Will Republican Victories Lead Back to Dillinger / James days?

[mrstickball]

txrattlesnake said:

mrstickball said:

HappySqurriel said:

While I wouldn't call it "Bush's Fault" the core reason why energy prices have been on a steady increase has been an inflationary monetary policy of the federal reserve (along with an unwillingness of the state and federal government to run balanced budgets) which has resulted in many/most major currencies increasing in value by 25% to 50% against the US dollar over the past decade. To put it another way, most commodity prices (including food and energy) are increasing at such a rapid rate because inflation statistics are heavily manipulated and not representative of reality.

And I agree with you. The problem is that txrattlesnake (like many people) equate a problem with an acute failure of government by one man.

You are correct in that an inflationary monetary policy had something to do with it. However, oil didn't rise 25-50%, it rose 100-200%.

My thoughts on why oil increased so acutely under Bush comes down to the following:

• Devaulation of US currency due to bad monetary policy
• Increase in base oil prices well outside of US jurisdiction by a president
• Low production by US facilities in regards to our consumption (making points 1 and 2 more valuable)

I think there are things that Bush could of absolutely done to reduce oil prices. However, some of these things were hindered by other areas of government at state and local levels. ANWAR is a great example of that - it has huge amounts of oil, but congress and the senate have voted against it. Because of this, I don't like it when people like TX attribute prices to one, and only one guy because that's simply not the case.

 

     The War on Terror waged by George Bush caused gas prices to increase, and it was also beneficial to Bush and some of his own friend's oil wealth that it did so.

      Okay, then why has the price of gas decreased $1.50 since Bush has been out of office?

Explain to me EXACTLY why the war on terror caused gas prices to increase.

Gas didn't decrease to $1.50 when Bush went out of office. It's currently $2.50 where I live, and you can see the trend of prices here:

If you'll notice, gas prices peaked in July of 2008, and immediately fell afterwards. They were dropping before Obama was elected. Prices have risen steadily since Obama took office in January.

So why did they drop? The global recession. Demand for oil outstripped supply for the most part in 2008, which caused oil prices to rise as they had to react to the fact there simply wasn't enough oil to go around. When the recession hit, the demand for oil plummeted incredibly quick, as oil producers found that people were using less, which meant they had unsold stock that was sitting there, losing them money. The reaction by investors and OPEC was to drop the price of oil to ensure that it kept flowing.

If you want to get technical, gas prices have skyrocketed under Obama must quicker than they did under Bush. Gas prices dropped on Bush's first few years of office, while increasing a dollar per gallon under Obama's first year since election. At this rate, under Obama, gas prices will rise to $5.50 a gallon before he is up for re-election.

Notice that since his inaguration in January, prices have steadily risen?

Also, if the war on terror was the reason, we would have seen prices spike in 2003 when we invaded. Prices went up 3 years after the invasion of Iraq. I don't see how you could reasonably correlate prices to that war in any way, shape or form, as PriceBuddy has gas at $1.50 in 2003 when we invaded.