Obama links US energy prices and weak dollar policy, and he's right

This is one of the things I asked Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz about a few weeks ago, the linkage between the weak dollar and oil prices. Stiglitz says that the greatest impact is that we Americans buy oil on the international market, and we use dollars - weak dollars - to do it. That means that if our dollar only buys half as much as it did before, then we have to pay a lot more to get the same amount of oil at the same price. So the weak dollar isn't just forcing me to avoid $8 pints of Ben & Jerry's in Paris, it's raising the price you pay for gas at the pump. It's also raising the price you pay for almost everything you buy at Target and in everything other store that has goods made in China, or anywhere else abroad. Check out how many things are made in China, the next time you go the store. Once you realize that probably 90% of the things you check are in fact from China, then think about the fact the store had to buy those things with dollars that were only worth half their normal value, thanks to George Bush, John McCain and the Republicans. Yes, John McCain will tell you that a weak dollar helps American exporters. Well last time I checked, nobody I knew was an American exporter. For the rest of us, for most of us, we're getting creamed by the Republican party's weak-dollar tax on practically everything we buy. (Oh, and the high price of oil is also increasing the price of every good or service you buy that in any way is dependent on gasoline to transport that good or service - that'd be pretty much everything from your plumber to the tomatoes in the store.)