Are High Gas Prices Obama's Fault?

As you can see, the Presidency has just about zero to do with gas prices.
Are regular people (not rightwing idiots) really so stupid as to blame a President for high gas prices? I would say that in the vast majority of cases, the US Presidency has absolutely nothing to do with high gas prices. This holds true over decades all the way from the Carter Presidency. There was the Iranian Revolution under Carter, and we had gas lines stretching for blocks. American fools blamed Carter for that though he had nothing to do with it, and they voted in Ronald Reagan who began the destruction of our formerly great Republic. Anyone who blames a sitting US president for high gas prices or praises one for low gas prices is a moron who is so stupid one wonders if they should be allowed to vote or even to operate heavy machinery.

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0 thoughts on “Are High Gas Prices Obama's Fault?”

  1. There was an oil embargo under Carter and we had gas lines stretching for blocks.
    I do believe you are referring to the Arab oil embargo which was under the Nixon administration. (The Arab oil embargo of 1973 – 74.. which one could at minimum partially blame on Nixon since he supported the Israeli’s (and rearmed them..) in the Yom Kippur war..)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis
    Under Carter you had the Iranian revolution.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_energy_crisis

    1. It’s a good theory, but I don’t understand it very well, and most of the folks screaming about here in the US and on the Net are nutty rightwing Ron Paul Libertarian the sky is falling types.

      1. Okay.
        A good summary of the peak oil argument can be found in Deffeyes’ book Beyond Oil.
        If you’re interested in checking it out. Alternatively, reading The Oil Drum and archives will achieve much the same thing.
        Myself, whereas I once thought it’d be a peak around 2010-12, it’s now looking more like a plateau, either flat or slowly increasing, for the next decade.

        1. Deffeyes’ predictions about when oil would peak have been wrong. In 2003, he was 99% sure it would peak in 2004. In 2006 (a year after beyond oil was published), he said it had peaked in 2005. Totally wrong, so I wouldn’t trust that book.

        2. I don’t recall his predictions, but wouldn’t be surprised if he got them wrong. Peak oilers have been getting their dates on global production peak wrong for decades. (I believe Hubbert put it at 2000).
          The reason I think is that as a rule they have tended to minimize the role of the market mechanism, instead going purely by geological calculations.
          What Deffeyes does very well is illustrating how these geological calculations are made in language easily understandable to the layman.
          Another useful he does is illustrate why it is energetically unfeasible that things like the Bakken shales (which have been well-known as huge hydrocarbons sources for decades) will ever play any significant role in relieving global energy problems. The costs in water and energy are simply too prohibitive (i.e. their EROEI is close to 1).

        3. Peak oil cannot be true and it’s fabricated beyond belief for a certain agenda. There is enough oil under the South American continent, the coasts of America, and possibly Antarctica that it’s enough to be bigger or equal to that of the amount of oil in the Gulf countries, the Middle East, Russia, and China.
          Look AK, the technology to create alternative sources of fuel and energy exists; the same technology that could counter peak oil, however the technology is being suppressed by large corporations. Proof of this, is how the U.S hampered Tesla’s alternative ideas of electric energy, how the U.S government clamped down on a guy who built a coral reef in Florida through sound etc etc the list goes on.

        4. @AK have no new oil sources been discovered in the past 10 or 20 years?
          I wouldn’t discount new technologies being developed to access oil that was thought inaccessible or impractical in the past. You are talking about a field where there is an enormous amount of money to invest and to be made and the best and brightest working on it.
          In any case, there is still a rather vast amount of oil that we can and will access, such that there could be a significant increase in production by 2020. Deffeyes predictions were way way out. They were just plain wrong.

  2. Normally high oil prices would have nothing to do with the president, but this president is not only black, he’s also more intelligent than any of his white opponents, so an exception can be made.

  3. Prices at the pump are the high or low, and the same throughout the world regardless of politics, it’s about supply and demand, blaming this on Obama is the stupidest thing but it’s seems to be working very well for Conservatives when it comes to getting their base all charged up, this is one of the many things that shows how ill informed, and dumb the average conservative voter is.

  4. And yet… That’s America for ya. Clearly a significant number of Americans change their deepest ideals and beliefs on the basis of those little numbers on the pump.

  5. I don’t know about gas prices per se, but the US president certainly does impact oil price. Oil is a commodity and commodity prices fluctuate one 2 factors: current economic realites reflected by technical indicators and also percieved trends, current policies, and speculation of policies, ie what some would call Fundamental Analysis. The whole point of capturing Iraq was to decrease Oil prices by increasing global supply. Announcements by the President and certain other global leaders can send oil prices spiking up or down in the short term.

