When will gas prices start to rise again

[norepubsin08]

I bought gas for 2.59.9 this afternoon the cheapest in about a year..just wondering if there isn't a political tinge to it. Time for a prediction on when you think it will first start to rise again.

[Journeyman]

1. Been buying gas for over 40 years. . .

All I know for certain about it is, even if I live to be 100, I'll never understand how gas is priced.

[Mind_your_head]

5. Ain't THAT the truth!

Drove 300 miles (for a specific reason) this weekend.....gas was $0.40 more/less - depending upon which way you were travelling..... WHY? That's like 20% difference for 'what reason'? :shrug:

There was a 20% difference in gas price within a 300 mile area (in the midwest?)

I agree journeyman. I doubt I'll ever be privy to understand how gas is priced.

[OmahaBlueDog]

2. I think this downward turn in gas prices is about 60% election manipulation

and 40% that it was vastly overpriced.

That said, there will be a lot of pressure from all sides to keep prices down through the Holidays. A few extra bucks in consumer pockets could really help rescue retailers from what promises to be an ugly Christmas.

[cherokeeprogressive]

20. So OPEC isn't involved in any of this?

I find that hard to believe. I also find it hard to believe that OPEC supports rethug ideals and would participate in ANY manipulation of the oil market that was driven by rethugs.

[Leopolds Ghost]

22. If gas is vastly overpriced, (it isn't),

Why has Europe been paying $4-$8 a gallon for decades?

We're running out of oil. Gas prices cycle around
summer high and winter low. The highs have been higher
each successive year. The gap between the high and low has swung
even more wildly just like the stock market. You need
to look at the long term graph to understand how gas works.
A momentrary uptick or downtick is not indicative. The fact
that production capacity has reached a cieling is. Even in
a depression, population growth will cause producers to hit
the cieling in 2012.

Expect $4 a gallon gas again the minute the economy begins
to recover, causing a 1981 style inflationary death spiral
like the one Volcker had to deal with in the wake of the
1970s recession.

[rebel with a cause]

3. Too obvious for it to go up the fifth.

I give it to the sixth. ;)

[Super62]

4. Demand is

Way, way down. Worldwide. Plus, the futures market ain't gonna be what it used to be, which was 50% of the inflated price.

[Mind_your_head]

6. Because p eople are wasting less? eom

[Bandit]

14. So what will your excuse be when oil prices suddenly start to escalate?

OPEC maybe??? I am sure there is an excuse ready made for the inevitable. Oil prices are down by half and that mean Exxon is only making a NET PROFIT of fifty million dollars every day instead of over a hundred million dollars a day..They must truly be suffering these few weeks of trying to intice voters to vote Republican..

[cherokeeprogressive]

21. Entice. Entice.

By the way, where did you get your numbers? Fifty million vs a hundred million.

What's OPEC's gain by having a rethug administration? Having another Islamic country invaded?

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Lord we are cynics

:-)

[The Hope Mobile]

10. But unfortunately its completely true

Gas prices have dropped before recent elections and gone up the day after because if they're too high it will anger enough people that they'll want to change the establishment. Right now, gas prices are on the back burner, people aren't angry about it . . . so it doesn't impact the polls, etc., but they'll go up immediately after, guaranteed, regardless of who wins because they want to squeeze every penny out of us.

[pampango]

13. Practically every year gas prices peak in the summer, decline in the fall, bottom in the winter,

and rise in the spring, whether it is an election year or not.

In 2000 gas prices peaked at $1.66 in the summer, declined to $1.50 by the first week of November, then continued down to $1.38 in the winter. In 2004 prices peaked at $2.03 in the summer, declined just to $1.99 by the election, then continued down to $1.75 by winter.

The biggest percentage declines from summer highs to early November prices was 29.5% in 2001, 28% in 2005 and 24.2% in 2006. While 2006 was a national election year, the other two were not election years.

Gas prices usually hit bottom in December or January (sometimes in February).

[The Hope Mobile]

15. and again, in 2006, the prices went up dramatically immediately following the election

no question that's what's at play here. Just watch. Its not cynicism, its awareness.

