While the run-up in gas prices earlier this summer got alot of press attention, it’s interesting that we haven’t seen that much attention paid to the fact that gas prices have been steadily falling for a month now:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Retail gasoline prices fell for the 25th day in a row, a survey of gas station credit card swipes showed Monday.
The national average price for a gallon of regular gas fell to $3.81 from $3.818 a gallon the previous day, motorist group AAA said.
Gas prices have fallen more than 7% since hitting a record high of $4.114 on July 16, though prices remain more than $1 above year-ago levels.
Gas prices have eased substantially over the last 3-1/2 weeks following a sustained drop in the price of crude oil, gasoline’s primary ingredient.
This comes on the heels of reports that demand for gasoline, as measured by miles driven and, most tellingly, toll revenues on major toll roads on the East Coast, took a dramatic downturn once gas hit the $ $ 4 per gallon mark.
Yes Washington, supply and demand are still relevant.
August 11th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
[...] put there’s nothing to suggest the bubble has burst yet, and while some say this is due to the basics of supply and demand, I’m still not convinced of that…yet. This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, [...]
August 12th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I read an article on CNN about 3 weeks ago that talked about Obama wanting to release 70 million barrels of oil from the government reserves. While it will only cover about 3-4 days worth of gas, some economists on Wall Street said that if he goes directly to the refineries to sell it then it could literally drop the speculators out of the market and drop the price of oil in half. This is due to competing with the oil companies to get their own oil to the refineries. Economists said he would be smart and not say when he will do it to throw the speculators off guard and dramatically drop the price of oil.
If the morons in Washington know this why haven’t they done it already? Seems to me that while politicians complain about the price of gas to satisfy their constituents anxiety it is still the congressman and senators who are getting paid by big oil.