Yes, that plastic Coke bottle is 100% recycled! It even has a little green ribbon across the bottom proclaiming its 100% recycling bonafides. Except… if you zoom in a bit and read the fine print on that green ribbon:

Yes, it’s 100% recycled except for the thin plastic label it’s all printed on, and the cap (lawyer weasel words). Reading a bit more says to put the cap back on the bottle and throw it in the recycling bin. So I guess it’s still all good with regards to recycling. This isn’t the first time Coke came in recycled bottles.

I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA, the home of Coca Cola (a.k.a Coke) and was practically weaned on the stuff. Back In The Day, Coke was sold in glass bottles. When you finished your sugared cola you put the empty glass bottle into a rack next to the dispenser (after you put in your hard earned 10¢s into the Coke machine to buy the drink). A truck would come by on a fairly regular basis to resupply the dispenser and pick up all the empties. The empties would go back to the bottling plant where’d they’d get washed and sterilized and then refilled to go back out again. That was real recycling. If the bottle was damaged (broken) then they manufactured another out of glass, including from the broken pieces they could collect. As the years passed, the glass bottles gave way to cans (remember those pull tabs?), then eventually the plastic bottling we’ve all come to know and despise.

So now they want to convince me that after decades (and decades) of generating all this single-use plastic waste, that they’ve somehow Found The Righteous Way and gone back to recycling. Which I call out as bullshit. They could have done this from the beginning, but they didn’t because it wasn’t convenient. And I suspect they’re doing it now because a lot of us aren’t blindly purchasing Coca Cola products any longer like we used to. As I said, I started ramping down my consumption of diet sodas over a decade ago, and went hard core when I retired in January 2020. Every once in a while I’d buy a bottle, or if they were cheap enough, get a six pack from places like Walmart when they were on sale. Otherwise I’m drinking water/ice water, coffee (at breakfast) and my own brewed teas (primarily black). None of the brewed drinks take sugar or artificial sweeteners. I put a little bit of cream in my coffee, which has just enough natural sugar in it to take off the bitter edge. The tea is sweetener free.

Which leads to the other two equally important reasons I avoid sodas: cost and health. I’ve watched the cost of soda grow outrageously high over the years, and I’ve been reading report after report stating that the ingredients aren’t truly fit for human consumption. All sodas are a bad mix of environmental catastrophe, health, and wasteful spending. There is no reason to ever purchase and consume these products, except out of moral weakness like I showed.

Consider these two examples; Silk Soy Milk, Vanilla flavor and Canada Dry Ginger Ale Zero Sugar. Tonight I had to stop by a Publix supermarket that was next to a CVS, because I needed both Silk and a prescription. First the Silk from Publix, followed by how much Walmart charges via its app.

The price at Publix was $5.55.

The price via Walmart, at all Walmarts in my area, is $2.98 for the same item. It costs almost twice as much to purchase the item from Publix.

Now the soda example.

This is a six pack of 16.9 oz/500 ml bottles. A bit pricey for soda if you ask me.

Once again, Publix sells the item for nearly twice what you would pay at Walmart.

These are just two examples of the wide diversity between a Walmart grocery and Publix. What makes the comparison even starker is that within a three mile radius of my house there are three Publix supermarkets, while there is but one Walmart Marketplace. The Walmart Marketplace is just a grocery store, every bit as large as the Publix across the street (one of the three within a three mile radius).

All the basics such as butter, cheeses, eggs, coffee and teas all show this incredible price difference. If I didn’t have a Walmart in the area I don’t know what I would do budget wise. I’ve already cut back on a number of items in my diet that I can do without, items I used to purchase without a second thought before I retired. I’m always looking for ways to cut back, either dropping a product all together, or finding cheeper substitutes. The insane cost of animal protean everywhere (beef, poultry and fish) is the primary reason I’ve gone vegetarian, and I’m now looking for ways (finally!) to grow some vegetables in my back garden.

The rising cost of basic food stuffs is what’s making people mad, yours truly included. I’m sick and tired of hearing about how good the economy is, then going to the grocers to buy the next week’s selection of foodstuffs and looking at how high prices are. As appreciative of how inexpensive Walmart is compared to Publix, I still think that food at Walmart is also too expensive as well.

