Comments on: James Hamilton on the Great Gasoline Conspiracy

By: Imethisguy

Imethisguy — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 04:51:09 +0000

People believing in this conspiracy could put their money where their mouth is, and be millionaires by Christmas. If one were certain of post election rise in gasoline prices, one could, for a few thousand dollars, tie up futures contracts now, and cash in after the election. Sounds like something Mr. Soros would do.

By: Rick DeMent

Rick DeMent — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:54:03 +0000

Steve,

While I give little quarter to this Conspiracy notion and I agree with much of your analysis, there is one thing about what is going on that fuels this thinking.

Traditionally, gas prices respond almost immediately to upward fluctuations in crude prices, by the same token they have always seemed to respond much slower to downward ticks in crude prices. The reasons for this phenomenon that I have heard have been all over the map and none of them really seemed to explain it better then oil companies getting theirs while the getting was good (which I don’t have a problem with per se). The fact remains that what is unusual here is that the decline in gas prices seem to have decreased faster then the decrease in the price of crude. I don’t have access to that charts that make that comparison but if you do I have a few questions that perhaps you could answer.

Is it true that % decreases in gas prices have fallen more then % decreases in crude and if so has there ever been a time in the last 25 years when % decreases in gas prices were bigger then % decreases in crude? If this is all true what market forces would explain why it is happening now.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 03:06:44 +0000

Soros, wrong again.

By: Bithead

Bithead — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 02:28:42 +0000

Does anyone, off hand, remember George Soros telling us that he was going to use his investments to manipulate prices for energy, with the specific purpose of making the president look bad?

By: Anderson

Anderson — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 22:16:23 +0000

One wee problem with this, according to the Energy Information Administration data don’t seem to show much of a drop leading up to the November elections in 2004.

Well, given the choice between (1) the alleged Saudi conspiracy and (2) Bush's being out of touch with the facts, I know which one seems more plausible to *me* ...

(The weird thing is, why would Bandar tell Woodward that? If he did at all, & it's not further-removed hearsay.)