Keep this sort of news on your radar each time we hear about the '2nd half' or 'early 2009' recovery. The consumer is stressed from so many directions I cannot keep track. We've been on the home heating beat since LAST winter (we're early) but this is one of those lagged inflation effects that we have not even touched the tip of the iceberg yet. And frankly, when I was warning about it last winter natural gas and oil were 40-50% lower in price. Again there are some limitations on what utilities can pass on in any one year, and some of the product (coal/natural gas/home heating oil) is on longer term contract but as those contracts come off, and new ones (at market prices) are brought on, the American consumer is going to take a direct hit. People "feel" gas prices because it hits with a short lag - home heating, air conditioning and the like will be next winter and summer's direct hit. (and the winter after that) It sounds alarmist but you are going to see a lot of decisions in the bottom 1/3rd of America between food and heating the residence in the coming winters. Those Walmart retail jobs in the new era service economy just do not pay for these rates of increases.

• Consumers struggling with $4 gasoline face ballooning costs for another energy source: natural gas. Natural gas futures have vaulted 154% since its Aug. 27 low to $13.203 per million British thermal units on Monday. The run-up has outpaced the rise in crude oil, which has doubled.
• Consumers may not feel the full impact immediately, but continued high prices will push up monthly utility bills, if they haven't already done so. Americans often use natural gas for heating stove tops and water, but they see a bigger hit when they fire up gas furnaces in the cold winter months.