If some one would wake up and stop saying the tax rebates will pull our economy out of the doldrums and look at the real reason for the down turn in the American economy then we will be able to better understand what is the real problem . When the average american family has an extra 100.00 a month to spend on just shoping and that is the key to an up beat economy is the people must have that 100.00 a month to spend as they wish and the fact of the matter is now they are forced to spend the mad money they used to have for yes you guessed it (gasoline ) i am sure that most people spend in excess of $ioo a month extra on energy than they did in the previous months before the gas prices went out of sight ,if you want to know where the economy is it is in the back pockets of the oil companies, they and they alone are responsible for the low economic state we are in right now. If the government could set the prices back to say 1.09 a gallon the economy would start rolling upward not down and this one item would prevent a reccession faster than any 12 things we could do to start the economy up again . It happened over night in Jimmy Carters presidency and it is a repeat only worse of that era,people don't regognize the reason for the low economy as they used to they have a republican to blame it on . Carter was a democrat and we were in a very bad time during his term ,it makes no differance if we had an independant president the out come would be the same ,increase energy cost and the whole ball of wax starts to melt and the recession comes right after the increase in energy costs .