Costs have in-fact risen without the wages going along with them this is something an person with a newspaper in their hometown understands. The issue is why have the prices increased and not the labor prices along with it? Many would say "well its the bonus that a CEO receives," or they may say shipping costs have risen, or medical and prescription costs and therefore insurance prices have gone up. Which is all true, and as for medical costs i have no idea how in the world that can (if it can) be fixed. But how have prices on things that were once made in the US by laborers making $5.50/hr risen when they are now being made by someone for that same amount in an entire day? I'm not saying i know because i don't but i do feel as though someone out there is merely doing something for their own greedy reasons. Whether it's the oil sheik or the corporate executive. Ultimately they are bringing about the destruction of their own corporations if this is so. i.e. if i can't afford to buy your product i won't and if i can do without gasoline (and there are many ways of doing so) i will. Eventually it brings more suffering as the person in making 5.50 per day now has no income and so it all trickles down to more problems. Of course if i had already made my millions driving the company into bankruptcy i will be fine and won't care anyhow but i suppose that's what I'm getting at. And for the gasoline issue there really are many ways to quit using it, and im sure it would be expensive but probably not much more than this current bailout is expected to cost. To semi-quote an old tv show, "we have the technology, we can rebuild...."

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Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
E. B. White (1899 - 1985), New Yorker, July 3, 1944