To Have and Have Not: Energy security vs energy independence in a world awash in cheap oil

So here is the impact of petroleum on the dollar, on trade, on your mortgage and everything you own. The petroleum portion of our trade deficit is massive, more than our trade deficit with individual countries, more than anything, and it is caused by the lack of alternative supply, and causes pressure on the US dollar.

The trade in petroleum is dollarized, and that means that when the price of oil has fallen more 50 percent in past two years, we feel that impact directly in the United States. But in currencies that have fallen 30 percent or more against the US dollar, there is hardly any change in the price of energy at all, and that changes the balance of world trade, and changes the nature of economic opportunity around the globe for every single person. And it challenges the idea that you are economically free, because the price of oil is controlled not by markets but by a cartel.