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Does gas-price
"Conspiracy"
theory run on
empty?


By Beverly Kelley, Kelley@clunet.edu (Kelley@clunet.edu)

October 2, 2006


http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/images/columnists/kelley.jpg (http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/columnist/0,1375,VCS_223_11053,00.html)

According to full-time talk-show host and part-time pundit Jay Leno: "The good news is oil has fallen to $60 a barrel. Experts predict it will continue to fall until exactly one minute after the polls close on Nov. 7."

Could the delightful news at the pump these days be the result of some creepy GOP scheme to sway the November elections?
http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/images/spacers/spacer.gif

You have to admit, this sinister "cheap-gas-as-voters-head-for-the-polls" plot has all the earmarks of a full-blown conspiracy theory:

shadowy behind-the-scenes political machinations, seeming coincidences that only those-in-the-know can spot as manipulations worthy of Machiavelli, and clever lies parading as denunciation and denial by the usual suspects — in this case, Big Oil. In fact, the only thing this conspiracy theory lacks is extraterrestrials — but, never fear — if you look to the fringes of the blogosphere, you just might find alien intervention advocates scurrying to connect the dots there as well.


It all started when statisticians Stuart Thiel (De Paul University) and Doug Henwood (Left Business Observer) attempted to correlate shifts in gas prices with the Space Mountain ride George W. Bush's job performance ratings have become. Their respective analyses revealed an inverse correlation — as the cost of gas rose, the president's numbers fell; while as the price at the pumps plunged, his scores soared.
In fact, in a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll, the leader of the Free World's support shot up to 44 percent, his highest in a year. At precisely the same time, the average price at the pump, which peaked at more than $3 a gallon in August, plummeted to $2.50, the lowest level since March.

Coincidence? Conspiracy theorists think not.

The same USA Today/Gallup Poll asked voters: "Do you think the Bush administration has deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections?" Forty-two percent responded "yes."

But this might well be the same 42 percent who can't seem to muster up any sort of respect for Bush, these days, whatever their political affiliation might be.

Furthermore, just last April, when Bush's 36 percent job approval rating was the lowest of his administration, most talking heads agreed that several events conspired to drag down the numbers including Hurricane Katrina, the abandoned Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination, the Dubai ports controversy and the Iraq war. Nobody at the time fingered the high cost of gasoline.

On the other hand, Bush's recent job-performance turnaround could be explained just as easily by his renewed focus on terrorism than by a decline in "fill-her-up" rage. Current bargain-basement prices for fuel, according to most experts, are actually being propelled by the announcement of one of the biggest oil finds in U.S. history, the hurricane gods choosing to smile on Gulf Coast rigs and refineries instead of blasting them to smithereens, and a slowdown, however slight, in the skirmishing between Israel and Hezbollah.

When asked about the "cheap-gas-as-voters-head-for-the-polls" conspiracy theory, Dan Gainor, the director of the Business and Media Institute, had this to say on CNN: "Well, the whole idea ? just defies logic, because, of course, if (Big Oil) were trying to help Bush now, why weren't they trying to help Republicans before this?"

But then logic has never been the strong suit of the conspiracy theorist. He or she would prefer to hold fast to one absolute truth: When bad things happen, someone evil this way comes.

In addition, believing in the boogeyman provides a certain degree of comfort. It explains so much that appears to be both threatening and corrupt — especially during political campaigns. Just look at Ventura County during the current run-up to Election Day. Conspiracy theories are being promulgated in races from city council to supervisor.

Yet, the notion that the present is actually being shaped by grandiose sinister plots is dubious at best. As historian Bruce Cumings wrote: "But if conspiracies (actually) exist, they (might) make a difference at the margins from time to time, but with the unforeseen consequences of a logic outside the control of their authors, they rarely move history."

Routine market forces are likely to deliver more delightful news to Bush in the next 35 days. Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service told USA Today that, absent an international crisis, fuel prices should dip an additional 10 to 20 cents a gallon by the time the polls close.

If the conspiracy theorists are right, those who pull into their neighborhood service stations on Nov. 8 will be in for a crude awakening. More likely, however, is the prospect that yet another conspiracy theory will simply run out of gas.
— Beverly Kelley, Ph.D., who writes every other Monday for The Star, is an author ("Reelpolitic" and "Reelpolitic II") and professor in the Communication Department at California Lutheran University. Her e-mail address is Kelley@clunet.edu (Kelley@clunet.edu). Visit http://beverlykelley.typepad.com/my_weblog/ (http://beverlykelley.typepad.com/my_weblog/).

Sorry guys I deleted the original thread accidently.

Obviously this is written from someone with an agenda, but unlike a lot of propaganda piecies this one tries to provide evidence to their conclusion.

I was on the sidelines on this topic, but found an interesting Newsweek article > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15081350/site/newsweek/

It states that oil "experts" simply overestimated how fast the Chinese energy consumption would grow. The assumption of a great Chinese thirst for oil led to higher oil prices.

Good work, Delta. That was well put, and from a major media outlet.

