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October 11, 2006
News Flash: Oil Prices Controlled by Market, Not by Karl Rove
It has been revealed that plunging gasoline prices are the result of market forces, not an insidious Republican plot.
This may come as a surprise to CNN's Jack Cafferty, who proclaimed on "Situation Room" on August 30:
You know, if you were a real cynic, you could also wonder if the oil companies might not be pulling the price of gas down to help the Republicans get re-elected in the midterm elections a couple of months away.
The tinfoil-hat moonbattery presented as news by the MSM has had its effect. A USA Today/Gallup Poll recently managed to garner a 42% positive response to this paranoid insinuation:
Do you think the Bush administration has deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections?
The national average was $3.06/gallon on September 5; yesterday, it was $2.26/gallon. Crude, which peaked at $78.40/barrel on July 14, dropped to below $60/barrel. But as H. Sterling Burnett of the National Center for Policy Analysis notes, this is not the result of a conspiracy:
This is basic economics. Markets, when not encumbered by foolish legislation to "fix" a problem, work.
He attributes the price drop to three main factors: increased supply, decreased demand, and decreased risk.
As Rayola Dougher of the American Petroleum Institute observes:
The very idea that we have a command-and-control oil economy is silly. I think if politicians were really in charge of oil prices, they'd be low. In fact, they'd probably be free right now!
Unless Karl Rove is holding back the free gasoline until just before the 2008 elections...
Posted by Van Helsing at October 11, 2006 2:45 PM
Comments
Posted by: V the K at October 11, 2006 7:25 PM
No, silly, Rove is illustrating the combined penis length of all democrat members of Congress.
Posted by: Steve at October 11, 2006 7:27 PM
V the K, that is unreal.
Unbelievable.
Posted by: Steve at October 11, 2006 7:30 PM
Gasoline prices drop almost every fall after the summer driving/vacation season ends and the switchover to cheaper mixes of fuel occur. The price of gasoline is down slightly more than the price of oil. The end of hurricane season is adding to the drop.
Amazing that socalled educated people in the media are so ignorant of market forces. Natural gas, gasoline, diesel and oil in particular are part of world market. The only way to stop fluctuations is to ban commodity trading in petroleum and gas. That aint gonna happen.
Gasoline was $1.00 gallon in the later years of the Clinton Presidency - were the oil companies in cahoots with Clinton to keep the price down?
Problem with moonbats is that almost nothing they say makes sense when you really look at it.
Posted by: General Jack D. Ripper at October 12, 2006 5:04 AM
You know, I think I remember this form Economics 101!
Posted by: nikkolai at October 12, 2006 1:38 PM
