Gasoline (Petrol) prices

[Todd Pettinger]

All of this talk of Petrol prices makes me really glad I took the leap and recently became a full time bicycle commuter (ok, I'll probably wuss out and take the bus in winter... after all, we get down to -40 - yes both Celcius and Farenheit!) and with a bunch of snow and ice on the road, it makes it very tough to ride a biek 12 months of the year here.)

Todd

[Andy Velebil]

We pay 0.114 Rial per liter, which translates to $0.30.

WOW! Wish I was paying that here in the States. But at least I can easily find VP here so I guess its a trade-off

[Roy Hersh]

Shocking to see that the closer we get to the election, the more the prices keep on dropping in the USA. It must be the brilliant alternative energy strategy that Bush has had in place, finally paying off.

[Glenn E.]

Or it could just be the same variation that we see every year...

Prices rise in the spring and trail off in the fall. They just rose higher this year due to speculation in the oil futures market.

[Derek T.]

Tere has been a significant fall in price over the past few weeks in the UK. Deisel is now the equivalent of only $2.80US per litre :help:

[Roy Hersh]

Glenn,

Take a look at the past 5 years when prices rose and then dropped again. They don't typically fall in the middle of the summer. in fact, it's been a long time since that has happened.

[Glenn E.]

A conspiracy at this point makes no sense - Bush cannot be re-elected. His legacy, such as it is, is pretty much locked up at this point too. There's no motive.

There was no oil shortage this year. There was a perceived shortage caused by rampant speculation in the futures market. That crashed, so the price of oil is starting to recover. And the price of gas is following the price of oil.

Occam's Razor says that the dropping price of oil (and gas) follows from the speculators getting burned and the market returning to a more normal state, and not from political maneuvering which is dubious at best.

/shrug

[Roy Hersh]

Occam's Razor says that the dropping price of oil (and gas) follows from the speculators getting burned and the market returning to a more normal state, and not from political maneuvering which is dubious at best.

These types of sentiments come from the same individuals who two months ago, spouted that the speculators were not what was causing or affecting the increase in oil prices, whatsoever. Now it is used as their panacea. The hypocrisy behind their maneuvered position, is what I find most amusing. Almost.

Whether true market forces are solely behind the recent upside down behavior of the oil market, we'll likely never know. Regardless, why was there so much opposition to preventing the change in the way speculators were allowed to approach and continue to play the market ( ... if that was what really drove the economy even lower than what the mortgage rate debacle had done ... not to mention a certain overseas expense)? I hope not to hear about the perils of "regulation." :help: Dubya never shied away from that b4.

[Glenn E.]

Occam's Razor says that the dropping price of oil (and gas) follows from the speculators getting burned and the market returning to a more normal state, and not from political maneuvering which is dubious at best.

These types of sentiments come from the same individuals who two months ago, spouted that the speculators were not what was causing or affecting the increase in oil prices, whatsoever. Now it is used as their panacea. The hypocrisy behind their maneuvered position, is what I find most amusing. Almost.

Odd, I never heard that position at all. In fact quite the opposite - I said all along that there was no oil shortage, just a perceived shortage caused by market speculation, and I never had anyone contradict me and say that the speculators were not causing the price increase. The typical response was more along the lines of "huh?" and then I'd have to explain to them what was actually going on.

My point is that the conspiracy theories make no sense. Usually there's a grain of truth behind conspiracy theories which is what allows them to spread, but in this case it's pretty much pure fiction.

[Roy Hersh]

I'm amazed that you never heard experts state that speculators were NOT driving the market that it was purely supply and demand and especially the increase in use of oil by China and India. This made covers on WSJ, NY Times and even locally in the Seattle Times.

Clearly we view things quite differently on this topic. It certainly makes for an intersting thread.

Of course, imo, this has nothing to do with "conspiracy theories" at all. That sounds more like a FOX News sound bite.

[Glenn E.]

I don't read the paper much any more because they all seem to be so tremendously biased one way or the other. Amazingly, television news seems to be less biased to me, Fox News included. I feel like newspapers have given up any pretense of journalistic integrity and have begun to deliberately distort stories just to sell more papers. Call it the USA Today effect, I guess, though they're still not as bad over here as they are in Europe.

My wife's family contains a fair number of "true believers" of the Democratic variety. I'm defiantly independent, but compared to them I look like a hard-core bible-thumping right-wing religious radical. People on either extreme confuse me, because the answer is always far simpler than either of them believe.

[Roy Hersh]

Amazingly, television news seems to be less biased to me, Fox News included. I feel like newspapers have given up any pretense of journalistic integrity and have begun to deliberately distort stories just to sell more papers.

Wow, this just blows my mind. Yeah, Fox news is the eptiome of "Fair and balanced."

Next, we'll hear that Sean Hannity is open minded.
Or that the O'Reilly Factor show provides both sides of the picture.
Yeah newspapers are heading into the toilet too, but with individuals like
Mr. Agenda (aka .. Rupert Murdoch) buying them out one by one ... the
public stands little chance to read between the lines. Please keep the name
Corsi out of the discussion.

I'm defiantly independent, but compared to them I look like a hard-core bible-thumping right-wing religious radical.

Is this a quote from John McCain circa 2000?

[Glenn E.]

Amazingly, television news seems to be less biased to me, Fox News included. I feel like newspapers have given up any pretense of journalistic integrity and have begun to deliberately distort stories just to sell more papers.

Wow, this just blows my mind. Yeah, Fox news is the eptiome of "Fair and balanced."

I didn't say that, I just said that even Fox News seems less biased than newspapers these days. At least Fox News is honest about their bias, which allows you to evaluate what they tell you with a clear mind. If you know someone's bias ahead of time you can generally get a pretty clear idea of reality based on what they say because you know how you need to skew it to get it back to neutral.

Newspapers still cling feebly to the "fair and balanced" mantra and yet, typically, they are neither.

And no, John McCain isn't even a pretend moderate, no matter how many times he tries to claim that he is.