And you also lectured me about the effect of relative inflation on the price of a foreign sourced product. I pointed out in counter to that, that oil itself hasn’t followed the theory you are spouting. That’s possible in part because Middle Eastern oil is vastly cheaper to produce than it sells for. So if a place like Saudi Arabia “sacrifices,” they still roll in the dough and are happy. Islamists are not always devout economists, they have a multitude of international relations agendas.
Your assumption seems to be that a dollar today is worth the same as a dollar yesterday, so that it couldn't possibly be the problem. Just to entertain your last question, since I was abrupt due to fatigue from crunching numbers all day, the
price of oil was $36.51 per barrel on Jan 16, 2009, and it's now around $86.28, which looks like an increase of 136.3% to me, but I guess that's a matter of one's perspective. And no, I didn't lecture you, I merely pointed out the fact that a decline in the value of the dollar has a multiplier effect when spent overseas versus domestically.