Gas prices hit a low on election day and have been drifting higher ever since
As these graphs illustrate, the price of gasoline at the pump dropped from a high of over $3.00 in August to a low of $2.19 on November 6, 2006 - the day of the midterm elections.
The day of the midterm elections was an inflection point for the price of gasoline. Is this a simple case of market forces at work? Or is it evidence of a conspiracy by the Republican Party/Wall Street Commodities Traders/Big Oil Companies to pacify an angry electorate with the sweet nectar of cheap gasoline?
Graphs generated by Gas Buddy
Hosting by TheElectoralVote.com
November 26th, 2006 at 8:47 am
Don’t forget to count Saudi king buddy-buddies of the Bush family too.
November 26th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
right - because if a) I was a Republican bigwig, and b) I controlled the price of gasoline god-knows-how [notice nobody ever bothers to explain that one], and c) a lower price of gasoline would help win the election for my Republican friends [or this one either, for that matter], why on earth would I lower it a measly 10 cents from a month before (and nearly unchanged from two weeks before)?? You’d think that if assumptions a-c were true, I’d lower the price of gasoline to such an extent that it would make it a ridiculous bargain so that everybody got out the vote and helped my GOP buddies (sounds spurious - hell, *is* spurious - but remember we’re assuming assumption C).
More likely the only connection between the elections and gas prices were speculative investors anticipating those prices going different ways if the midterm elections went one way or the other. This seems to me to be a lot more reasonable than the hypothesis that a bunch of powerful Republicans were sitting in a war room twitching their mustaches and coming up with ways to manipulate the price of a barrel of oil. (notice that prices have not had a huge upward spike immediately *after* the GOP was taken down in the midterms, which is almost certainly what a malicious economic puppeteer would do, as if to say “see? look what the Dems have done already!”) Christ, what happened to simply hacking electronic voting machines? That seems like it would be child’s play in comparison, so why bother with a gradual, unattributable lowering of gas prices? Hell, you could even have it as a backup plan - if you don’t like the exit polls, just put in a call to your friends at Diebold and have them flip the super-secret switch for you.
The worst part about this conspiracy theory is that no matter what reasonable argument you give someone who believes it, they always respond with some equivalent variation of “But that’s exactly what they *want* you to think!”
November 26th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
While I wouldn’t put it past the current administration to do something like this, the graph shown is a classic example of misrepresentation of data. By changing the vertical scale in the second chart, it makes it appear as if gas prices have risen dramatically since the election, when in fact it’s only gone up by 5 or 6 cents. Blow up any part of the first graph to the scale used in the second and you’ll find similar amounts of variation.
I’m not saying the Bush administration isn’t corrupt and power mad. They are. But trying to prove that with poorly conceived conspirathy theories and meaningless graphs does nothing for the credibility of the other side.
November 26th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
[…] Cheapest gas was on Election Day. Hmmm. […]
November 26th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
As the image in my link shows, the president’s popularity rating tracks the reciprocal of gas prices pretty closely. I once read a BusinessWeek article that had the same graph, but going back for several decades, so it is a well-known correlation. Considering the extent to which the Republican Party (and Bush, Bush Sr. and Cheney in particular) have been in bed with big oil, I have very little trouble imagining manipulation.
Energy companies have been cut a lot of slack under Bush with decreased environmental regulation under the misnamed “Clear Skies Initiative” and Cheney’s allowing energy executives to write U.S. energy policy. On top of that, the increased volatility in the Middle East have sent profits soaring. Qui bono?–Who benefits?
November 26th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
“Qui bono?–Who benefits?”
You do, and Exxon/Mobil does, when you buy gasoline. If you didn’t benefit as much, you would not consume as much. There were numerous very clear demonstrations of this concept two days ago on Black Friday. When someone wants a computer, they want to pay the lowest price they can for it - that much is patently obvious. But what is also patently obvious but for some reason people have trouble with is how the price can be dropped so low (as on Black Friday) that people who did not previously want a computer now do want one, and the people who did want a computer now want two. Or three. And are willing to camp out in front of a Best Buy for eight hours to get them. For some reason an absurd number of people are absolutely convinced that the only goal a corporation has is to make products that are priced so high that nobody can buy them. If Exxon/Mobil and every other gas company set gasoline prices at $10,000 a gallon tomorrow morning, you’d be able to get a gallon of gas for $10 or less by lunch time - that’s how powerful a market economy is. (ie, the first person driving to work would see the sign $10,000 [and 9/10ths of a cent]. Chances are he makes less than that in a day, so he buys a portable gas tank, grabs a piece of cardboard from a dumpster and makes a sign saying “Gas $5,000 a gallon”. Next person to drive by sees this and thinks “hell, I’m not that picky - I’d be happy with a few hundred bucks” and siphons his gas out for anybody willing to pay $100 a gallon. Et cetera, et cetera.)
