RSSUSA Today Gallup Poll on “Gas Price Manipulation” Shows 42% Have not a Clue and Would Complain about anything
There comes a point and time where people really need to take off their tin foil hats and get a
clue. Buy a vowel, pass the question or just use some common sense. Obviously gas prices have gone down considerably in the last month. One would think that this would be a good thing and people would rejoice that it does not cost $50 + to fill the gas tank. People would be happy that they have extra money in their pocket. Of course many do was the “Consumer Confidence Index” exceeded expectations. However, there is that 42% who believe that GWB’s administration “deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this falls elections.” I guess these people would rather win their election and pay $3.50 a gallon?
This poll probably more shows that 42% of those polled need to take an economics course. Maybe learn a little bit about supply and demand rather than read conspiracy theories on-line. Maybe they should just use some common sense instead of the continual, irrational Bush hatred. To most normal thinking people, paying closer to $2.00 a gallon vs. $3.50 would be a good thing. Which raises the bigger question to those 42% who have ventured off the reservation, why would any President raise the price of gas in the first place! It seems to be just sour grapes from those who have seen the Presidents poll numbers increase lately a long with that of Republican politicians. Of course the economy, stock market and new home sales have nothing to do with that either.
White House spokesman Tony Snow addressed — and summarily dismissed — the speculation at a press briefing earlier this week.
“I have been amused by … the attempt by some people to say that the president has been rigging gas prices, which would give him the kind of magisterial clout unknown to any other human being,” he told reporters.
“It also raises the question, if we’re dropping gas prices now, why on earth did we raise them to 3.50 dollars before?” he said.
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20 Responses to “USA Today Gallup Poll on “Gas Price Manipulation” Shows 42% Have not a Clue and Would Complain about anything”
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I remember in ’04 when gas hit $2.00 the world was going to end. I was pissed. Then it went to over $3, now back down to $2 and now I find myself thinking, cool, 2 bucks, what a deal. I’m a sucker.
The left still demands energy independence but can’t get their brains out of the toilet long enough to realize what it will take to do so. They won’t allow nuclear, coal digging, oil drilling, offshore rigs, etc… But they instead throw out more decade old arguments about solar power and wind power (unless of course those windmills are off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and ruin a liberal’s view)!
Thank you for posting this SM. It never ceases to amaze me how clueless some people can be. I think you are exactly right. There are some liberals out there who are hating this. They most definitely would rather have $3.50 a gallon gas and Bush’s poll numbers in the toilet because they perceive that as being good for their guy. It’s just like when Bush cut income tax rates and liberals moaned and belly-ached about that. I wonder how many of them wrote out an extra check to the IRS because they felt their taxes were too low?
#1 yoyo, right you are, particularly Ted Kennedy’s view as you may recall.
YoYo
I agree, will the American oil companies have to pay a windfall profit tax? This should have catapulted congress into getting off their hands and support American oil drilling. I guess people do not understand that by and large your gas money is going to countries that hate us and will use the money they get from us to destroy our country. Why wouldn’t anyone want to pay a little more and have that money stay in this country? Baffles me. My question still remains, why did it go up to begin with?
Other than GLOBAL ECONOMY?
I knew a lot of people on the road were dumb, but I never thought almost half were. Does this mean that the 50% that voted for Kerry and Gore were the dumber half? I say dumber because I know for a fact that the right isn’t the smartest crowd either.
So if you’re sitting the middle with me, pat yourself on the back. You’re among the 20% of smart people in this country.
Yeah, it doesn’t take a metal giant to figure out that if the price per barrel of crude drops, so does the price of gasoline at the pump.
This “Bush Conspiracy” can’t really be believed by anyone. It’s merely the liberals way of attempting to take any good news and spin it in the opposite direction.
Liberals first chastize Bush saying the Republicans are creating fear by talking about a real enemy that really wants to kill Americans and their way of life. Yet the liberals invent this false conspiracy of Bush controling gas prices, leaving fear that the Republicans will raise prices when the elections are over.
