Gas Prices and the Mortgage Crisis

As summer school is a shortened, intensive term, we are combining the topics of Gas Prices and the Mortgage Crisis into one last class.

These issues are great fodder in this, an election year, because more Americans are faced with the very real dilemma of how to get to work and/or are losing their homes.

In the movie, “My Fellow Americans”, Jack Lemmon and Jim Garner play two former chief executives who are thrown together and on the road.  When a scandal brewing in the White house threatens to implicate them both, Lemmon and Garner head out of town and into “real” America where they learn a lot about the country that elected them.  In a poignant scene, the executives share food with a family who appear to be on vacation, having a simple picnic along the roadside.  The family is honored to be sharing a meal with the duo and volunteer to take them in their over-packed and crowded station wagon to the nearest town.

Conversations ensue and one of the executives starts complaining about Americans who aren’t doing their part to shore up the economy.  The mother of the family asks her husband to pull the car over and asks the former executives to get out of the car immediately.  Offended and perplexed, the Lemmon character asks why and learns that they have not just been riding in the family’s car, they have been guests in their home.

How are you getting to work these days?  Are you carpooling or taking mass transportation?  Have you traded in the gas-guzzling SUV for a smaller and more gas-efficient automobile or hybrid?  Have you been able to keep up with your mortgage or are you one of the many who are anxiously awaiting the sale of your home to downsize into some more affordable?

These are humbling and life-altering times and much can be learned from those who’ve gone before us during like economies.

School’s out for summer!