One other unintended benefit comes from the cost of chocolate-based sweets; those costs have gone through the roof, pricing them right out of my budget. Since I can’t afford any of them anymore I’m finally learning to get rid of my sweet tooth. My dentist in particular is appreciative as my last visit continues a years long trend where my teeth only require a light cleaning every six months. With research showing that gingivitis might be a cause of Alzheimers it becomes vital to maintain good dental health by all means possible, especially by cutting back on refined sugars.

One other observation; I can always check the price of any item, especially food items, via the Walmart app. The Publix app does not have pricing and requires you to visit the store. Things that make you go “hmmm…”

Then Amazon started to have a hard time getting the pet products I needed with other third-party sellers simultaneously starting to jack up the prices of pet supplies way beyond what they would normally cost; they started to gouge big time. This was the very same problem that happened with personal protective equipment, such as masks and hand cleaner, during the early months of 2020. It was outrageous behavior then, and even more so when pet supplies became the target of the gougers. That’s when I really started to look at alternative pet supply sellers including Chewy.

It turns out Chewy may have had a hard time getting supplies, but when certain items weren’t available they said so clearly, and when they came back in they sold them for the regular price until they ran out again. I know, I went through some of that. That honest behavior cemented me as a repeat Chewy customer.

Lately my Chewy experiences have gotten even better. Since the first of this year my Chewy orders have been arriving in a very short period of time. Chewy always seems to tell me two to four business days, which I find quite reasonable. I make sure to place my orders either Sunday or Monday so that they get to me no later than the following Thursday. But something positive is happening at Chewy’s shipping, because the orders are coming in two days, or even less. Yesterday I put in an order, and the order arrived today. My other orders have taken no longer than two days, which equals Amazon, of not beats them. But today’s order delivery was absolutely outstanding.

It just seems like buying from Chewy for all my little guys and gals is getting better and better. If you don’t buy pet supplies from Chewy’s already, I think you should give them a try.

I took this Tuesday of last week at a local Publix. I photographed this because I’ve noticed that the shelves all around the store have holes in them where there is no stock, while other shelves had limited stock spread across the front and pulled forward. I don’t know why at this time a major grocery store like Publix would be having stock issues. The store shelves were like this in 2020, during the height of the first phase of the pandemic due to panic buying. This time, it doesn’t feel like panic buying has set back in again. It just feels like the system that supplies us our groceries is breaking down a bit. It tends to stir the apprehension.

Commentary on the Photo

This photo was taken with my iPhone 11 Pro’s wide angle lens. It came “straight out of the camera” with no post processing whatsoever. The barrel distortion, especially in the outer thirds, is horrible. I haven’t seen anything this bad since I first started with interchangeable lens film photography back in the mid-1970s. I know that distortion like this can be corrected in-camera because my Olympus Micro Four Thirds cameras do it (as does the few Panasonic bodies I also own). Fortunately the regular and telephoto lenses produce much better photographs. But the wide angle? I use it only when it’s absolutely necessary, and I have no other choice because it’s all I have at the time. I’ve read too many times that the best camera is the one you have with you. Not if the camera you have with you is an iPhone 11 Pro using its wide angle lens.

Until recently this used to be a Brother Jimmy’s BBQ franchise store. This location is The Marketplace on the corner of Sand Lake Road and Dr. Phillip’s Blvd. It’s the third small business to come here and eventually die. The first was a Wich Wich sandwich stop, which lasted some number of years. I used to stop in and order sandwiches for my wife and I. It was a pretty nice place, and unique in how you ordered your sandwich/sub. You picked out the wrapper for you sandwich, and then checked boxes next to all the ingredients you wanted, then handed that over to the store staff who built you sandwich. I liked that process because I could pick out exactly what I wanted and know they would get it right. Wich Wich went out of business, followed by a Korean hamburger place, which didn’t last very long. Then came Jimmy’s.

I went to Jimmy’s once, back in 2021, for a supper meal pickup. It was the first and last time. The meal was expensive, the portions smaller than we anticipated, especially for what we paid, and the meal was greasy and not all that flavorful. We never went back. Based on my experience I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.

This is a small section of The Marketplace, with three stores. On the left is a Chipotle that’s been there since it opened, and where my wife and I go when we are coming back from a morning doctor’s visit from downtown. To the right is the largest store by volume, which started out as a World of Beer bar, and is now yet another Korean BBQ place (yes, for a brief time, there were two BBQ stores side-by-side).

