Conspiracies redux!
CBS pumps out an election conspiracy.
"For two months now, gas prices have been in freefall, plunging 81 cents a gallon since August and giving the president some rare good news. Gas prices started going down, CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason reports, just as the fall campaign began to heat up."
Let's take a look at a couple of simple facts.
The weather has been unseasonably warm.
The summer driving season is behind us, further depressing demand.
It has been a quiet hurricane season, so rigs in the Gulf are secure. Refining capacity has come back online.
There have been no successful attacks on major oil facilities in the volatile Middle East.
And the Jack No. 2 well, in deep water 170 miles southwest of New Orleans, recently discovered a field with perhaps 15 billion barrels of oil - a 50% increase in proven U.S. reserves.
Boiling this down to Economics 101 - supply is up - demand is down...all of that equates to lower prices. No conspiracy, just the law of supply and demand at work...but then again, that doesn't sell newspapers or ad space now, does it.
"For two months now, gas prices have been in freefall, plunging 81 cents a gallon since August and giving the president some rare good news. Gas prices started going down, CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason reports, just as the fall campaign began to heat up."
Let's take a look at a couple of simple facts.
The weather has been unseasonably warm.
The summer driving season is behind us, further depressing demand.
It has been a quiet hurricane season, so rigs in the Gulf are secure. Refining capacity has come back online.
There have been no successful attacks on major oil facilities in the volatile Middle East.
And the Jack No. 2 well, in deep water 170 miles southwest of New Orleans, recently discovered a field with perhaps 15 billion barrels of oil - a 50% increase in proven U.S. reserves.
Boiling this down to Economics 101 - supply is up - demand is down...all of that equates to lower prices. No conspiracy, just the law of supply and demand at work...but then again, that doesn't sell newspapers or ad space now, does it.
posted by The Lady Logician at
5:12 PM
3 Comments:
CBS wasn't claiming there was any type of conspiracy at all. The reporter merely stated that gas prices have gone down as the election campaign has heated up, which is true. The reporter never claimed that this was due to a conspiracy. The point was that this is some rare good news for Bush and the Republicans, which is also true.
You reas things into the CBS report that weren't there. Don't be so paranoid.
By
Anonymous, at 11:46 AM
Skipper - did you even READ the CBS story? The phrase "conspiracy theory" was used twice and the words "conspiracy" and "deliberate manipulation" were used once.
You need to READ the CBS report before you accuse people of being paranoid....
By
The Lady Logician, at 10:34 PM
You're the one who needs to read the CBS story. It states that a lot of people believe there is a conspiracy and that a recent poll indicates that 42% of Americans believe gas prices have been deliberately manipulated. But the CBS story goes on to debunk that theory, stating:
""You see what appears to be an almost perfect correlation that the president's approval is really driven by gas prices,” says Andy LaPerriere, an analyst with ISI Group.
But La Perriere says there’s no conspiracy.
"It's preposterous," he says.
Supply and demand determine gas prices, he says, and apart from controlling the relatively small strategic petroleum reserve, “there’s virtually nothing the president can do to impact oil prices and gas prices.”"
In other words, the CBS story says precisely the opposite of what you claim.
By
Anonymous, at 9:55 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home