LAT: Gasoline Prices Fall for Eighth Straight Week: Politics?

[DeepModem Mom]

Gasoline Prices Fall for Eighth Straight Week
Analysts credit a further drop in the cost of oil amid a calming of global tensions. Refiner profits also are narrowing.
By Elizabeth Douglass, Times Staff Writer
October 3, 2006

Retail gasoline prices across the country tumbled for the eighth consecutive week, a government survey showed Monday, as ample supplies continued to ease worries about world oil production.

Nationwide, the average pump price for self-serve regular fell to $2.31 a gallon Monday, down 6.8 cents in the previous seven days, according to the Energy Department's weekly price survey....Gasoline tracker (Charles Langley, analyst at the Utility Consumers' Action Network in San Diego) believes that the profit reduction at the refineries amounts to an election-season anomaly.

"It's as simple as the oil companies not wanting this to be an election issue this November," he said.

Joseph Sparano, president of the Western States Petroleum Assn., dismissed the notion that politics was playing a role.

"What we see in crude oil and gasoline is that, regardless of whether there's an election, the prices tend to move in sync," he said. "We have the same forces working together on the way down, just as they worked together in the spring to push the prices up. Despite all the rhetoric, that's how the market really works."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gas3oct03,0,4860990.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[ClassWarrior]

1. That's telling. They feel a need to "dismiss it" without anyone...

...even having to raise the question. Good. Shows that people don't trust the Rape-Publican Corporatists.

NGU.

[madrchsod]

2. not really ,it`s the other vice-greed

the run up was based on fear of an iran attack by bush and everyone cashed in..there was absolutely no supply demand reason for the run up of price of crude other than greed.

[NVMojo]

3. link to article here about Goldman Sachs playing a major role ...

in the price drop:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x22446

[CountAllVotes]

4. It is still $2.95 a gallon here

in California that is. :grr:

:kick:

[AndyTiedye]

5. We're Not a "Swing State"

[patrick t. cakes]

6. dropped a dollar

here in ioway. swing state.

[w4rma]

7. "And refining margins are way, way down."

"Gasoline has fallen a lot further than crude," Kingston said. "And refining margins are way, way down."

[UpInArms]

8. oil companies not wanting this to be an election issue this November

ummmm... yeah... right...

Hiding in plain sight - is the oil companies are manipulating the prices so that they can keep their boyz in office so that the public can bend over again after the election.

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. Seems they can charge whatever they want, whenever they want.

Give them a hurricane or a terrorist attack or a growling dog with mange and prices will rise again.

[struggle4progress]

10. They gouged us good this year:

Average Monthly Prices from http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mg_rt_usm.htm

Feb 228.0
Mar 242.5
Apr 274.2
May 290.7
Jun 288.5
Jul 298.1
Aug 295.2
Sep 255.5

Note the lovely summer spike

[Telly Savalas]

11. So how many House seats are they hoping to tip to the GOP

by slashing prices?

How many billions in revenue are they ceding to do so?

Will this be enough House seats for the GOP to hold power?

If the Democrats take the House for the next 2 years, what policies will be enacted which will materially hurt the bottom lines of the oil companies?