It’s sad that liberals believe people are dumb enough not to realize there are only a few things that affect the price of gas:
1. The price of crude (which depends on market demand and what the countries with crude feel like doing that day)
2. The taxes put on gasoline which have stayed steady for some time
3. What the oil companies decide to do with their profit line
4. What the little guy at the service station level thinks he can get away with (largely dependant on what his competition does).
But face it – conspriacy theories are a lot more interesting.
Price and demand? So demand is down now? I don’t think so.
Oil prices have certain other fear factors already included in the price, such as terrorism, volatile situation in Middle East and Hurricane season, also high usage of gas in US during summer.
Terrorism has really been a non-starter even though some wish to politicize it as the US is not more safe than were were prior to 9-11. The Middle East has actually been quiet, as the Middle East goes. Also, for-casted bad hurricane season was just hype and wishful thinking on the part of meteorologists.
Also, demand is down from growing nations.
All this creates a surplus supply and the ability to lower prices. There has not been one hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that has caused a disruption.
Even the money grubbing OPEC ministers have kept their hands off lowering the output and affecting supply.
All this creates a favorable and more sensable gas price. Not conspiracy.
What will these other oil producing countries do with all this oil, if the US ever finds and USES another source of fuel?
Miss U, #8: They will sell it to China and India who have become much more industrialized in the last 10-15 years and need more and more oil. Their growing need for it is one of the reasons for the increased world demand which translates into higher prices. They are competing with us for the available oil, and someday either of them may overtake us as the #1 oil-consuming country in the world. Here is how the laws of supply and demand affect prices: when demand goes up but supply remains constant or goes down, then the price goes up (its value increases). When demand goes down while the supply remains constant, then prices go down (its value decreases). Prices stay relatively level when there is just enough supply to meet the demand.
Usually it is a lack of understanding of the global market as such that causes these ignorant statements and Bush conspiracy theories.
In this case, however, those promoting this unsubstantiated theory know full well what controls the price of gasoline but chose to just lie about it and try to Blame Bush. They also blame him for the cost of tea in China and anything else they can think of.
There is a name for this. I think it is usually referred to as something like Bush Hater Dementia but forget the actual name at the moment. It is where liberals literally lose their minds over their blind hatred of the man who took their power away. They have not been able to raise our taxes and they know they are so much smarter about how our money should be spent, mostly in their own districts and pet projects.
Their hatred for Bush causes them to say and do insane things like this. They know better but are hoping that many of us in the great unwashed masses do not know and will buy it. It is yet another example of the left’s scorn for the intelligence of the average American. Sorry to tell them but it is higher than they think. That goes double for Hillary, too.
I only have one question. How come prices dropped after the Alaskan pipeline, which supplies over 8% of our needs, shut down?????? Anybody thought about that? Doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I’m not blaming the administration but something smells fishy to me. Could it be that Big Oil wants to keep the current congress in control???? I’m thinking so.
Could the ethanol market have anything to do with this?
I think they gouged the US big time, because they knew the ethanol market will cut into their oily profits.
Now that they have their windfall, drop the prices, so we think we are getting a huge deal.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck most people are going to believe it is a duck.
I don’t believe Bush directly controls the price of oil. I do believe oil companies are manipulating prices to help the Republicans in this fall’s elections. The same thing happened in reverse before the 2000 election when they drove the price up to defeat Al Gore – who the oil companies feared like the anti-Christ. I took economics courses in college – more than was good for me – and I know all about supply and demand. I just don’t believe the theory – I believe markets in the real world are manipulated all the time by big players. And, oil prices are being manipulated now to help the Republicans.
Leo is absolutely correct! In additon to supply and demand there is the basic economic theory of capacity to consume and the propensity to consume. The latter being for every extra dollar of disposable income, we may spend 60 cents and save 40 cents.
Unlike the mid 1970′s when there was a SHORTAGE, NO filling station in the USA SHUT DOWN while gas prices skyrocketed. American spend more at the pump and spent less everywhere else.
OPEC and American Oil companies have figued out long ago our capacity to consume and all its seasonalities. They drove up the price when our demand was highest and reaped the benefits. They cannot however continue to go up as we will spend less on other things, cars, washers, dryers, homes, clothes, food entertainment, etc.
