of all the commodities being affected by the huge volume of new money getting pumped into the system via this credit crunch "solution" ... none get more directly affected than the price of oil. There's going to be a ten fold increase in the price of crude from 2000 to 2010 and the biggest single spoiler has been the expansion of the dollar. It certainly has had as big a role to play as supply/demand. Monopolized price controls make it hard to peg down causes, but there's definitely a direct cause/effect between the dollar drop and the rise in dollar price of oil.