High gas prices hurting restaurants

This really shouldn't be a surprise -- high gas prices are taking a bite out of the restaurant industry.

Twice in an Associated Press article yesterday people were quoted saying that they were eating out less because gas prices were eating up their budget. (The same article noted that two-thirds of people in a survey consider gas prices an extremely important issue -- more then the economy, health care and Iraq.)

Then this morning, an article pops up from a newspaper in Stoughton, Mass. This article does a good job highlighting, on a local level, how higher fuel/gas prices are impacting people's spending habits. Restaurants face fuel surcharges from all their suppliers (and likely the suppliers are paying them from their suppliers), and customers don't have the extra cash to spend eating out.

My guess is there are lots of articles like this out there.

Yet the restaurant industry has come out vocally against the ethanol industry -- which is producing fuel at at lower cost than gasoline and helping to keep gas prices lower across the country, saving consumers billions of dollars. So I guess the restaurant industry wants people to pay more for gas so they'll have less money to spend in their establishments? Crazy, huh?

Here's more craziness - In his blog, DTN's Chis Clayton quotes House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) saying that oil companies are only using the amount of ethanol they have to - even though using more would save consumers money. Their doing this to hold down ethanol prices. In other words, the cheaper they can keep ethanol, the more they can mark it up at the pump. Gee, thanks, Big Oil.

Let's end with some good news: Biofuels help meet U.S. energy goals.