People are dropping SUV’s like the plague and buying more gas efficient autos. The result, less demand, more supply and so they have to drop prices to move inventory. Never shut down the oil field NEVER. The added boost to Bush or any president is that there is more disposable income now and they spend more on movies, clothes etc. Thus the economy takes a tick or two up.
High gas prices and manipulation of these, regardless of whom is in office is really a TAX on most Americans. Driving is a necessary evil and what better way to take money out of our pocket and redistribute than by raising fuel prices. That money gets taxed and re spent at other levels.
We have been socially engineered for a while now, but there has been a real push since the 1970′s. Anyone remember Nixon’s STAGFLATION? That will be lesson number two for tomorrow. I believe my class is starting to doze off…..
d, #11: the world’s supply of oil right now is relatively high regardless of the Alaskan pipeline. Oil is traded on the WORLD market, and the Alaskan pipeline does not really affect anybody except us, and even then, it is a relatively small percentage of where we get our oil. Gas prices are down because world oil prices are down. If I recall correctly, there was a minor uptick in the price of oil after the Alaskan pipeline leak was discovered because of speculation as to how long it would be closed down. However, its effect on the big picture is fairly minor. If it becomes more scarce in one place, we just get more from somewhere else, keeping supply fairly stable. It’s minor compared to the effect Katrina had.
I, for one, am very happy that the gas prices are lower. BUT- let’s give liberals some credit. We all know that we get our gas from Saudi and we all know that Bush and King Abdullah are very good friends. This explains why we didn’t attack Saudi after Saudis attacked us. That’s some kind of friendship. It’s really not much of a stretch (let alone conspiracy theory) that they would lower the price per barrell in time for the election. I think if you totally blow off this theory then maybe you have your head in the sand.
By the way, for people who are asking, gas prices started going up after the death of the Saudi King Fahd in August 2005. This was predicted by economists and they were right. It was thought by the royal family that increasing the price per barrell would allow the Saudi people to have a sense of security in uncertain time. This happens to a lot of exports when a leader of a country dies.
#16, #17: Give liberals credit for what? Most liberals I have heard talking say we are not paying nearly enough for gasoline. Al Gore wanted a $1.00 per gallon additional tax on gas. Their idea is that we should be paying more like $4-6 a gallon like much of Europe and Japan, thereby forcing us to conserve. The Middle East supplies oil to all of the world, but the U.S., in an effort to decrease our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, now gets the majority of our foreign oil from Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela (not that that is any better than the Middle East). The price of a barrel of oil is determined by supply and demand on the world market. No one country (not even Saudi Arabia) has the power to SET the price of oil, although they can manipulate the supply coming from their country by withholding oil from the market when demand is high, thereby pushing up the price of crude. Likewise, they can flood the market with excess oil and force prices down. OPEC (oil-producing export countries) operates much like a cartel. They cannot SET prices themselves, but they CAN and DO manipulate the supply, therefore affecting the market price. BTW, as I recall, the Clinton administration, as well as previous administrations, were friendly toward the Saudis as well.
I know what OPEC is. I interned at Saudi Aramco out of college. And many times, Saudi has increased production by 500,000 barrells per day or decreased it by that much and within a matter of days it shows up in U.S. gas stations. It’s true that OPEC is like a cartel, except that it has LONG been dominated by Saudi Arabia. Other countries do not have the resources to manipulate the supply. SO it is fair to say that Saudi is capapble of single handedly “setting” the price per barrel. And it really makes the other OPEC members mad. And I never said Clinton wasn’t a friend to the Saudis. He was. But those were different times.
It is no surprise that Saudi Arabia is the most powerful member of OPEC. They have, by far, the largest oil reserves (something like 2.5 times more than the number two country) and Saudi Aramco is by far the largest oil company in the world. Naturally, they have a lot of power in OPEC. Still, the U.S. gets more of our imported oil from Canada and Mexico (about 18% and 14% respectively for 2005). Venezuela and Saudi Arabia are roughly tied for third place at about 12% each. Venezuela was easily number three until a few years ago when Chavez decided to export less to us. So now, Saudi Arabia has taken up the slack. The U.S. imports 60-70% of all the oil we consume, so whether we like it or not, as long as we need more oil than we can produce ourselves, we will be slaves to other countries who have oil.