I was reading a couple of comments about oil prices and its impact on US elections on other threads.

Do you believe that any president could do anything to drop oil prices other than establish regulations to encourage a reduction in consuptiom.

On the other hand, I tend to think that current oil prices are a good thing after all: they discourage consumption and force us to look for alternatives. The barrel at 140 could do what the kyoto protocol could not achieve.

Barto, I pretty much agree with your view on oil prices. I work in the auto industry (service coordinator for a Volvo/Subaru dealership) and am seeing people switch from fuel-hungry SUVs to more fuel-efficient cars daily. This alone will reduce our gluttonous consumption down the road as those gas hogs are relegated to junkyards. The down sides to high gas prices are inflation, the inequitable impact on poor people, and politicians pandering to our base desires and proposing meaningless legislation designed to trick us into thinking they are doing something to lower gas prices.

Which leads me to your opening question. No. Politicians can do nothing to reduce gas prices, other than introduce legislation to reduce consumption. If Ronald Raygun hadn’t scuttled Jimmy Carter’s CAFE standards and alternative energy plans we wouldn’t be in this mess today and our domestic auto industry would be in much better shape.

You are right, taking into account that energy is the main basic necessity in the food industry, certainly high oil prices has its downsides because the impacts of high food prices, esp. in poor people.

The price of oil has little to do with supply and demand. Thats the pill they hand you when you ask too many questions.

In reality, the price of oil is pegged to the US dollar. As the dollar slides, this causes the price of oil to go up. There is now considerable movement to peg oil to the Euro as opposed to the dollar for this very reason.

Somebody is making a great deal of money on Wall Street too. They need to be routed.

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