Time to start digging the bunker...

As crude prices rise, so will everything else:

Blame it on crude oil. The rocketing price of crude oil is not only sharply hiking the costs of fueling the car and heating the home, but is bidding up prices on the raw materials that go into goods from produce to perfume.

At the same time, the push to develop ethanol as an alternative fuel through corn and similar products is inflating the cost of feed for cows, pigs and other farm animals - and that also increases the prices consumers pay.

"Oil affects everything from top to bottom," said Phil Flynn, energy analyst at Alaron Trading. "Most people wear crude oil every day."

And (via Gandhixmas at Pygalgia) this cheerful article:

America is finished, washed up, kaput. Foreign investors and central banks around the world have lost confidence in US markets and are headed for the exits. The dollar is sinking, the country is insolvent, and its leaders are barking mad. That’s bad for business. Investors are voting with their feet. They’ve had enough. Capital is flowing to China and the Far East in a torrent. It’s "sayonara" Manhattan and “Hello” Tiananmen Square.

Want some advice? Learn Mandarin.

The dollar fell another 2% last night, gold soared to $840 per ounce, oil topped $98 per barrel, General motors reported a $39 billion loss after the market closed on Tuesday, the real estate market continued its downward slide, and the major investment banks are marching in lock-step towards bankruptcy.

The news is all bad. The nation’s economic foundation is in shambles. US credibility is shot. Bush and Greenspan have put us on the road to ruin. Now their work is done. We’re flat broke.

The catalogue of fiscal ailments now facing the country is too long to list. We’d need a ledger the size of a small encyclopedia. There’s been a stampede away from the dollar even though it’s already lost over 60% of its value since Bush took office and even though central banks around the world will lose their shirts if it collapses. They don’t care. They’re getting out while they can.

Chris in Paris at AmericaBlog notes that oil has risen 41% in this last year alone.

Bryan of Why Now? quotes the AP about the Democrats of the House trying to help the middle-income taxpayers:

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Friday pushed through an $80 billion bill to block the spread of a dreaded tax on middle-income people. The White House and Republicans, protesting tax increases in the bill affecting mainly investment fund managers, maintained that it would never become law.

The 216-193 vote to ”patch” the alternative minimum tax for a year sends the issue to the Senate, where its prospects are at best uncertain. Not one House Republican voted for it.

What is certain is that if Congress and the White House do not reach a compromise by the end of the year, anywhere from 21 million to 25 million middle-income taxpayers will be hit by the AMT, costing them as much as $2,000 in extra taxes.

Bryan points out why the Republicans don't want to help this bill:

The “tax increases” are the closing of a loophole that allows fund managers to declare their income as capital gains, which have a 15% rate, rather than wages which would probably be at a 35% rate. This change only affects thousands of overpaid Wall Street types, and everyone with two brain cells realizes that this is a loophole, not an intended outcome. The Repubs want the cuts, they just don’t want to pay for them which is why the deficits mounted when they controlled Congress. Borrow and spend - it’s the Repub mantra.

Start storing up cans of beans and bags of rice, guys. Start raising rabbits in the backyard. I think this would qualify as 'living in interesting times...'