Is it really that hard to figure out

People often say economics is too full of technobabble to be accessible to a broader audience. To a large extent I agree with this and I'm trying to do my part to fix this. But at some point I draw the line. Consider this CNN.com story about rising gas prices, particularly the part that says

A person making $9 an hour needs to work nearly seven hours just to pay for 15 gallons at $4 a gallon, according to CNN.com's gas calculator.

Do we really need a special calculator for that?

Welcome

I've finally made the dive into the blogosphere, though I'm not quite sure how this will evolve. My initial intent is to expand the low tech blog I maintain outside my office...