A lot of businesses have come into The Marketplace over the last 30 years, both big and small. Such is business in America, I suppose.

If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Especially if it comes as uninvited and unwelcomed junk mail. These two pieces came courtesy of Addition Financial, one to me and one to my wife. I’m not in the market to refinance a car loan, but I was curious just how good or bad this particular financial institution is. So I went Googling for “addition financial car loan review” and came up with this hit as the first in my search results — https://wallethub.com/profile/addition-financial-13307460i . The average is an amazingly low 2.3 out of 5 with 66 reviews. I did no filtering but there was a lot of 1 and 2 star ratings, with just a sprinkling of anything higher (such as 5 stars). I will say that someone at Additional Financial was trying to answer some of the complaints. But if it were me, I wouldn’t touch an unsolicited loan offer from these people with a 10 foot pole. Especially with asterisks ***

One other observation: There is a 1-888 number at the bottom to call and opt out of this kind of crap. When it showed up on another financial piece of junk mail I called it. The first thing the automated system asked for was my social security number. No thank you. It’s unfortunate but my SSN is probably all over the dark web and in other spammer databases, but I’m not going to make a bad situation worse by volunteering it up yet again. Why not ask for my address and zip code? Why not offer a web address? Needless to say as soon as the SSN was requested I hung up. My revenge will be to check their reviews on the web and report about them. The worse the reviews, the better.

The standard of living was quite low during that period; gas was 25¢/gallon, a Whooper with fries and a shake was 99¢, Levi jeans were $5/pair at Sears and JC Penney, and I was living at home with my parents which made my living expenses non-existent (i.e. no rent or utilities). Taxes were quite low, and after essentials, I saved up enough for nearly two years of college. Living was radically cheaper back then, even college.

So how much would you have to pay me today in 2021 dollars to match what I made in 1971 and 1972? Let’s find out from the U.S.Bureau Of Labor Statistics ( https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm  ).

Oh my! To match what I made in 1971 you’d have to pay me over $16/hour! Now let’s look at 1972.

Even to match my 1972 hourly wage you’d have to pay me nearly $16/hour. Today’s federal minimum wage is $7.25, or less than half of the $15 people are asking for. And nearly a buck less than what I was making in 1972, adjusted for inflation. John Thune, that 60-year-old Republican senator spoke of how he made $6/hour as a cook in the 1970s. Well, I’m 67, and I was making those wages in the early 1970s. I know how the 1970s started out, and what happened during the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973, the so-called first oil shock. The second was the in 1979, triggered by the Iranian revolution, which then triggered a drop in overall oil production by 4%, which then triggered a doubling of crude oil to nearly $40/barrel, which was still serious money back in the 1970s. In both cases we got shortages, long gas lines, and paid outrageous prices for a gallon of gas. And that’s ignoring Watergate and Nixon and the fall of Saigon and all the other disasters and atrocities of the 1970s. But I digress…

After a half-century of living (1971 to 2021) there is no way to compare what I made as a minimum wage in 1971 with what is being offered now. Necessities are so much more expensive a half-century into the future than they were in 1971. It’s obscene not to pay people a decent minimum wage, and when multi-millionaire Republican senators make damning comparisons with what they made against what’s offered now, it only illustrates how out of touch they are with the very people they claim to represent. They represent no-one but themselves and only a very few like them. In other words, all the rich white multi-millionaire dudes, of which there are very, very few indeed compared to the rest of us.

The Rival has served for decades, going back to when my adult children were children.

I literally compared the two by holding one in each hand. The Rival is a lot heavier compared to the Cuisinart. It’s built like a tank. The Rival’s plastic is thicker, there’s more of it, and every non-plastic part on it is thick metal. The Cuisinart by comparison is plastic on plastic and a lot lighter. The handle on top is plastic where the Rival’s is chromed steel. The Rival still works, after a fashion. It’s that it’s taking two turns of the can to fully open it. I’m hoping the Cuisinart works for at least half as long as the Rival it’s replacing. It should. Canned food is now coming with tops that open. Only a very few items come in cans that require an electric can opener. In the mean time I’ll put the Rival out on the garage and see if I can clean it up and replace some parts, and then give it to someone who needs a working one. Or just hang on to it in case the Cuisinart doesn’t hold up as well.

