When do you think the White House will notice the price of gas?

[DainBramaged]

Poll question: When do you think the White House will notice the price of gas?

[msongs]

1. fortunately, oil companies were posting record profits at the old LOWER price nt

[flvegan]

2. Why would the White House ever care?

It's "free" for them.

[nevergiveup]

3. Obama has already mentioned it several times including

Monday evening.

[dennis4868]

4. this poll is a lie....

Obama has already spoken about this at his last news conference and provided a list of things he is going to do to lower the price of gas....Obama, being the honest man he is, said that it may get worse before it gets better.....

[William769]

5. Just before November 2012. NT.

[JVS]

9. +1

[okieinpain]

6. why does anyone think he can control gas prices. that's like

thinking he can deliver unicorns. doesn't anyone remember 2 years ago just before everyone lost their jobs. gas was really high and only went down because everyone was out of work and had no where to go.

[Skidmore]

11. There are just a bunch of people who will insist that

we live in a dictatorship and the President micromanages every government entity to the nth degree. Magical thinking.

[JDPriestly]

7. I have begun to wonder whether we are in a sort of trade war

in which the developed nations are purposely trying to destroy demand within their countries in order to be able to get developing nations to agree to trade more fairly. It's really just a kind of vague theory that I haven't thought through. You may remember that Germany led a huge movement to tighten belts in the developed countries by reducing government's debt.

[pampango]

8. When we take the initiative with a hefty gas tax rather than let the market (oil companies)

benefit from the continual increase in gas prices. A gas tax will reduce American demand, lower the price and fund serious alternatives to that oil needle in our arms. As long as the needle remains in place, we can complain all we want about the price our "dealer" is charging us for our drug of choice, but we will keep paying (and complaining) and paying (and complaining) and paying ...

[sendero]

10. Why notice it.

.... there is nothing they can do about it.

Bernanke prints like there's no tomorrow - all hard assets (for which there is stable predictable demand) rise in price. It's pretty simple, predictable and here.

Of course, his real goal is to prop up housing prices, that's not going to happen.

[indimuse]

12. It's not just gas. FOOD and water will be next.

;)

[DainBramaged]

18. THOSE prices are through the roof too, and our incomes aren't matching prices

[provis99]

13. here's when we'll know when they notice:

When they start bombing another oil-rich Arab country.

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. What do you expect the White House to DO about it?

Really?

Oil is a commodity traded on an international market. The US imports most of what it uses. What do you really think that the US government can do about that? Go to China and say "say, d'you think you could use less oil? Because it's getting too expensive for us." Think that'll go over very well? I doubt it.

The price of oil is what it is because of three things. First, demand. The world produces around 86-87 million "barrels of oil" a day (that figure includes natural gas condensates and liquids, so it's slightly misleading). Total demand is at the level of c. 86M/bbl/day. There is very little overhead margin or spare capacity to take up the slack. This drives prices higher. Second, unrest. What's been going on in Libya, and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia and Yemen etc, makes people nervous. They're bidding the price of oil higher because of fears over supply disruption. Third, inflation. The inflation and relative declines in value of the US dollar compared to other world currencies are also driving the price of oil higher.

[CanonRay]

15. That would be reporting bad news

and they never do that. Maybe they'll say gas has been seasonably adjusted, so the price is really the same?

[TheCowsCameHome]

16. When they have trouble affording it.

In other words, never.

[City Lights]

17. When Reteabaglicans make an issue of it. nt

[rucky]

19. I remeber 30 seconds of discussion where he was considering

tapping the oil reserves.

does that count?

[lonestarnot]

20. Spare time, no spare cash, is kitteh gona scratch now?

Adorable kitteh. :)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. About the same time they notice they lost the war in Afghanistan.

[Autumn]

22. They have noticed it. They don't care,

not a priority. They don't have to fill the tank on the limo, they don't have any worries about rising food costs.

[piratefish08]

23. when it's too expensive to keep the killing machines running on multiple fronts.

until then, it's an issue for the little people.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

24. The better question IMHO is when (or if) Congress will notice the price of gas?

I would also point out that Obama has been nothing if not consistent about pushing for the development of alternative energy resources.
I suppose that you could say that Obama is to blame if you believe that gas prices would suddenly go down significantly once his administration approves more domestic/off-shore drilling drilling though, as was pointed out in 2008, oil companies have permits that they aren't/weren't/still aren't(?) utilizing and the amount that is estimated to available if we drilled up our entire country (and assuming that all that oil is reserved exclusively for us) wouldn't be enough to last for long anyway.
I was listening to Neal Boortz the other night and he lays the blame squarely on Obama and his appointment of Steven Chu because Chu supposedly made a comment that he wants to see gas prices as high as they are in Europe and Boortz believes that it's no mere coincidence that gas prices seem to be going up so much under Obama. Of course, if Boortz, et. al want to talk about coincidences, is it any coincidence that gas prices were in the $2 range for the ENTIRE first two years of Obama's Presidency UNTIL after the midterm elections last year that swept Republicans into control of the House and several governorships and legislatures. That can't possibly be a coincidence, can it???? :shrug:
Congress is pretty much the only entity that can really do anything significant about but with BP suckups like Barton whom believe that Obama "shook down" BP over their negligence running the House and the Senate being too closely divided to overcome Republican filibusters, I don't see anything like windfall profit taxes going anywhere. One would think that pushing the development of alternative energy sources would be an initiative that everybody could conceivably get behind but I guess the oil companies and their servants in Congress have everything pretty well locked down when it comes to developing alternative energy.