Bill O’Reilly Does Economics – Badly

Bill O’Reilly kicked off his O’Reilly Factor program yesterday (video here) claiming that a front page WSJ story on oil speculators driving the price of oil (“Traders Blamed For Oil Spike” (subscription required), WSJ, July 28, A1) vindicated his claims of the same from last year.  He went on to say that high oil prices caused the financial crisis by pulling hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy.  Where did it go?  If it went to oil companies, wouldn’t they spend it or save it and therefore it would still be in the economy?  O’Reilly doesn’t take his analysis that far.