This is a very good documentary talking about how suburbs were based upon cheap and abundant oil and automobiles and combimed the worst of city life and country life.

When oil gets too expensive and harder to drill, what will everyone do that depends on cars as transportation? How will all the people of the suburbs get to and from work and shopping, etc?

This documentary predicts that in the future suburbs will be the slums nobody wants to be apart of.

It’s been called “a living arrangement that has no future.”

When “cheap” energy is over, what will happen? This documentary discusses how suburbia started, why it started, what’s wrong with it, and the fact that there will be an end to oil, what American life depends on.

It makes you think and you will want to conserve as much energy as possible. Perhaps even think of moving to a place where it’s more walkable instead of having to drive everywhere.

Do you want to know exactly how we got into this economic recession?

This video explains it well. In a nutshell the super rich super greedy big bankers are the ones who caused this whole mess and it’s the middle class who’s paying for their mess. They are not even affected.

You can also watch it on video.google.com by clicking this link.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3305522889894137433&ei=eFDUSYPYGIH2qQLluJz1BA&q=documentary+greed&dur=3

Robert Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” explains why cash is trash. Why? Because the dollar keeps dropping.

Saving money isn’t helpful, because the lower the dollar drops, the less your money is worth. Inflation and economic crises wipe out savers and the middle class.

If you are a saver, how do you protect yourself? Get rid of your cash, because cash is trash! No, I don’t mean throw it in the trash or give it to me, I mean, if you have extra cash, invest it in something to bring you income like rental property or buy silver or gold.

If you’re going to take money advice from anyone, listen to Robert Kiyosaki. He’s a financial genius and he knows what he’s talking about. His predictions do come true, so pay attention. This video was from January 2008.

According to a news report, $7 a gallon gas is likely in 2 years time. With high gas prices, Americans would have to change their lives.

People would have to live closer to where they work. People who currently have to drive a long distance to work would either need to move closer to their job or get a job closer to where they live. It doesn’t make sense to work all day just to be able to pay for your commute to work.

SUVs and gas guzzlers could be wiped into extinction. Obviously we need to look at alternative fuels.

Here is the report from CBS:

A new energy report predicts $200-a-barrel oil in as short a time as two years. If that happens, gas would likely go up to $7 a gallon - and that would have an enormous impact on the way Americans live

Mitchell Igelko in Miami complains rising gas prices are threatening his 20-year-old landscaping business. His two biggest trucks sit idle - he can’t afford to fill them up.

Right now, Igelko’s business averages $30,000 a month in gas - at $7 a gallon, that would jump to about $50,000 a month, CBS News correspondent Priya David reports.

“I think at that time, I’m gonna put a sign ‘gone fishing,’” he said.

Economist Jeff Rubin predicts the $7 mark will arrive by the year 2010.

Hardest hit will be those for those making less than $25,000 a year. For them, gas will go from 7 percent of their income to a whopping 20 percent.

“People are going to be spending more on gas than they are on groceries,” said Rubin. “And that’s not a sustainable choice.”

In fact, by 2012, higher prices could send an additional 10 million vehicles off the road.

It would certainly ease congestion. Having that many cars come off the roads is like permanently parking twice as many cars as there are in the whole state of New Jersey.

Some look to Europe for solutions to the skyrocketing gas prices.

“They drive these nice little cars which maybe we should start doing,” one U.S. driver said.

Expensive gasoline has led Europeans to also drive less than we do. In America, over 90 percent of all households commute to work by car. Compare that to just 60 percent of British households.

“People’s entire mindset as to what kind of vehicles they drive, where they live, choices they make on holidays, and vacations are going to be quite different, because it’s starting to bite,” said Joseph Romm of climateprogress.org.

For Mitchell Igelko, $4 gas is trimming his profits, but $7 gas would be a knock-out blow.

Ok, there is a big craze going on about water cars, fueling your car with water, running your car on water, or however you want to say it. If you haven’t heard about it yet, you will.

The first time I saw these headlines, I thought it was a scam. It sounded so ridiculous. So I decided to research it and find out for sure if it’s real or a scam.

And my conclusion is, it’s legit, it’s real, but it’s misunderstood. You don’t run your car on water. Your car still runs on gas…but with using the hydrogen in water, you use a LOT LESS water and you save A TON of money.

With the way my car burns gas, I would save over $50 a week assuming I doubled my MPG. I estimated I would save close to $300 a month.

So you are probably wondering how this works. Well, water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen. Hence, the H2O. And hydrogen is a powerful fuel. There is a way to turn H2O into a gas called HHO-hydrogen-hydrogen-oxygen.

With HHO, you can double your MPG. You will still buy gas, you will just buy a lot less and save a lot of money.

