How stupid do they think we are???... Or how stupid are we?????

Fuel prices. Recently I purchased a 32 year old Mercedes diesel as my primary car. It's solid and comfortable, and from what some said it should get about 30 MPG.

Well at first it was getting 23 mpg. So I put in fuel treatment which was meant to clean the injector nozzles. Yes mileage and smoothness of the running engine improved. But then I was coming home from a 100 mile trip and stopped at the Indian Reservation gas station and purchased over half a tank of diesel. Suddenly the mileage went to to 29 MPG.

If I buy diesel at the local stations the MPG drops down to about 24-26 depending upon the station. So now I try and not fill up until close to empty and then bring along 2 five gallon fuel cans for extra fuel. These I dump into a large tank for the day that I can't get fuel. I'm slowly filling that 500 gallon tank. Oh diesel doesn't spoil like gasoline does, and yes I put in a special treatment to ensure the quality remains the same over time.

OH buy purchasing at the Res, I save about 70 cents a gallon. With my tank holding a max of 21 gallons and bringing along 2 five gallon cans, I can save about $20 on a fill-up. That's a spectacular savings.

I can't guarantee your Res will give you the same savings, but the one I go to certainly does. BTW, not all Res gas stations adhere to price fixing. I've found some that are considerably less than others. Usually they are well inside the Res boundaries and are more frequented by locals than those from outside.

CORPORATIONS AND POLITICAL FUNDING: As I understand it, corporation annual meetings can be attended by any stockholder, even those with only a handful of shares. And all attending shareholders can speak at the meetings, but only if you notify the meeting secretary months in advance of the meeting. (Please correct me if I'm incorrect.)

So the first thing you need to do is purchase share of XYZ corp, and hold them for a year. Then at the next annual meeting speak your mind about the board not giving money or other benefits to political candidates for any reason. If enough people attending agree with you, you can halt your corp from doing so. Yes it is that simple. (Or so I'm told).

reply to post by burningbelief


Absolutely!

The crafty and wise never go for the bank job. The take 10 cents from everybody.


BTW. I love tuna.
20 years ago I could get 2 sandwiches out of a can. Took a bit of skill, but it could be done. Now you get 1 max.

It wasn't all that long ago that the 1.5 quarts of ice cream that we're paying upwards of $6 a container for used to be an actual 1/2 gallon for less than $3.00. I've noticed it and have been noticing it every week at the store for quite a while.

Wal-mart used to have the generic great value chips bags for $1.00. (This is just an observation, i don't eat chips but once in a blue moon) I happened to notice they were$2.00 yesterday. Another example is pop corn i used to get in 12-packs for $2.00 are now $4.00 That is 100% and higher increase in just a couple of years. And i could name so many more items. This isn't normal inflation. Not only are we paying outrageous prices to eat, teh food we're getting can't really even be trusted where it comes from. Growing up, we could only get tomatoes in the summertime. Now, you can get a "tomato" anytime of year, picked green, artificially ripened and shipped 1/2 way around the world. When you're stooping so low as to pay 99 cents for a single green pepper that looks like it's been on vacation in North Korea, you know things are bad

I was going to try and start a garden this year but didn't (pure laziness on my part) but I have already started purchasing materials so I can build some container gardens next spring. Luckily, my mom did lots of gardening and baking and canning when i was growing up, so I know how to do it. I've just been too lazy coming up with excuses but it's getting to the point where I am sick to death of food prices.

reply to post by akalepos


Ice cream namely Breyers, started doing this years ago...1/2 gallon, then 1.5 quarts, 1.75 quarts. but the price goes up while the amount we get goes down. Celeste pizza...I remember when it filled atleast an 8 inch paper plate, now it just fills the circle within the edges of the plate. My grocer never raises the price of this product so it is always on sale for 99 cents---which is all I would ever pay to just "inhale" it. Once I wrote the company about the incredibly shrinking pizza, and they responded by saying that they choose to compromise the size vs the quality of ingredients---talk about rationalization!

To the person who mentioned a Tuna Sandwich. Please consider not eating any fish from the ocean. The Pacific is now a cancer waiting to happen with all the nuclear materials coming from Japan. If you don't believe me, get a Geiger counter and check out the radioactivity. The Atlantic isn't far behind. A couple of years ago I bought a couple of cases of the tuna I liked because the price was right. Now I'm thankful for that purchase.

As to food container size, I wish they had left sizes the same and changed the price. In that way we aren't just paying for packaging, Pretty soon an ice cream container will fill a sugar cone. People don't realize how prices have skyrocketed, and even the news people don't have a clue or don't choose to make an issue of it.

Build/create your own backyard/balcony garden and grow grow grow. When I was young in the '50s we had a huge garden in which we were forever weeding and watering. We had a farm and the garden fed our family of 5 and all the help on the farm too. Since we raised beef, that was our staple food.

Now that I'm on a soap box, about cattle. Cattle can be raised on grass all summer and hay all winter, but about 6 weeks before they are to be slaughtered, they need grain. Mostly corn for cattle. WHY? Because it adds flavor and fat beading to the meat. Yes you can eat grass fed cattle, but it is TOUGH and tasteless. We raised Aberdeen Angus (Black Angus) and we sold Prime meats, this was the stuff restaurants bought because it was the best. Sure there are other breeds of meat cattle, and some people sell them as top shelf and charge outrageous amounts per pound, but Black Angus, properly fed for the last 6 weeks of their life are excellent. Some people complain about feeding cattle grain, they just don't understand the principals involved, and frankly the amount of grain is small.

If you investigate the British Royals, they have farms here which raise cattle in this way. They then bring it to England for their meals and their parties.

reply to post by GrandHeretic


When I was little back in the early '50s my mom took me shopping with her. She took a huge shopping cart and filled it till it was heaping. I remember her complaining to my dad that it cost nearly $50 to fill that cart. Today she would faint with food prices.