The reason I don’t buy shaving cream that often is I switch back and forth between electric and razor, tending to use the electric during the week so I don’t spend a lot of time getting ready before I drive into work. Weekends can be more luxurious time-wise, especially when it comes to a nice blade shave. And there are days when I don’t shave at all, thus extending the overall time when I want to get a shave with my razor.

This reminds me of all the other price increases I’ve seen over time, especially with orange juice. There was a time when orange juice came in 64 ounce cartons, until one day they showed up in 57 ounce cartons, but the price was still the same. I continued to buy it for a while until the price increase to over $4 a container, and that was many years ago. Of course both my doctor and dietician where quite happy when that happened, as today’s orange juice is full of sugar, even more so than a soft drink.

This makes me wonder if I should bite the bullet and invest in one more good electric razor, and just forego shaving with a razor all together. It’s not just the shaving cream but he expense of razors as well as the mess of fixing a sink of hot water and a mess to clean up when done.

All this angst over a decent close shave.

I’ve been wanting to stop and photograph some of the on-going construction of Universal’s Volcano Bay before construction is finished and everything is buttoned down. I decided to run these series of photos with the Olympus E-M10 and the 14-140 Mark II. I moved the color JPEGs from the E-M10 to my iPad Pro 9.7″ and post processed them with Snapseed. I them moved them up to my blog with the WordPress app. Unfortunately I once again had to go into the browser-based WordPress editor to finish this entry. I’m pretty much done trying to edit with WordPress on either iPhone or iPad. Now it’s time to move on to some other tool.

This is the water park meant to open next year and to replace the old Wet ‘n Wild water park directly across Univeral at I-4. I have no idea how much more work needs to be done or if it’ll open 1 June 2017 as promised. The last time Universal tried to open a park on 1 June, it was Universal itself in 1990, and it didn’t go well. I was one of thousands of contractors trying to get it open and operational. I was a contractor with a company named Kinetix (long since gone) and I worked on Jaws, Quake, and E.T. Starting November 1989 I started working 12 hour days, six days/week, until March of 1990, and then we went to seven day weeks. On the afternoon of 31 May I walked into the park and worked a solid 34 hours until I left the morning of 2 June. It took almost a month for me to get back down to a normal work schedule. I’ve not worked a schedule that long and that intense since.

I’m curious to see what will transpire over the summer.

On the way home from an errand run I stopped at a major intersection close to home. A homeless man carrying a cardboard sign started to walk slowly down the road between two lanes of traffic. The driver immediate in front of me in the red car was on his cell phone. He eventually spotted the homeless man shuffling in his direction.

As the homeless man moved slowly down the line, looking back and forth for eye contact and any possible donation, the driver in the red car rolled up the window before our homeless man reached him…

I think our homeless man might have realized what had happened.
The main light turned green, the traffic started to move, and I waited while the homeless man crossed in front of me to the sidewalk.

Don Pablo’s in general, and this one in particular, have been a staple of the family’s restaurant eating for as long as they’ve been in Orlando. I’ve literally watched them come into Orlando, and over the past ten years, since the start of the Great Recession, I’ve watched them leave one-by-one. This particular Don Pablo’s was on International Drive, and is the second to last to leave. The only other DP I know of is the one still open up in Sanford. Here’s the interesting sign taped to the front door.

Which begs the question of how this all went down. The last sentence is quite telling, as this indicates that not everybody knew this was coming.

Ever since the Great Recession started in 2006, the Orlando economy has been fragile, with “first mover” companies such as Don Pablo’s leaving behind behemoth buildings such as this one to be occupied multiple times by different businesses. The Don Pablo’s built over on University near UCF went through three different local bars (with the word Knight or Knights in the name) until it was finally bought and converted into a Buffalo Wild Wings sports bar. The Don Pablo’s next to West Oaks Mall had its interior built out into three long stores, one of which is out of business again. The architecture is distinctive enough that you can still recognize them dotting the landscape, just like the old Circuit City stores.

I used to write about this on my old blog. It would appear I may start writing about failing businesses again, especially with the election of Donald Trump.