The thing is, you will have to buy a manual showing you how to make a kit and put it under your hood and either you will have to do this yourself or show the instructions to someone else and have them do it for you.

You don’t have to be a mechanic. The manual is written so everyday people can read the instructions and do this.

There are several different guides out there, but the BEST one is of course, the most expensive one at $97. You will also need some supplies like a glass canning jar and some stuff you can easily purchase at any hardware store. In total with the manual and supplies it will probably cost around $150 up to $200.

Now I would make up that in less than a month and I would save probably around $3,000 a year on gas. So a $200 investment is nothing. My car gets terrible gas mileage and it makes me angry! (Mazdas get GREAT gas mileage by the way, but my Mazda died and I ended up with an awful gas guzzler. My Mazda had me spoiled)

So anyone who wants to be frugal and double their gas mileage might want to try this out. If you are like me and scared of tinkering with cars, then just buy the manual and show it to your cousin, uncle, father, friend, hubby, or mechanic. They should be able to get your car converted in an hour.

There is more science behind it that you can read about if you wish. It goes into more detail about HHO, Brown’s gas, hydroxy, the inefficient way your car’s engine is designed.

Your car actually WASTES 80% of the gas you put in it and converting water into HHO actually stops your car’s engine from doing that.

So, if you want to look at the actual sale’s page for Water4Gas and see if you want to invest $97 into saving a ton on gas here is the link: WATER4GAS

You can also look at: www.squidoo.com/savealotongaswithwater

It’s going to cost more to drive around now. Gas prices are increasing and you better get used to it. Don’t be surprised if a gallon of gas goes up to $4 or more a gallon this year.

This means more money out of our paycheck is going to go towards gas so that will leave less disposable income. That drive to and from work is going to cost more.

If you have a car that doesn’t get good gas mileage you might want to consider trading it in for a car that gets more gas mileage. A car that gets good gas mileage can really help out with those gas prices. Those SUVs really eat up the gas fast.

Another tip to help with gas prices is to try to do all your errands at once and go shopping less often. Instead of getting a few items from the grocery store and making frequent grocery store trips, stock up as much as you can when you go to the grocery store so you don’t have to go so often.

If you have to go to the grocery store, clothes shopping, doctor’s office, and post office, try to get it all wiped out in one day instead of 4 different trips in four days and if it’s possible, avoid going shopping when traffic’s the heaviest. Of course it is always possible to avoid rush traffic or get everything out of the way in one day.

There is also carpooling, but unfortunately, carpooling just isn’t realistic for many people. I know carpooling simply would not work for me and my life.

Gas has already reached $4 a gallon in San Mateo, California, and not surprising Bush had no idea about the cost of gas. “I hadn’t heard that,” he said at a press conference about the price of gas.

An article on abcnews.com about the price of gas is titled: “Dreading the Gas Station? Get Used To It.”

Even eBay sellers and addicts want eBay to have some serious competition.

eBay is yet again raising their fees and eBay sellers are very angry and frustrated. And that’s not the only thing eBay is doing to make it’s seller see red. They are now no longer allowing sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers. So a buyer can not pay for an item they won and the seller is not allowed to leave any negative feedback. Erm…isn’t that the whole purpose of feedback?

The problem with eBay is that it has no competition. And we all know what happens when there’s no competition. The business has a monopoly. They have free reign and can charge whatever they want and the consumers can do nothing about it.

What if there was only one store selling jeans? They could charge 100 dollars or 200 for a pair if they wanted and you either had to pay it or you couldn’t buy any jeans. If another store opened up selling jeans for 20 dollars, the other store would be out of business fast.

EBay needs competition. Serious competition. I believe a big company like Google could do this. Definitely Google could. They could advertise to millions of people for free.  Google has the power to reach millions of people instantly. Several other auction sites have popped up over the years, but they could never gain momentum and get popular enough to be any kind of competition to eBay.

eBay has raised their fees many times over the years and a few price raises are understandable, all prices go up over the years. Every business must raise it’s prices sometime.

The problem is eBay has gone too far. They have had far too many price raises. And it’s not like eBay needs to raises the prices to survive, they are just being greedy and they can be greedy and get away with it because they have a monopoly on online auctions and have no competition. And the people they are hurting most are the sellers of cheap items. The listing fee and final value fee ends up eating any profit assuming the items even sell. Sometimes sellers are losing money because what they make off auction is less than the fee to even place the auction.

eBay is also hurting the frugal buyers. I have recently bought several items off of eBay. I have bought several outfits for really prices for my baby girl.  I even recently won an auction where I got a few outfits for only 99 cents plus shipping. I could simply go to the store and buy her outfits, but I love being frugal. I love being able to get several cute, like new outfits for just a few dollars when it would have cost me 75% more to get them brand new from the store. And babys grow so quickly they can only wear outfits for a short period of time. Why should I spend 20 dollars on an outfit when I can get the exact same thing in used, like new condition for only a small fraction of the cost?

