
Mark Czerniec is a total dick! A year and a half ago he totally ripped off the article I was going to write today, The Price of Gas When Obama Took Office: $1.81. You see, as I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge this morning, I saw the bumper sticker above. I hate this kind of thing. It isn’t just conservatives, but clearly it is mostly conservatives. And I hate seeing it from liberals even more than I hate seeing it from conservatives, but luckily, that’s fairly rare. This bumper sticker is conservative, of course, as you can see from the “no Obama” graphic.
What I most hate about this kind of stuff is that it shows such complete ignorance of economics. Oil is a global commodity. So the first thing I did when I got home was look up time series for gas prices in the United States and other countries. And guess what? They were identical! What’s more, if you look at the time series, it’s pretty clear what’s going on. And that brings us to Mark Czerniec who provided this great graph:

Back in January of 2012, Czerniec explained the problem as bluntly as one can:
What was happening during that time which might account for such a price drop?
Oh, I remember now! The U.S. economy collapsed in mid-September, resulting in the greatest financial disaster since the Great Depression.
But this gets to what is really depressing about politics in this country. Does anyone really think that Obama has managed the country so badly that gas prices have spiked? The only way that could really be the case is if somehow he managed to lower the value of the dollar. And for 99% of the country that would be a Very Good Thing! But I don’t think anyone really believes this. I think it is just a clever way of saying, “Obama’s a Booger Eater!”
I’m fine with that. If people just don’t like Obama, so be it. But they should admit it and not try to make the case that he has been such a disaster for the country. In the tradition of Fuck America: Vote Republican, I offer the following truthful bumper sticker:
