Abstract

Hundreds of U.S. bombers are not "storming" Iraq to maintain cheap oil. (1) The cost of more expensive oil would be much less than the cost of the military operation. (2) Oil prices have a marked regulated cap anyhow. If oil producers raise prices too high for too long, users drift away which is self defeating for oil rich countries. (3) Insofar as high oil prices cause problems to industrialized economies, Europe and Japan are more vulnerable than the U.S., so relative to these countries higher oil prices often help our economy at a time of its threatened dissolution.