It's Not Over Quite Yet

I read an interesting article called "Jobless claims surge from Katrina with more bad economic news to come," by Martin Crutsinger, about just how much worse the U.S. economy is expected to suffer because of the devasting effects of Hurricane Katrina. If we thought that gas prices of over 3 dollars a gallon was unacceptable and extremely taxing, then we should prepare for even worse fates. The article denotes how economists are predicting even higher gas prices due to the shutdown of "oil platforms, refineries and platforms." Not only will we bear higher gas prices, but Hurricane Katrina has brought rapidly rising unemployment rates, lay-offs, etc. as well as higher prices and inflation, decrease in production and industry, and reconstruction efforts and disaster relief, which is very expensive. Basically, the country's most devasting natural disaster is expected to reap some serious economic effects for quite some time. However, the rising gas prices and inflation rates are not nearly as taxing for non-Hurricane victims to have to pay because Hurricane Katrina has left some jobless, and or homeless, familyless, etc. Therefore, the U.S. should just expect that this is to be the norm for awhile as the country and the economy will pull itself out of this hardship. This may sound drastic but personally I am thankful to only have to bear higher prices than to have lost something more valuable.