“It is what it is. If we want to point fingers, we can thank Fed monetary policy over the last 15 years, globalization, Clinton, Bush, and Obama (and Wall St). Plenty of blame to go around.”
NO question that monetary policy has had a major impact on oil prices. But I doubt that that’s the entire story. This administration has done everything it could to stifle any meaningful way that we could increase our domestic supply. Plus they are whoring up the major sources of food with all this nonsense of putting corn-derived alcohol into our motor fuels. That is screwing the consumer in several other ways. Higher food prices because corn producers get more for their crops selling it for fuel than is the case for foodstuffs. And since the heat content of alcohol is a lot lower than gasoline, people are getting poorer mileage to say noting of the potential for substantial costs due to corrosion in their engines.
I’d love for Obama to get out of the way, too. But my motivation is employment, not oil prices. Fact is, those are set mostly by Asian demand at this point.
If the global market will clear at $100/barrel, then that’s what we have to pay. Drill, baby, drill (for jobs if nothing else). Neither bumping up US oil production by 25% nor building the proposed pipeline projects is going to drive gasoline prices back under $2.50/gal again. That would take a massive falloff in overseas demand and strengthening of the dollar.
I do agree with you that REQUIRING a portion of our agricultural output to be turned back in to fuel (at a net negative EROEI probably) is insane. We mostly have farm state senators to thank for that nonsense.