    1. “Maugeri states: “Contrary to what most people believe, oil supply capacity is growing worldwide at such an unprecedented level that it might outpace consumption. This could lead to a glut of overproduction and a steep dip in oil prices.” Maugeri further suggests that “capacity exists to increase the world’s 2011 production of 93 million barrels a day by as much as half, hitting, by 2020, around 111 million barrels a day—and rising.”
      whatever happened to peak oil?
      http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/48813
      “There are, we now know, monstrous deposits in the United States: one estimate suggests that the Bakken shales in North Dakota contain almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia (though less of it is extractable). And this is one of 20 such formations in the US.”
      http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/peak-oil-we-we-wrong
      I’ve been wanting to post these articles since I read them.

        1. Yeah I sure hope there isn’t anthropogenic global warming because we’re probably gonna burn every barrel of oil we can get our dirty little hands on. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do it guilt free though?

  6. Presidents can effect gas prices indirectly by way of their foreign policy. Waving the saber at Iran for example is going to cause speculators to bid up the price of oil in anticipation of instability in the oil market. Also, failing to have any long term energy strategy is in part a President’s fault.
    But for the most part I agree, the week to week fluctuations have nothing to do with the executive.

  7. I have a few frinds in the Oil industry; One works for Schlumberger; the oil discovery company; According to him no new discoveries are made in the last decade, not as large as Saudi field. Newer technologies like horizontal drilling, steam pumping, hrdualic fracking can get some out.
    The other person I knwo works for Armaco Saudi Oil, according to him till 2030-2040 most people will get Oil with Price and inflation going up obviously, atleast my generation will dide drving Gasolinie Cars.
    If you do some thinking, it is the Sun that i sthe most important source of life. Plants to Animals to dino whatever + Time + Nature’s Chemistry = Petrol; Nothing is as energy dense and versatile in use as this.
    Again Solar if harnessed in great efficiency great potential.
    If the west had not wasted so much Oil in Wars your grandchikdren would still be driving Cars.
    You did’nt have to pedel your marvels to us Indians, we were happy with our Bullock carts and village community life.

  8. Running massive budget deficits certainly weakens the dollar and leads to inflation. This directly impacts oil prices.
    What’s more, running massive budget deficits has another even larger impact than raw inflation. There is currently a rational fear that deep and permanent structural budget deficits are being established, which leads to high expectations for long-term inflation.
    This means heavy investing in havens such as gold and oil in such a climate.
    If this were unrelated to political and banking factors, what about gold? Gold has also skyrocketed in the Obama administration, and there is no peak gold. Gold is never used up.

    1. This is standard deficit hawk line. But there is no inflation.
      Oil prices are set by speculators bidding up the prices of oil on the oil bourse in London. In general, it is based on supply and demand and also on the global economy. Weak economy lowers prices. Strong economy raises prices. Instability in the Middle East leads to increasing prices. Etc etc.
      General inflation in the US, which is not occurring anyway, would not necessarily have any effect on oil prices anyway as they are independent of that.
      Look at the chart and see how oil prices went all over the place even with high deficits and almost zero inflation.
      Your theory does not make any sense.
      Yes, people are investing in gold. Gold is a safe bet. Oil is NOT a safe bet.

      1. We don’t disagree about speculators. Yes, oil prices are set by speculators. But what are they speculating on? Future inflation of course.
        Maybe you are talking about day-to-day or month-to-month trends in oil prices, and I agree that Obama doesn’t impact that so much (although his bombing in Libya last year was closely related to oil prices).
        In terms of secular trends, year-by-year, a policy of huge budgetary deficits can only be resolved in one of two ways: austerity or inflation. And since it is indisputable that Obama will not choose austerity (indeed he ramps up spending instead and flees taxes for political reasons), inflation is the only alternative.
        As far as there being no inflation, that is not a fact. For example it was 3% last year and would have substantially higher if not for excluding food and energy prices, which rose steeply.
        But why am I preaching to the choir? You reveal that you know there is inflation:
        “Yes, people are investing in gold. Gold is a safe bet.” Gee Robert, why shouldn’t we hold our assets as cash? Why on Earth should we invest in gold when cash as you say is not losing value?

        1. Look, number one.
          This is a socialist blog. We don’t allow deficit hawks to post on here.
          Also, you can’t attack Obama from the Right, which is what you are doing.
          Obama has in fact doubled down on austerity to the max, to his discredit.
          Japan has had very high deficits for a long time with zero inflation, in fact, they have had deflation.
          There is little inflation in the US. It’s been only 2-3% for some years now.
          Speculators on the oil bourse are not speculating on inflation. They are just gamblers bidding the price up or down based on instability, market demands, supply and demand, strength or weakness in US or European economies and whatnot.
          I think I am going to ban you because we don’t allow rightwing commenters on here as a general rule.
          Cash is not losing value. There is almost no inflation. Gold and oil prices tend to rise in tandem. As the price of oil rises, the price of gold tends to go up too. The world economy is very unstable, and many are worried about future instability, so gold is a very safe bet in times of economic uncertainty.

    1. Yes, high oil prices will tend to drive other prices higher, but high prices outside of oil will not have much effect on oil. Oil itself is not effected by other prices too much.

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