From truckers and farmers to loggers, construction workers and fishermen, skyrocketing diesel prices are pushing what many consider the backbone of the American economy right up to the breaking point.
"I'm in debt," says Jim Gossett, an owner/operator truck driver with a wife and daughter in Chapel Hill, N.C. "Do I turn in all my equipment, potentially lose my home?"
He says his profit margin used to be around 25 percent. But with the near-tripling of diesel prices over the last few years, he now says that has been cut to 5 percent.
"You can't get any work if you raise your prices," said Tyson Clay, filling up the tank for his bulldozer at a gas station in Camden, Alabama. "You just grin and bear it, people are only going to pay so much to get their land cleared."
Unlike the average consumer who can cut back on gasoline use when prices get too high, businesses of all types have little recourse.
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Competition keeps prices low for consumers, but what about the people who are suppliers? For the transporters, at least, the cuthroat competion is a little too much. The market can only bear so much, co consumers will have to expect a price hikew soon, because if the truck drivers do not raise their rates, the scarcity from lack of transportation will drive the prices higher.
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