It’s been three weeks since my knee was replaced. During that period the incision has pretty much healed and most of the swelling has gone down. I can stand up straight without any aids, especially in a line like I did for lunch last Friday. I’d gone out for a late lunch after spending a good hour-and-a-half in physical training. While in PT I was measured at 110° flexibility. I was also able to (slowly) spin an a recumbent bike machine, with the bike seat back as far as it cold go. I’m going to start driving around the neighborhood this weekend, to see if I can drive around Orlando in general starting next week. Lots of personal achievements so I celebrated by going out to lunch with my wife at a local Pei Wei and having my usual, sesame chicken with brown rice.

While I was there I also noticed two stores next to the Pei Wei has closed. One of them, the first photo in the sequence below, was a Lime Fresh Mexican Grill. The second was some sort of exercise business. I felt worse about the Lime Fresh because that was my go-to comfort food place when I had my left knee replaced back in 2012.

Life doesn’t stand still for a second. I don’t know why they closed, considering they both were located at the intersection of I-4 and Sand Lake Road, in a shopping center anchored by the only Whole Foods in south west Orlando, just a mile south of Universal Studios. In other words prime real estate and location. Our economy still has problems.

Weekend errands will occasionally include runs to the local pet store for pet supplies. Our dogs and cats are quite vocal when mealtime comes, so we make sure to have the basics on hand. Some of those food supplies used to come from Petco, where we purchase Royal Canin Puppy dry dog food for Annie the Doodle. Unfortunately, this Petco is going out of business. I spoke with one of the cashiers as we were checking out and was told that the store was being closed, not moved. Fortunately everyone there was offered a transfer to another Petco in the general area. But once this one is closed we’re going to have to find another store, however far away that is. I could (and have on occasion in the past) from Amazon, but I can only find the huge bags and when it’s delivered it’s always in a fairly crushed box, with the contents a bit worse for wear. I’d rather go purchase it locally and know what I’m getting before I pay.

This is the last major store in this shopping center. All the other stores have closed and moved out, such as this AT&T and Shoe Carnival…

… and this TJ Max. These stores were the secondary stores. The anchor store was a Super Target, which closed nearly four years ago in early 2012 and has stayed closed every since. I wrote about its closing in my old blog here.

These are not the only stores to close in this part of Orlando. On a section of West Colonial, starting at the intersection of West Colonial and Hiawassee and driving west, many big-box stores have closed and stayed closed since at least 2009. The economic devastation moves west down West Colonial and into West Oaks mall. I’ve written about this already on my older blog so just follow the link above and look at the economic stories. While other sections of Orlando have recovered somewhat, this section remains unrecovered and seems to be getting worse. Major stores such as Circuit City, Borders, Don Pablo’s, Sears, Ben Franklins… The list goes on an on. And no one is coming back into this area. It’s depressed and depressing, and the ongoing situation shows no end in sight.

This is the outcome of high energy costs, primarily gas. In my eyes it’s no accident that the high cost of gas corresponds with the decline of economic vitality all around Orlando, especially in this section. I also know there’ve been layoffs and cutbacks in salary for those who still have a job, whether by reductions in salary or by being cut from full to part time. For those people who once counted themselves as part of the middle class, it’s rough times indeed.

The area isn’t completely without commerce. Across the street from this out-of-business Super Target and soon-to-be-out-of-business Petco is a Sam’s Club, primarily for more well-to-do, mostly white shoppers. West down the road is a Lowes, across the street from where the Circuit City used to be. Just a mile further west from West Oaks on West Colonial is a Walmart Supercenter. But that still doesn’t hide the fact that more stores have closed than have opened or stayed open. It’s not a healthy economy, not by any stretch.

Today’s low cost comes via a gas station I wrote about in the last post. The second photo in that post was a Hess Station. It’s now a Speedway. For the record it looks like all the Hess stations in Orlando are Speedways. As far as prices is concerned, nobody else that I can see is anywhere as low as these guys. Even though ownership has changed, this station is still aiming to be the lowest, the soonest, in Orlando. It’s going to be interesting to see which way these prices are going to head; back up or down further.

How do these price drops make me feel? Damned angry. Certainly not grateful. Understand that the high cost of gas cost me and my family dearly back in the years when it was $3 and $4 per gallon. In a society so dependent upon personal automobiles and no mass transit infrastructure to speak of, paying dearly just to commute to work or perform basic transportation chores has left lasting impressions and economic scars. When your combined family gas bill is going past $700/month like mine did back in 2008, you don’t forget. I, at least, had a decent job that at least allowed me to pay for it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t stop buying something else. Trust me, I shifted the family budget around to make sure all the necessities were properly paid for; all “impulse” buying came to a screeching halt, such as eating out at the local Olive Garden type restaurants, trips to movies, non-necessary purchases at local department stores, etc. If we didn’t need it we didn’t get it. Dropping prices like this just rubs salt into old wounds.