The evidence for any direct manipulation (let alone manipulation that has some impact on election results) is crummy. Notice, once again, that the price of gas hits almost the same low near 10/25 as it does on 11/6. How do we account for that under the Twitching Mustache Hypothesis? I guess Bush’s computer went on the fritz and he couldn’t set his Gas Price Preferences. Where I live, gas went down 1c/gal the day after the election, stayed that way for the next two weeks, then went up about 4c/gal about a week ago. I guess the Exxon/Mobil locations got their marching orders a bit late or something, I don’t know. You think they’d be up on the ball on this. I mean, hello - there’s no ‘i’ in “conspiracy.” Oh wait. Well, I’m sure they can come up with a better teambuilding slogan while they’re waiting for the next plot to be hatched.
From an article (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/general_ssi/content/money_business/MT/060926/why_isnt_bush_better_at_manipu_1.htm)
titled “Why Isn’t Bush Better at Manipulating Gas Prices?”:
“Gas prices have been tumbling since they peaked at about $3 a gallon less than two months ago [in July]…What a brilliant move by the Bushies–drive prices well beyond the comfort zone during the summer driving season, to enrich their Big Oil buddies, then promptly lower them for the fall campaigns, knowing, of course, that consumers will have no memory whatsoever of all that dough they shelled out just to drive to the beach.
But why didn’t they do that last time? In 2004, when the entire presidency was at stake, not just a number of congressional seats, the White House did a miserable job of managing gas prices. Pump prices started the year at $1.49–comfortable even for SUV owners–then rose steadily to a peak of $2.03 in late May. Over the summer they drifted back down by about 20 cents, but then they rose again right up until Election Day, to about $1.95. If ever Bush needed to pump his pocketbook credentials it was then, when he nearly lost to a very weak opponent.”
But some people will never be convinced. They just seem to get too much perverse enjoyment in the idea that they are being directly, consciously, and oh-so-skillfully manipulated by Huge Powers That Be. It’s very odd; you find the same phenomenon when you ask people about luck. When it comes to virtually everything else - looks, intelligence, driving ability - we think we’re above average. But ask anyone about the ebb and flow of chance in their lives and they’ll most likely tell you that they have the worst luck of anybody they know, and they almost look happy saying so.
At any rate, the burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorists, not the common sensists, and they have a long way to go before any reasonable person should be anywhere near convinced.
November 26th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
>As these graphs illustrate, the price of gasoline at the pump dropped from a
>high of over $3.00 in August to a low of $2.19 on
>November 6, 2006 - the day of the midterm elections.
You do realize, of course, that the midterm elections were on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, not Monday, Nov 6, 2006
November 27th, 2006 at 5:44 am
I sent this to John Mica’s office 7th district of Florida. My congressman. Gas now is 2.23 per gallon on 11-27.06 hmmm
November 27th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Goldman-Sachs dumped it’s unleaded gas positions in the 2 weeks leading up to the elections. Go look for yourselves…
It’s public record.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
[…] Drove by a gas station, noticed that prices began to creep higher. Recalled this graph plotting gas prices. Note how they drop in time for election day, and then head up again. […]
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:34 pm
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December 10th, 2006 at 4:09 am
I actually predicted this a couple of months before the election. Also, on the local level, have you ever noticed how streets get paved right before elections?
December 11th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
There are only a few things that anger and therefore motivate voters. Fear of gays is one of them, as Karl Rove knows so well. Another is having to pay a lot of money at the gas pump. The party (formerly) in power wanted to suppress votes as much as possible, so gas prices were manipulated (duh!) so as not to rile the populace. If you don’t see that gas prices bottoming on Nov. 6 was intentional, there is something seriously wrong with you.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:26 am
One thing people miss is that the price of a barrel of crude oil REMAINED CONSTANT at $60.00 (within a couple dollars). So, while gas prices were going down, the cost of the raw materials stayed the same. On September 26, a barrel of crude was priced at $61.45. On October 17, the price was $59.94. On the 30th of October, a barrel of oil was priced at $60.75. On November 6th, the price was marked at $59.14.
How can the price of gas GO DOWN when the cost of the primary material STAYS THE SAME?