RH77

Hi All:

___So this was the thread causing the stir while I was gone ;) And my own take …

___Gasoline futures have gone from a high of ~ $2.40 to a low of ~ $1.50 in 2 months w/ crude falling from ~ $75 to $60 per BBl today. Does that mean if Crude falls to $45.00 per gasoline futures will be $0.60 or $1.10 at the pump? How about if they were to fall all the way back to $30 per. Gasoline would be the equivalent of free for the taking :D The prices we all actually paid this past summer were way out of whack and now appear to be falling back into historic norms. The delta’s are the astonishing thing and I have the feeling the oil producing nations and producers had a little collusion in this engineered price drop for whatever reason (political or otherwise). Crude drops 20% while gasoline falls 35% cannot be totally explained by market forces imho. Another item … The price of gasoline on the wholesale market is right back down to the price of actually producing a gallon of Ethanol from Corn here in the states. Almost to the penny in fact. Another interesting how/why could that be?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

I doubt there is an actual conspiracy. All the players in the oil business benefit from a republican lead country.
1)Iran-they get higher prices with Rep running the country. Every time their leader burped the price jumped $5/barrel.
2)Saudi A-big buddies with Bush. They are probably scared the Dems would hang them(Royal family) out to dry.
3)Kuwait-feel they owe the Bush clan a debt.
4)Oil Bidness guys-Duh!!
Everyone who counts in the oil business makes more money with a Rep administration. Why would they want a less aggressive Dem controlled country? They wouldn't!! During the last "Iranian/Bush dustup" the runnup was worth about $30,000,000/day to the Iranians. Real money for a country with a crummy economy. The Iranians use Bush/Reps to distract their people from their miserable economy.
No One who counts in the oil business will make more money under a Dem controlled country.
They wouldn't have to formally conspire. They aren't stupid. They will accept $20 less a barrel for 2 months so they can make $30 barrel more for 2-3 more years. Luck,Charlie
PS All the BS about India and China driving up demand will dredged up again-so will the fear premium. Fear premium is just price fixing by speculators. We need to get off oil. It will kill our economy. Speculators manipulate the price-legally-, and OPEC price fixes-legally. It isn't a free market. They-all of them-have a knife to our throats and will bleed every last penny out of the oil price. They will try to keep it just under the price that would completely collapse the western economies. If they mis guess-we will have a rough time.
The Reps are freakin liars when they imply that we can pump our way to lower oil prices.
We need to use more Nukes-coal to liquid fuel-various biofuels.
Most importantly, we need leaders who will institute/legislate conservation measures; simple cheap things like light bulbs; AC SEERs; EER on all electrical devices, more nuclear power plants to drive all electric and plug in hybrid cars.. Dramatic changes in CAFE regulations; national speed limit-maybe 68mph. We could drop our fuel consumption by 10% in one year with the right leadership.

You are dead-on about high oil prices killing the economy.

If you lived in the 1970's, you know that.

Delta Flyer,
I remember the 73 embargo and the 1979 price runup very well. I was 22 and 28. In 1979 I bought a 2 stroke Puch moped-$500- which got an honest 100 mpg and was street legal despite not requiring a license or insurance. I wish I had kept that moped for short runs to the store etc. I still have a couple of older-early 80's-500cc motorcycles that get an honest 45-50 mpg in pure city riding, but it was really easy to use that 150 lb moped.
Our economy went to hell all through the 70's and to the mid 80's because of fuel prices. I remember the15- 20% inflation we had during the late 70's-like a freakin' 3rd world country!! You could buy CDs with 15% interest rates.
We did get smart pretty quickly back then-CAFE regs went in-and car ave mpg probably close to doubled from 1970 to 1983.The average car in 1970 probably got 10-12 mpg city and maybe 13-15 mpg hy. By 1983 there were loads of cars that would get an honest 20 mpg city and 30hy(even Chevettes and Pintos would do it). An unpopular president pushed for a 55mph national speed limit. Unfortunately, our current leadership doesn't want to "sell" us conservation even though they-GB- has said that oil is a knife held at our throats. If he pushed it we could drop out energy consumption by 10% in one year, and be energy independent in 10 years.
Conservation-Nukes-more efficient cars- biofuels could allow us to use more coal for electricity( where it could be scrubbed to some extent) while at the same time decreasing our net release of CO2. It could be done with close to zero real change in quality of life.
We are literally paying for the Nukes(bombs) that are going to go off in one of our cities.
It would also allow us to pay a lot less attention to the ME-and spend a lot less $$ securing oil supplies. The ME countries would have a lot less money to spend on nukes since the demand for oil would drop-other countries would adopt the same technologies.
Oh well.
Charlie

While it is true that the government could make mandates that would require buisnesses to make more efficent items. The problem is when you have a congress you have individuals that have those buisnesses as thier constituants (These congressmen could be either party it doesn't matter). The buisnesses will complain the cutover will cost too much and will hurt their buisnesses and cause them to layoff people. So realisticly large scale changes like this don't work. We can always hope, but no mater who is in office chances are about the same.

What we have to do is teach people to make that 10% improvement themselves. We much take action localy (Think globaly act localy I think is the term). We CAN lower what we pay for gas if we USE LESS. Sure the price per gallon may go up, but if our consumption goes down then the amount we spend on gas goes down. Also lowering the demand will cause prices to rise more slowly.

Companies major focus isn't politics or the environment or anything like that. Their main focus is on making a profit. The smart companies have seen the writing on the wall and are working on better sources of energy to sell. Some are probably looking ahead to converting their gas stations to having electric charging and costing out options as we speak.

Imagine gas stations that don't have pumps and tanks burried underground poluting the area. Ahh thats kind of refreshing. These changes will not occur because of government mandates but rather on profit.