Even as unemployment, foreclosure rates and poverty remain stunningly
high, the cost of living is beginning to rise. Gasoline prices now
average $3.07 per gallon, a level unseen since October 2008, at the
onset of the most acute phase of the economic crisis.
The price
of a barrel of oil, which largely determines the price of gas, is now
over $90, and the former president of Shell Oil has predicted that a
gallon of gasoline could reach $5 next year. Such a rise would also mean
a significant increase in the cost of heating, food and other
essentials.
The rising cost of living is driven by the deliberate
devaluation of the U.S. dollar by the Federal Reserve’s effort to
jump-start the economy with “quantitative easing”—massive purchases of
bonds and other securities with newly created dollars. Oil companies
criminally profit from the resulting speculation in oil by restricting
production, hoarding supplies and jacking up prices.