So, if I don’t sell on eBay how is this hurting frugal buyers like me? Well, the people who sell cheap items on eBay will not be able to place anymore cheap auctions like this because they will either break even or lose money. At best, they make a few pennies profit. And this is assuming all the auctions sell. If any auction doesn’t sell, you still have to pay the listing fees.

There are people out there that literally can not afford to buy new clothes, shoes, toys, coats, or anything at all that’s extra for their family. They are struggling just to pay their bills and literally do not even have enough to buy their kids a pair of new shoes, so they depend on cheap second hand items. I guess they will have to stick to yard sales and thrift shops because I don’t think there will be many sellers on eBay of cheap items.

But that is just one angle of the whole eBay drama. There are people who make very good money off of eBay. In fact, they live off eBay. I’m not talking about some extra spending money or cleaning out of closet. I’m talking about rent, car payments, food, utilities, everything.  And these people are pissed off. They have a love hate relationship with eBay. They hate eBay and it’s policies and have been hoping for serious competition for a long time, but at the same time, they regularly list items on eBay and can’t boycott eBay even though they want to, because eBay is their income.  As long as their items sell, the rising fees won’t put them out of business, like the small time listers who list little extra stuff around their home, but the extra fees here and extra fees there add up to thousands of dollars a year. And they have no choice but to pay that extra thousands of dollars to eBay, or find another job and quit eBay altogether. Would you be mad if $5,000 was being taken out of your pocket this year? Unless, that is, another online auction opens up that can be serious competition to eBay and cause a mass exodus of eBay buyers and sellers. Google?? Are you listening?? Huge opportunity for you here.

Competition is good and healthy and keeps businesses in check. There have been instances in the past where eBay sellers have been upset and threatened to boycott and have a mass exodus of eBay, but this time is different. People are more upset than they have been in all the past instances combined. Maybe it’s because this comes along with the rising costs of food and fuel and the rising costs of winter utility bills. It’s like WHAM, WHAM, WHAM, can’t we get a break?

Whatever the reason, sellers are really more angry than they have ever been in the past and are uniting and standing up against eBay. There are thousands of anti-eBay posts on message boards, numerous blog postings, articles in major newspapers and magazines, emails being passed on like wildfire, and anti eBay youtube videos. There is a petition going around to boycott eBay for a week and the petition has an estimated 9,000 signatures so far.

In an email from eBay rep. Usher Liberman, I paraphrased it to say, “We don’t care if anyone’s mad, we’re eBay. Stuff like this has happened before but nothing happened. We just grew.” That’s not the exact words he used, that’s just the gist I got from it.

With all the eBay addicts and sellers and buyers upset with eBay, this is a golden opportunity for Google to jump in and turn the online auction world upside down. Hey Big G?! Where are you?!  I hope you’re listening!

I think they should offer some incentive, for example first month of listings for sellers are free and then whatever they are after that, they are cheaper than eBay. And if they really want to get things going fast, give every single member $5 free that they can use to buy items on the site.

Hey, what about Gbay, wonder if that domain is taken?

eBay can be the new AOL. Ha! AOL used to be the big fish in America for internet connection, and now I don’t think I know a soul who uses AOL.

I have nothing against eBay actually, I just want them to have serious competition as bad as anyone else. I don’t want them to have a monopoly on online auctions. I want consumers-buyers and sellers- to have an option for online auctions. I don’t like their attitude of “we’re eBay, so there” and I think they need to learn a lesson. Well maybe I do have a thing or two against eBay after all.

The strike is Feb. 15th-18th.

Here is an article from a major magazine that also talks about the eBay drama and also talks about sellers who have quit eBay.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/07/smbusiness/ebay_boycott.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008020718

In all of the financial news articles, recession is a common topic lately. It seems that unfortunately, we’re nose diving into a recession.

Inflation has rapidly increased, the costs of living have increased, and there’s plenty of news of layoffs and unemployment.

Those financial guys are predicting a recession and say a recession is likely. That’s just depressing. But America has had recessions before and survived. The economy will have ups and downs.

The Feds are trying to ward off a recession by lowering interest rates and there are talks of tax rebates. But there’s no guarantee that those things would stop a recession.

With the inflation and layoffs, a lot of people will be looking for ways to cut back expenses and get more for their money. Even if we do go into a full fledged recession, it’s not the end of the world and we will come out of it eventually and things will pick up again.