selfish desires for vehicles and realize the magnitude of where oil is going? The days of packing a family of 4+ into a minivan or SUV and trekking into the wilderness or to Grandma's are close to over. Middle class families are cutting back discretionary expenses as the cost of gas and food rise dramatically and affect their budgets. Smaller cars are even safer these days, especially with side curtain airbags and safer cage reinforcing. People can't make the excuse that they feel safer in a large vehicle. For some people, I can understand being able to get around better in the snow, but there are scores of people doing it in smaller cars. The accountants abusing the SUV tax credit bill, where small business owners can get a credit of up to $25k on a SUV/Truck used in their business are a huge problem as well.
GM is adding a new smaller Chevy vehicle to their plant in Detroit, as well as the electric Chevy "Volt". We're obviously seeing action taken by the industry, in part due to some of consumer activity, but when do some of the more stubborn consumers change? It's time to wake up people. Gas isn't staying at $4/gallon for long, and it's not moving in the good direction. We're possibly looking at $7-8 per gallon in a few years, and possibly $12/13 in the range of 10 years, at which point you will start facing rationing.
I wouldn't want to be caught standing in the path of that freight train. Duck and cover!
"The Xanga absense" I suppose the fleeting absense from blogging, as Naseem so frequently and painfully reminds me so often, could be attributed to several things, perhaps the greatest could be laziness, or just feeling uninspired. Some of it could be I would pull this off at work, but alas, my coworker left the company (great guy btw, will miss the dude) so much extra work has fallen upon me.
Fear not though. There still have been many amusing quasi-negative circumstances that bring their usual hilarity into my life, maybe a few of which I may do a backblog on one day (backblog? I may have just coined a word), as well as some other fun stuff. But then again, that may or may not be interesting.
"Worship Team" I can't begin to describe how much fun it is playing with the worship team at my church. I got my first shot a few Sundays ago. We usually have two services at the main campus, maybe about 1500 at first service, 1300ish at the 2nd. Christ Community places ALOT of emphasis on the music, so it was great playing with the crew that was on that week. In fact, the sound guy stated it was the best a crew has sounded since he started working there, as well as a few people whom told Leo, our worship leader, the band sounded as good as it ever has. Makes you feel good inside. Also a bonus, our special song for the week was David Crowder's O Praise Him. God, I love that song.See you guys in another 3 months ... ho ho!
Cuppy-cakes! Is it wrong to consume chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with orange and blue frostings (so a combination of 4 different types of cupcakes) at work, while you root for the Colts this weekend?
Laser .... rocket arm.....
I gotta root for Peyton, even though Cedric and Nathan are on the Bears.
