It isn't noticeably yet. And while the price of oil is dropping, the price rise will not be felt because the cost transportation of goods is declining even as the price level is rising on average.My fear is that the unnerving price increases won't really get going until time to trash Republican electoral chances in W's second term. Mrs. Clinton would then be looking like a shoo-in in 08 and she would have a Congress she can work with.
The Carter inflation really got going in Nixon's presidency and contributed a little to Ford's loss to Carter. It really got roaring in Carter's term and, along with the hostage thing, gave us Reagan. It starts with a government trying to improve a national trade position and continues as a tactic for defaulting on part of the national debt by repaying borrowed money with cheaper dollars. It ends with economic crisis. Reagan nipped that crisis by stabilizing the dollar and by reducing the costs of doing business by deregulating. Other countries' economies have failed because their governments knew only to keep shovelling out money in ever increasing amounts to take up the slack. Democrats as we know them could not conceive of sound money as benefitting their goals and the Democrat who follows W will convert bad inflation into hyperinflation.