When the price of oil increases most people feel that pain by the increase of a gallon of gas.  A little over a year ago most of us could drive up to the pump and fill up our tanks with a cost in the $30 dollar range.  Now it costs most of us $50 to $60 dollars to fill up our tank.  The increase in the price of gasoline and the pain it brings us stops there.

It does not stop there for some of us.  The farmers in Michigan are feeling more pain due to the increase in the price of oil. Another consequence of taking us from being energy self-sufficient just over a year ago to begging other oil-producing countries to pretty please pump more oil for us.  This is another example of the many unforeseen consequences that most people do not even consider when they cast a ballot.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that farmers who work on the slimmest of margins already are now feeling not only the pain of filling up their cars, pickups and farm equipment but thieves stealing their diesel and gasoline for their farm equipment.  A Bronson Township farmer, who wishes to remain anonymous stated:

people came onto my property and emptied my 500-gallon diesel tank and my 250-gallon gas tank…They stole the pump and all the hoses on the diesel tank

The farmer then went on to say:

it’s almost a $2,000 bill to fill...But they also stole the pump, which is another $1,600 by the time you replace the pump and the hoses. I was not anticipating that

Are the thieves brazen enough to steal the fuel from tanks by the farmer's homes, not necessarily?  The farmer said, “There are people that farm enough acreage that they put in barrels and tanks at locations, so they don't have to keep hauling it. They've got a place they can refuel”.

Farmers work very hard for the money they make and every added expense really hurts their bottom line and in the end their family.

Michigan Farmers

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