Reply #24: Do you buy gasoline?

[customerserviceguy]

About the last 4th of July, it was over $4 a gallon most everywhere, now it's about half of what it was. The same thing has happened to diesel fuel, and pretty much everything you or I have was brought by a truck. Softening fuel prices have led to a backing off of the inflation that was a key component of the 2009 Social Security increase.

Clothing is cheaper, there was a lot of it unsold last Christmas. And if you look around a bit, you can find deals on many things. Sometimes cash talks where credit cards don't.

I'm certainly not saying that prices have dropped to whatever you consider to be the good old days, but there was an incredibly high inflationary pressure last summer that gave the Social Security recipients 5.8 percent for 2009, while the overall inflation rate for all of 2008 was 3.8 percent. It was plain to see that it was going to work itself out in the next benefit year of 2010.