The Price of Gasoline and Obama

The President appears to be taking a beating in the polls over the high price of gasoline. Normally, I wouldn't have much to say on the subject, because there is little the President can do regarding the price of a commodity good like gasoline, which responds largely to supply and demand. However, in this case the President's chief achievement, and that of his party has been to increase the supply of dollars chasing goods in the economy. He has done so by fueling a huge expansion in the debt, which the compliant Fed has monetized by keeping interests rates artificially low and by buying up Treasuries. Rather than recognizing that the government's spending is out of control, he counted on a compliant federal reserve to delay the effects of his folly.

The second way reason for well deserved scorn has been his policies of preventing new exploration on federal land, in the Gulf of Mexico and by preventing the Keystone XL pipeline from bringing new supplies of oil to our refineries. Although these actions would have only a small effect on the price of gasoline, they deprive Americans of the jobs that come with these activities. His opposition is based not on science, because the science says that we cannot quickly and economically replace the convenience and power of carbon based fuels; but on a religious belief that man's activities are causing a catastrophic warming of the globe. These are subjects on which I have blogged in length and time does not permit me to link all of them.