Tuesday, June 24, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.
It seems more than a bit illogical that we Americans are complaining about the prices of the “necessities of life.”
After all, we Americans really are the most wasteful people on the planet. We think nothing of paying $10 or $20 a gallon for bottled water. We pay even more for coffee (and we drive there to get it). We pay a couple of bucks for a dime’s worth of food folded into a few cents’ worth of corn or wheat meal. And we pay outrageous prices for so-called “entertainment.”
Who are we to complain if nations that have few, if any, resources other than oil want to get as much as possible for the sale of that resource?
“Whatever the market will bear” has always been the American credo — there is no reason to expect a more altruistic outlook from others.
Our difficulties are not caused by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or other countries. The roots of personal and national financial problems are in our living rooms and the halls of government.
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