Posted on 07/03/2008 5:18:21 AM PDT by tobyhill
LONDON (Reuters) - A weaker dollar cannot be blamed for soaring oil prices as policymakers around the world tussle with the twin specters of rising inflation and slowing growth, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Thursday.
Some of the world's leading oil producers and market analysts say the weak dollar is a key factor spurring many dollar-denominated commodities -- including oil -- to record highs, pushing the cost of living higher across the world.
It is rare for the United States government to say anything about the greenback beyond its mantra that it believes in a strong dollar, but developed nations are ramping up the rhetoric in an effort to get oil producers to increase supply and help tame inflation.
"The dollar has had a very small impact," Paulson told reporters in London, after a meeting with top British bankers and British finance minister Alistair Darling.
"Take a look, the dollar has depreciated roughly 24, a little bit less than 25 percent, since February 2002. Oil has gone up well over 500 percent. It's gone up in every currency."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Its Iran and its paranoid delusions of nuclear war with the US and Israel that has spiked the price of oil, course lots of people refuse to believe it.
Makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is the pretend inflation index that the government uses.
Everything is skyrocketing (except used houses), and somehow the index registers only modest inflation.
That’s because things like food and oil don’t get counted.
Now that’s an incumbent politician’s dream, whichever side of the aisle they’re on.
Replace Congress. Every single one of them.
I seem to remember a ridiculous run-up in the price of oil before Gulf War I, but when we decimated Saddam, it dropped back down considerably.
Hate to suggest it... but maybe “blood for oil” would be a good policy right now.
Of course, you have to ask why the hell we’re not using our own ridiculously-huge oil stores in Prudhoe Bay. The Alaska State government says that there is more oil there than in all of Saudi Arabia.
Energy has always meant power. The question is... why do the Saudis and Persians get the power when we could be exerting our own?
i am really tired of anyone
in public life here or abroad
who passes the buck.
higher gas prices are destroying the less-than-rich.
If there had been some clandestine policy to use up everyone else’s oil first, then we’re at the point where market forces could ruin our economy. It’s time for the US to pump more oil, to use clean coal, to proceed with nuclear, and to continue to develop alternatives. I have no problem with solar, geothermal, wood, switch grass, methanol, etc.....but they’ve got to continue to improve to lower their costs.
Everything should be on the table, and we should say goodbye to the Mid-Eastern oil barons. They have brought us to the brink of world war, and we should unfund them.
And we should publicly announce where they’re invested in the US economy so those areas can be scrutinized. I can think of no good reason to perpetuate their wealth in any manner whatsoever.
Some people here argue that oil is so expensive because of the dollar. But as Paulson points out, oil prices have risen much more than the dollar has fallen. Also, oil prices have risen in Europe, where they use the Euro, England, where they have the pound, and in fact virtually around the world.
We are hurt more in this country because we got the oil price rise plus the decreasing value of our dollar.
But it only explains a small part of the oil price rise. The big part is the Democratic Congress.
The real cause of the dramatic increase in the cost of crude oil is our idiotic Democrat Congress and its global warming superstition based policies. These idiots actually believe that “windfall profits” taxes are a solution to our energy problems! Of course they, and their environazi extremist friends not only oppose drilling for oil, they oppose any energy production.
To make things worse, the same idiotic Democrat Congress has added the ethanol mandate debacle which has increased food prices by diverting from the market the corn that is needed for food production and turning it into ethanol, which has had no real effect but to make a tank of gas go for even fewer miles.
Who should we blame, Hank, Goldman’s huge long oil futures book & commodity funds?
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