I think it is. While it's not Obama that directly drives this, I think he'll take the fall for what is essentially Banana Ben's unabated printing of money and inflation stoking. I'm going to continue this post until gas prices decline substantially (let's say some 25%) or until the Presidential election. I believe as gas prices continue to get worse (and they will unless there is a market crash) this issue will continue to heat up more and more. Oil at $105.79 per barrel as of today, national avg price of gasoline (there is a lag) Regular, SS, $3.57. Highest average ever recorded $4.11 on July 17th, 2008. I know, let's blame Bush.
I don't think that fuel prices represent an incompetency by the adminstration, I think it is part of their effort to curb carbon emissions. It is a feature, not a bug. Obama stated repeatedly that he wants to limit fuel consumption in the United States and has done everything he can do to limit supply. It is de facto Cap and Trade. California, the one on the left that is all red, has created its own private fuel price hell by insisting on formulations of fuel that can only be produced by a very limited number of refineries, a boutique blend. High fuel prices are part of the policies of the Obama regime. They want us to live in the cities and ride mass transit and high-speed trains.
Did you read my post or just gloss over it? I said that high fuel prices are not directly Obama's fault. And Obama can do whatever he wants. But short of military action against a gulf nation, he doesn't control the price of oil globally. Ben does. Printing away.
Yes, I read your post. Again, I'm saying that high fuel prices are a policy of the Obama regime. The President *does* have quite a bit of influence on the price of refined fuels and he has done everything he can to limit supply. It seems counter to the idea of restarting the ecomony... unless they actually believe in their "green economy" and "green recovery".
Obama's domestic policy cannot greatly affect the price of Crude. You can believe it does all you like, but the market is just too big. Now, this can easily affect the price of crude, and has. And the price of lots and lots of other commodities.
I did. Are you suggesting that the price of crude and the price of gasoline are not relevant? Or that domestic policy is a greater influence on the price of gas than is the price of crude?
Obviously money printing can only be bad for the price of gas, but there's more to it than that. Hundreds of millions of people in India and China are now reaching the point where they're getting their first car. The demand situation in the Far East will dwarf whatever we do here in America. Get used to the fact that in a few more years you'll be nostalgic for $4 gas.
The Obama regime at one time said they thought gasoline should be about $8.00 per gallon as it is in Europe. Our current high prices have little to do with real demand. Quite a bit of worldwide demand was destroyed during the last price run-up. It has more to do with anticipated problems in crude delivery (Iranians), the fact that the Saudis have cut production and domestic policies limiting exploration and local crude production. The refined fuels market is a local concern and is greatly affected by domestic policy. The granting of permits to build new refineries and the imposition of unreasonable environmental regulations can and do effectively limit the number of refineries that are operated in the continental United States. Some correlation between crude and gasoline can be observed but there is enormous lag and hysteresis due to all of the local influences.