It wouldn't be so bad if the wealthy and politically powerful felt the pain of their mismanagement first, not those already living in poverty whose lives will turn from hungry to starvation, to risking their lives on boats or walking across deserts seeking refuge.
One of the comforts of my current lifestyle is that I don't have to care about the price of gasoline, not because I'm wealthy, but because my wife and I by some planning and much greater good fortune managed to escape automobile commuter hell in the later 'eighties. When we met we were both Los Angeles commuters, a lifestyle where having a reliable car and affordable gasoline was essential. Driving to work was not a choice. You drove, or you were unemployed, or you lived in rough neighborhoods. Every hour I spent in stop-and-go traffic in Los Angeles is an hour of my life that was wasted, and all the toxic crap I breathed in driving certainly did not improve my health. I remember days I averaged fifteen miles per hour on the freeway, very high stress driving.
We've done the living in very rough neighborhoods gig, and some wealthier white people would consider the neighborhood we live in now a little rough, but it's still better than commuting. Most of the kids in the public school here (less than a hundred yards from our home) are first, second, third generation Mexican American, original Mexican California, and otherwise entirely cosmopolitan, from all over the planet.
I fled Ivory Soap 99 44/100 white majority U.S.A. with extreme prejudice. In middle school until I quit high school the bullies called me "queerbait." Some bullies made it to college too, but any adult who beats up a minor often goes to jail. College is not like high school. We squeaky minors in college had a mandatory "coping with college" class. We knew our rights, we also recognized the difficulties. I had professors who were obviously uncomfortable that my parents had to sign off on field trips, especially the field work sort where they did not want to be chaperons.
But in the larger picture, people who don't have jobs or money, no food, no safe housing, let alone medicine, are abandoning places like Syria.
And here in the U.S.A. wouldn't it be a bummer to be a "moth-balled" fracking field worker? Most of them will be forced to return to whatever low wage hell they escaped from, maybe even back to mom and dad's house.
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