Richard Tafoya
Sep 25th, 2006, 07:48 PM
AP:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-09-25-gas-poll_x.htm?csp=15
There is no mystery or manipulation behind the recent fall in gasoline prices, analysts say. Try telling that to many. motorists.
Almost half of Americans believe the plunge at the pump has more to do with politics and the November elections, than economics.
Retired farmer Jim Mohr of Lexington, Ill., rattled off a tankful of reasons why pump prices may be falling, including the end of the summer travel season and the fact that no major hurricanes have disrupted Gulf of Mexico output.
"But I think the big important reason is Republicans want to get elected," Mohr, 66, said while filling up for $2.17 a gallon. "They think getting the prices down is going to help get some more incumbents re-elected."
According to a new Gallup poll, 42% of respondents agreed with the statement that the Bush administration "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections." Fifty-three percent of those surveyed did not believe the conspiracy theory; 5% said they had no opinion.
...
The plunge in prices, Halff says, is the result of growing U.S. inventories of fuel, slowing economic growth and toned-down rhetoric between Iran and the United States, which has been critical of Tehran's uranium enrichment program.
The sell-off has been magnified, Halff says, by the recent retreat from the market of many speculative investors who got burned by the late-summer volatility in commodities prices. Just last week, a prominent hedge fund told investors it lost some $6 billion due to bad bets on natural gas prices.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-09-25-gas-poll_x.htm?csp=15
There is no mystery or manipulation behind the recent fall in gasoline prices, analysts say. Try telling that to many. motorists.
Almost half of Americans believe the plunge at the pump has more to do with politics and the November elections, than economics.
Retired farmer Jim Mohr of Lexington, Ill., rattled off a tankful of reasons why pump prices may be falling, including the end of the summer travel season and the fact that no major hurricanes have disrupted Gulf of Mexico output.
"But I think the big important reason is Republicans want to get elected," Mohr, 66, said while filling up for $2.17 a gallon. "They think getting the prices down is going to help get some more incumbents re-elected."
According to a new Gallup poll, 42% of respondents agreed with the statement that the Bush administration "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections." Fifty-three percent of those surveyed did not believe the conspiracy theory; 5% said they had no opinion.
...
The plunge in prices, Halff says, is the result of growing U.S. inventories of fuel, slowing economic growth and toned-down rhetoric between Iran and the United States, which has been critical of Tehran's uranium enrichment program.
The sell-off has been magnified, Halff says, by the recent retreat from the market of many speculative investors who got burned by the late-summer volatility in commodities prices. Just last week, a prominent hedge fund told investors it lost some $6 billion due to bad bets on natural gas prices.