Right now, if I could get an electric vehicle from Toyota with decent range (between 200 and 300 miles between charges) and a way to charge it where I parked, I’d trade in my Prius for that vehicle in a cold New York minute. Even if it cost more to buy that vehicle. Anything I can do to remove all my dependency away from petroleum I will do. That also includes home solar to remove my dependency on Duke Energy. Every bill I get includes a fuel surcharge, which about doubles my overall home electric bill. During that period where my family gas bill was around $700/month, my home electric bill, during the summer, ranged in the mid $500/month, about four times higher than it was in 2000, five times higher than what it was in the 1990s. Yes, I’m all into doing and spending whatever is necessary to become fossil fuel independent, where I don’t use any fossil fuels at all.

I’m not just ready, I’m well past ready.

This is what I paid today when I filled up my wife’s Prius. It was just a block down from Seaworld Orlando. Total cost for a little over nine gallons was $16. My wife will then drive on that for about two weeks. Pretty cheap, right? I haven’t seen this low a price since the early 2000s, right before the first Charlie hit Florida in August 2004 and drove the price of gas to around $2.50/gallon. And that’s where it stayed, climbing ever higher until I paid $4.14 in August of 2008. Even after that, it hovered around $4/gallon for the next four years, as you can see below at a local Hess station near Universal Studios Orlando in April 2012 (prices of gasoline and oil in 2012).

Now I’ve watched the price collapse to levels not seen for over a decade. As of Friday a barrel of oil is sitting around $32/barrel. This is down from the hundred and change for a barrel of oil from a year ago. Why? Why did the price of oil climb so high to cause so much damage to us economically? And why is it collapsing so far, and so fast right now? I haven’t any real facts, but I do have my share of conspiracy theories.

The story everyone wants to trot out is that demand for crude has dropped while supply keeps ramping up. There’s a huge oversupply right now, and it appears that nobody is willing to cut back. Which leads me to my conspiracy theory.

We’ve been living with the peak oil threat since 2000, when it started to crop up in various economic magazines. We were supposedly running out of raw petroleum stocks, and the existing oil fields were heading for exhaustion. US oil fields, especially in Texas, which is the fact everyone was waving around in this argument. And so it appeared in hindsight that the markets began to factor in this peak oil theory into pricing; the more we used, the less was left, and that made what was left in the ground ever more valuable. And so the raw price of crude began to rise, and with it, the price of refined gasoline. Yes, I know this is simplistic, but the basic rule of economics is that if the cost of your raw materials rise, then so do your finished products, for whatever the reasons.

But this last six months have blown a big fat hole in that theorem. First, the cost of petroleum over the last fifteen or so years have driven folks to look for cheaper alternatives, both in alternate energy sources (solar and wind) as well as alternative sources of fossil fuels (fracking for natural gas, shale oils). Those two combined to drive down the consumption of oil in many markets. And let’s not leave out the increasing efficiency of all our machines, and the brute fact that the high cost of oil has hurt us economically, killing businesses and putting a lot of folks permanently out of a job. All these have combined to drive down consumption. As consumption went down, production stayed steady, and raw stocks increased. And the price of crude dropped, especially when everyone who played in the oil commodities market realized just how much an “overhang” existed.

That overhang is being driven by deliberate overproduction by all the OPEC members, especially Saudi Arabia. Add to the fact that Iran is now exporting again, and there’s no other place for this to go except into storage, increasing the overhang. Even the short spike on Friday, driven by #blizzard2016, won’t even come close to soaking up the oversupply.

So the question is, was this a deliberate conspiracy by OPEC and friends to kill us economically? Or was it just plain old greed by the producers and the commodities players? After all, there’s the old saying that you should charge what the market will bear, and there’s been plenty of that for a good decade. My money is on greed. Paraphrasing Hanlon’s razor, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by greed.

My concern now is that people are lazy. Will the prices drive all the alternate sources of energy out of business as well as kill all attempts at energy economy? We’ll just have to wait and see.