I may be cynical, but I think gas prices came down last month as an attempt by the oil and gas companies and their political lackeys to placate voters. They think all they have to do is give us "cheap" gasoline and we will forget about the price hikes after Katrina and the humongous profits currently being made by big oil and gas. Have you noticed that gas prices are no longer an issue in the news? But as soon as the election's over, watch the prices creep up again.
Will gas prices jump after the election?
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Mr._johngalt
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Oldbabe said:
Hi. Love your on-line moniker. As far as your theory
"watch the prices creep up again".
Words fail me. Hey, have you been listening to C-T's
"evil Bush plot scenarios"??
JG
youbet
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I am absolutely confident that after this election passes and time rolls on, gasoline and all other energy prices will rise, with infrequent pauses and pullbacks, always with an upward bias.
Goonie
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Oldbabe said:
Well, the elections must be over here...the gas prices have gone up 17 cents in the past couple of days!!!
I can hardly wait to see what happens after next Tuesday!!!I sure wish those a******s would drop their prices as fast as they raise them!!!
kumquat
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Oldbabe said:
No energy stocks in your portfolio?
Leonidas
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Oldbabe said:
sgeeeee said:I'm guessing you're right. Look for a significant increase by Thanksgiving.![:-\](https://www.early-retirement.org/sk/forums/images/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
The crude oil /gasoline discussions in this forum have spurred me to do a lot of research on the subject, and the more I learn the more I find how difficult it is to predict the future and what the impact will be because of certain changes in the markets and consumption.
If you're looking for manipulation in the markets, the place to look is not what might happen after Tuesday, but what happened here:
There is some compelling evidence that shows that politicians, both Republican and Democratic, have lined their pockets with oil and gas money in order to change laws and regulations that have allowed energy companies and market speculators to drive the futures prices with very little oversight.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/SenatePrint10965MarketSpecReportFINAL.pdf
"A trader may take a position on an unregulated electronic exchange or on a foreign exchange that is either in addition to or opposite from the positions the trader has taken on the NYMEX, and thereby avoid and distort the large trader reporting system."
To be fair, there are also researchers who claim that it was not just pure rampant speculation to blame, but market forces that are clearly visible - shocks to oil supply and demand stemming from factors like geopolitics, weather, and economic growth.
http://www.rff.org/rff/Documents/RFF-DP-06-31.pdf
"Employing both parametric (correlation) and nonparametric (count) methods, I find little evidence of herding in heating oil and crude oil futures markets among noncommercial traders as a group."
I think it's a combination of the two. Politicians of all flavors were seduced into reducing regulation of oil & gas commodities futures trading, then the hedge funds jumped in and the money flowing into that market skyrocketed, and then all the traders went crazy when we were faced with the Iraq war, a potential war with Iran, Israel fighting everyone, China sucking all the excess out of the market, and a hurricane season from hell.
Is there speculation that Bush and the Republicans manipulated the recent downward trend? Yes, but from the looks of articles like this - it all seems to come down to "isn't this suspicious" but short on facts.
http://www.alternet.org/story/43201/
"Wall Street analysts, traders and hedge funds don't care about any of these reasons. They just don't want to be caught behind the ball, so they sell the market, causing further price drops. Yes, those are market forces -- but they are market forces with a lot of push from Washington-related signals. Why now? To say the election has nothing to do with it would be naïve. To say gas prices won't be up again afterward would be wrong."
So, faced with a body of evidence that makes sense or some speculation that it's somehow all GWB with mystical powers over his zombie bitches at Exxon-Mobil, I think I'll believe the first one.
Thanks, Leonidas, for this analysis.
From the article at Alternet:
"Just as Enron and others could manipulate, if not directly control, California prices by closing power plants at will, so can oil companies reduce refining profit margins (which were gigantic) to keep their friends in power. That's easier to control than futures where other players are in the market, and it's something retailers pass on to drivers. This is not conspiracy, but self-preservation."
From the article at Alternet:
"Just as Enron and others could manipulate, if not directly control, California prices by closing power plants at will, so can oil companies reduce refining profit margins (which were gigantic) to keep their friends in power. That's easier to control than futures where other players are in the market, and it's something retailers pass on to drivers. This is not conspiracy, but self-preservation."
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