Originally Posted by
mjs
gp, to understand what Oladub is saying, consider we we were both given $100 cash last year and we could both go from empty to full on our tanks for exactly $100. Now consider that I had used that $100 to buy a gold coin that day and you had put your $100 under your bed.
Today, my gold coin could be traded for a tank full of gas and a Coke. Your $100 cash could only be traded for 9/10 of a tank. If we were on the gold standard, the government would guarantee you that you could buy that exact gold coin today with your $100 cash so you could also get a full tank and a Coke.
This means that gas prices did not really go up. It means that what a dollar will buy went down. What a dollar can buy went down because the government borrowed to buy something worth a dollar but they only want to have to sell something they bought for 90 cents a year ago to pay it back. In doing that, the stuff that you could buy last year for 90 cents, including gas, now costs a dollar. They also did it because they believe that if you see that $900 in your 401k grew to nearly $1000, you would thank them. However, since you can't buy as much gas or food or furniture with your $1000 as you could last year with your $900, you are thanking them for screwing you.
As Red said in The Legend of Josey Wales, "Senator, don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining".