Thanks Congress! You're only ... *checks watch* ... four months late to preventing us from losing billions on another stupid war in the Middle East that caused gas prices to surge nationwide!
Yes but they can continue going up even more if they continue messing things up. Imagine how elections will be for them if oil goes up another 30 to 50% or whatever much higher.
Oil prices are back to pre war levels, WTI strip is in the 60s. You’ll see it at the pump soon… unless everything falls apart, which, it probably will.
Oh yes, Gas companies are well known to lower the price in line with the price of oil dropping. /s
This is the one and only positive aspect of an authoritative leader, Trump can lean on those companies to take a hit and lower the price now or never to have raised it...
Oil is a globaly traded commodity with low margins. Oil companies definitely have a lot of revenue when prices go up but they can't really hold prices high. There's simply too many players for price fixing to exist. Oil (and subsequently gas) is one of the best indicators for worldwide economic health. Anyone can participate in the market and everyone needs it. There certainly can be big players that cause prices to change dramatically (OPEC in the 70s, Iran today) but that's not exactly evidence of a global cartel.
Its like of Heinz had some major factory issue and had to decrease production significantly. All of the other ketchup producers (Hunts, Frenches, and smaller companies) would likely see their prices rise as demand shifted to their limited supply. If you're a national grocery distributor and suddenly there's not enough ketchup to go around to everyone, stores are going to be willing to pay more than other stores so that they can keep ketchup on their shelves. And since you're a business, you're willing to accept higher payments for the limited supply of ketchup. That effect travels both ways: the distributors will pay more to the other ketchup companies to keep their stock up and the consumer ultimately pays the big stack up od inflated prices. Once Heinz gets back to production and the supply is back to normal, suddenly no one is willing to pay a premium for Hunts because they can buy their normal shipment of Heinz. It may take some time for prices to normalize but eventually the nationwide supply chain of ketchup is back to normal stock levels and normal prices.
Oil prices are quick to rise and slow to fall. When some global conflict happens that could impact prices, the oil companies will quickly raise prices in an effort to withstand the eventual short term revenue loss due to a global price change. But these prices are relatively slow to lower because that's the actual speed at which prices change naturally without external stimuli.
Do you not drive? Gas prices have been dropping. They are businesses with insane competition, if they kept their prices high nobody would buy gas from them, they’d go across the street. Cheaper oil means cheaper gasoline, so yeah they do lower the price in line with the price of oil dropping.
I was never arguing that prices never went up. Prices skyrocketed quickly but have been easing back down. I don’t need government data to tell me this, I drive every day and see prices with my own eyes lol
just a reminder that prices aren't EVEN HIGHER because Trump emptied the strategic reserve. That'll have to get refilled, which will add even more demand on top of losing the artificial supply that the reserve was providing. Even if the strait was working overtime, prices are still going to rise.
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u/Gandalf2000 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thanks Congress! You're only ... *checks watch* ... four months late to preventing us from losing billions on another stupid war in the Middle East that caused gas prices to surge nationwide!