I wasn't responding to your post, Bucco. But others who followed blamed the escalation of gas prices on Obama, asserting that it was all part of his grand plan to have European-style gas prices.

I think to allege that even the POTUS has that much power and influence over worldwide oil and financial markets is ridiculous and I said so. The decline in the value of the dollar, which is primarily the result of the profligate government spending authorized by our Congress during the administration of both political parties, is a major reason why the price of oil is high and getting higher, as is the control of supply applied by the big oil-producing countries.

Does anyone on this board ever put two and two together, or is it simply an exercise in thoughtless and unsubstantiated partisan politics? Does anyone ever think of the effects of a badly de-valued dollar or the oft-discussed quantitative easing done by the Fed? When the Fed buys $600 billion of our own bonds with newly-printed money as they did late last year, does anyone ever think of the effect on the value of the dollar and everything dollars are used to buy? I guaranty that if individuals here who sold something for X dollars and were later paid with dollars worth only 90% of X, they'd know what to do the next time they made a sale....raise the price! Which is exactly what the oil-producing countries are doing.

Yes, I pulled the trigger on yet another shallowly thought out partisan assertion against the POTUS. Am I defending him against such ridiculous assertions? Yes. Will I vote for him in the fall? No.