It’s called the futures market.
Personally, I have absolutely no idea why gas prices have dropped so dramatically, a little faster than predicted I might add. I have no knowledge of the oil industry or how it functions. Many have made convincing points in this thread, backed up by trends and proven economic factors, like you El Kabong and Renob. Your facts are hard to argue with, though, say what you will, in my opinion, Gonzomax has done more than a passable job arguing his side.
From my perspective taking everything into consideration it does seem to me that something other than, or in addition to, economics is going on here. Is it the election? Is it manipulation for reasons totally unrelated to the election? I don’t know, but from my vantage point in the bleachers a natural, market-driven phenomenon it’s not. We’re now at a 35% drop in prices at the pump in my area from the end of June. Has there been such a precipitous drop in recent times?
Also, as far as I see it, those who’ve stated a position contrary to yours seem to be less “superstitous” about the drop in prices than suspicious as to its cause and timing.
I don’t want to rehash your arguments in this thread again because, as I said, your information is difficult to dispute, but it is curious, to me at least, that prices have dropped as steeply as predicted so quickly. The thread title is “$2.00 Gas Coming?” and now, at least in my area, it’s less than $2.00.
If there is a bitterly cold winter and demand rises in the Northeast, then I could see crude climbing back up. Also, political events could easily shoot the price of oil up.
Yes, you can play crude oil futures . Please note that commodities futures is extremely risky.
Yes, because we’re talking about 2004, when the price of gas nowhere near approached $3.35.
And as far as Woodward is concerned, about his 2004 claim: the price of a barrel of oil went from $36 to $53 right before the 2004 election (cite), so I still have any idea of what you’re talking about. If the Saudi’s were in cahoots to lower the price of oil, why did it increase $17/barrel after Bush supposedly asked them to keep the price down?
Has there been such a precipitous drop in recent times?
Yes.
In November 1985 the price of a barrel of oil was $30.81. Three months later it plummeted by 50% to $15.42. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/OILPRICE.txt
In 1997, oil lost almost 25% of its value in four months as the price decreased from $22/barrel to $16/barrel
You can find others, but those were the two that lept out at me.
Anyway, for true industry price manipulation, check out the prices prior to 1973. Now that’s what true monopoly pricing looks like! 
Read my above post. If he does get his friends to manipulate oil prices, they sure have a funny way to go about it… a $17 spike in the months immediately following the “request”, the same period prior to the election that Woodward claims the Saudi’s helped lower the price of oil?
Since the facts don’t match the accusation, the accusation doesn’t stand.
I would never have believed it. I saw $1.99 gas today and I thought maybe that whacko springears wasn’t delusional.
Lower gas prices are also driving the stock market to new highs.
In Korea, they used to discover a new ring of North Korean spies in the months immediately preceding almost every election.
You must have skimmed that part earlier about Preisdent Bush personally thanking Saudi Prince Bandar for flooding the world oil market and keeping prices down in the run-up to the 2004 general election.
And it’s not as if this idea is held by a few random kooks:
You know, I never figured out what poll numbers are supposed to bring to a debate. 80% of Americans believe that the gov’t is hiding info on UFO’s, 36% believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories, 70-90% believe in God… whatever.
So what?
And, rjung, how can you correlate this statement:
with the data provided in post #204? The price of crude oil rose by $17, a 47% increase between the time W made his request and the 2004 election. Woodward says that Bush thanked a Saudi for keeping prices down, however, the price for Saudi oil increased 47%.
I have a statement by a reporter in one hand, the price data in the other. Who do you really think I’m going to believe?
Looking at the article posted at the beginning of this thread (which started in August, btw), an oil analyst commented that for gas to get to $2/gallon that the price of crude would have to drop by $20 (the highest price in August for WTI crude was $76.31). Today the price of crude closed at $59.55, a $16.76 drop.
See? When you know what you’re talking about, you can make accurate predictions w/o having to resort to conspiracy theories.
Not theories.
Come on, John. Let’s be candid here. Gilman wasn’t making a prediction. In fact he was doubting it would happen.
Well, it has happened. So much for the oil man knowing da foocha, huh? The ability to use a calculator doesn’t make one a prognosticator, not that he presented himself as one.
Let me highlight a different portion of the same quote:
His calculations about the effect of the price drop would have on the price of gas are born by the historical data of what’s happened in the months since he made that prediction.
However, he just didn’t think the forces needed to drop the price $20/barrel would happen.
But they did.
Therefore, his problem was a mis-estimation of the catalyst, not of the effect a $20 drop in the price of crude would have on American gas prices.
As far as the catalyst, there have been plenty of reasons why oil has gone down and these reasons were seen by far-seeing analysts months ago - increasing oil stocks, more oil coming online, the Alaska thing not being as bad as feared, a lessening of the risk premium, etc. It’s been gone over repeatedly in this thread.
Actually, I don’t think we can expect gas prices to fall any further between now and November. Quite the reverse.
Still dropping here.
And still no proof of any conspiracy by Big Oil to lower prices in order to help the GOP.
Not to those with eyes shut and fingers in ears. If it happened a hundred times ,you would call it a coincidence.
Timestamp - October 15 - $1.93.9 locally.
Prediction - Dec 25th - $2.35 - $2.40.
-Joe
Timestamp - Wednesday, October 18 - $1.91.9 locally