There's lots of action over President Bush's "addicted to oil" statement (Bush's goals ...). Lots of politics, I'll leave that stuff alone, but this comment has me stumped:
Economically, energy analysts said Mr. Bush's goal of reducing Mideast oil imports would have little practical benefit because oil was traded in world markets and its price was determined by global supply and demand, rather than bought from one country by another.
"If the United States was zero-dependent on Middle Eastern oil, but the rest of our allies among consuming nations were just as dependent, then a disruption anywhere is a price increase everywhere," said Lawrence Goldstein, the president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a policy analysis group in New York.
What am I missing here? If the US is buying a whole lot less oil, an oil price spike has a smaller effect on the macroeconomy, right?
