Reply #13: The major thing * has done

[Sgent]

is the ill timed and ill considered invasion of Iraq.

By doing this, the insurgents have shown the world that oil supplies are subject to easy disruption via insurrgency. Its not only current oil, but fear of similar happening in Kuwait and (gulp) Saudi.

In addition, due to his deployments, he has neglected the oil coast of Africa which has been causing major issues.

His failure in diplomacy with Venezula and Mexico leaves the US much more open to sabatoge or stoppage by those countries.

After he took over in 2001, he decided to raise the strategic petroleum reserve from 100 million to 1 billion barrels of oil -- and do it at a rate of 1.5million barrels/day -- about an extra 7.5% of the US daily usage. In all honesty, I kinda do agree with this move.

Alternative fuels/technology would be nice -- but they would have no effect on the price of oil today. There is a reasonable questin if they ever will -- as gas becomes more scarce, price increases, and alternative fuels become more popular. The price of gas itself may never decrease, just become increasingly expensive.

Finally, gas demand is relatively inelastic, its use isn't cut/increased at an equal proportion to its price -- so a 1% decrease in supply could cause prices to go up 10%.