Price of gas was 1.50 when Obama took office, what happened?

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He's not. It makes some people feel better to have an implied scapegoat I suppose.

 

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Between 2001 and 2008, the hedgefund money trading energy futures went up from 5 bill to 100 bill. So when the money chasing the same equities multiplies by 20, the price can only go one way....

 

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Of course Obama has too little power to do much about the rising price of oil. That is due mainly to growing prosperity in Asia*, where most new cars are sold, etc. AND the fact that the cheap to produce oil is being replaced by expensive to produce oil from the deep oceans, etc. It is going to get worse, (especially for Americans as the value of the dollar declines):

"... May 7 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its oil- price forecasts because OPEC and other {cheap oil} producers aren’t matching rising demand and consumers will take time to react to higher prices.

The bank boosted its 2011 Brent crude forecast to $120 a barrel from $110, and changed its estimate for West Texas Intermediate crude to $109.50 from $99. Forecasts for 2012 prices were raised to $120 and $114, respectively.

“While financial bushfires or perhaps a rapid resolution to the Libyan civil war could radically alter market dynamics, the balance of both risks and fundamentals still points to a supply-constrained world,” JPMorgan analysts led by New York- based Lawrence Eagles wrote in a report yesterday. ..."

From: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auZZhnLtWSX8&pos=3

* That was coming anyway but GWB greatly accelerated it:

Originally Posted by Billy T:

...Generally rich people are not dumb about investments. Thus when GWB, reduced the taxes on rich folks, they invested their savings where there was great GDP growth, high rates of return, huge and rapidly growing markets, etc, and not in the stagnate US. For example, Warren Buffett now owns 10% of China's BYD motors and has already recovered his full investment. {Three times over! - BYD stock is up 3 times from his buy price, plus has paid dividends. This note added today. 5/5/11}

Of course, the average Joe American will make up the US's tax losses that GWB granted to the rich (or watch the value of his dollar’s decline, if more taxes are not collected from him and country just borrows more from China. For re-election reasons, this second alternative has been chosen.).

Giving the already wealthy tax reductions was exactly the wrong thing to do. - They should have had a tax increase and the extra funds raised should have been distributed to the poor who would spend them in the US, not invest them in China, to make new modern factories there. Now China has both much lower than US labor cost AND more modern / efficient factories than the US has.