Seen Today
Posted by Zach Wendling on 29 October 2008 | 4 responses
Thank goodness gas prices are down and we’ll never have to worry about high prices again.
4 Responses to “Seen Today”
Don’t forget, the price of gas is all Bush’s fault! No, wait, he’s having his buddies in the oil industry lower prices to help out McCain. But wouldn’t that imply he let them push the prices to historic highs this summer to help Obama?
I suppose the price of gas could be the result of how much gas people want to buy in relation to how much suppliers are willing/able to produce. Nah, no one would ever believe that.
Eric,
I know you’re attempting humor, but the sharp jump in gas prices this summer can largely be attributed to trading in crude oil on the futures market — it had little to do with short term demand. The subsequent down-trend in gas/oil prices followed the burst housing bubble-related collapse of the stock and credit markets, and continues to spiral further down as world-wide economic slowdowns reduce short term demand for oil.
If one would want to blame GWB for anything related to this particular mess, it would be for lifting oversight and controls over the oil futures market.
And while there may be a few people who think that gas companies have enough wiggle room to engage in price manipulation by exporting gas or cutting back on production, why would anybody think that these companies would throw away good $$$ on a venture like the McCain Campaign?
Jerry,
Yes, of course I realize that the jump in oil (and gasoline) prices this summer was largely due to a speculative bubble. But that bubble was itself based partly on supply-and-demand–at the very least, the anticipation of high demand and limited supply got the bubble going.
Remember gasoline price wars? Brownsburg has brought them back in style with gasoline in the $1.80’s at lots of places.