[pampango]

16. Gas prices rose by 3 cents (from $2.19 to $2.22) from the election to the end of November,

then another 8 cents to $2.30 by Christmas. It then dropped by 19 cents to $2.11 by the end of January, so that it was less than it was at the time of the election.

We're all entitled to our own definition of what constitutes a dramatic price rise immediately after the election.

[The Hope Mobile]

17. Not here. It was significantly more than that. We noticed immediately.

I'll look it up if I can but I guarantee it was more like $0.20 or more.

[pampango]

23. I was using national figures. It probably does vary a lot by region. n/t

[The Hope Mobile]

18. Starting the day after the election gas prices rose the next two weeks an AVERAGE

of 5 cents.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/19/markets/lundberg_gasprices/index.htm

It did not go down here after that.

[pampango]

24. I guess our figures for 2006 differ. Mine show that it did go down nationally and hit a low in

January 2007. Nonetheless, even if gas prices in 2006 were to show a "conspiratorial" pattern, they showed the same "pattern" in 2003 and 2005 when there were no national elections and didn't show this pattern in 2002 and 2004 when there were.

[The Hope Mobile]

25. Here's a link I found about gas prices here (graph)

http://www.losangelesgasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx

It shows that they do trend up in the summer every year (of course-which I feel only confirms that they're very much being controlled - people drive more and they squeeze us). They also tend to lower around the holidays so people will spend more at Christmas. It also shows that they dropped significantly up till the election and went up immediately after the election in 06 and besides a slight brief dip went up approx 94 cents in the next few months. Aside from those two factors, on all other years, the ups and downs were more random but have generally trended up, especially in *'s 2nd term UNTIL we got close to this election. Watch what happens after the election.
I think we all know that the oil companies are raping this country. Why is it such a stretch to look at the patterns and know that its calculated. They're making the most money they can in this oil friendly administration.
Do you think it would be helping/hurting oil-friendly McCain if gas prices were higher right now? Don't you think big oil wants to keep things going their way? Of course. They want McCain and the entire BFEE to keep them in record profits so they're smart enough to realize that reducing their profits short-term can have a long-term positive effect. They'll make up for these reductions as soon as they have nothing to lose again. No tin foil here.

[pampango]

26. You give oil executives more credit than I do, if you think they reduce gas prices

around Christmas just to give us a little more money to spend at Christmas. I think they charge as much as they can all the time (just like car dealers, grocery stores, McDonalds', and everybody else), they just can't charge as much in the winter because there is less demand for gas. In the summer more people are driving greater distances.

Would Big Oil like to keep Bush/McCain in power? Sure they would. You could have made the same argument in 2004, but gas prices hardly declined at all before the election, even though Big Oil obviously wanted Bush to get reelected. (Heck gas prices declined more in 2000 before the election than they did in 2004 and I doubt that Big Oil was anxious to see Gore get elected.)

Wall Street would prefer that McCain win but that didn't stop the Financial Meltdown from happening right before the election. Apparently even Wall Street and Big Oil can't control everything that happens.

[The Hope Mobile]

27. only when its to their advantage (greater profits) in the long run

[norepubsin08]

8. I put November 6th

Because all the repukes and oil exec will be coming off of a serious hangover and trying to lift themselves out of a massive depression caused by the landslide that went against on November 5th. On the 6th they'll rally around and squeeze what they can out of the American people until Jan 20th.

[Awsi Dooger]

9. It hasn't finished dropping

The futures price is still much lower than the typical relationship to the pump price. The pump price will drip down until it reaches proper relationship. At that point it all depends on what the future price does.

Right now there's no expectation of a sharp rise in the market price, even though OPEC cut production on Friday. Worldwide demand is way down and figures to remain that way due to economic conditions, so you can probably put away the cynicism this time.

In 2006 the pump price jumped sharply immediately after election day.

[ThoughtCriminal]

11. It will start rising in March

It almost always starts rising in early spring as refineries start getting ready for the rising summer demand. And it almost always declines in the fall.

Other events (war, recession, disasters) can have a greater effect, but the seasonal variation is always a factor.

[sutz12]

12. Hopefully after I get back from California

:)

[cherokeeprogressive]

19. I voted "Other". Oh wait, your poll didn't have that choice.

I predict that gas prices will rise again when the price of a barrel of oil rises.