Falling gas prices...will it last?

gas prices tend to drop around elections.

ive been hearing that this is a direct effect of the weak economy, so i assume if the economy gets better, prices will start to rise

it'll start rising soon. it is because of the falling economy as well as the spike in prices just before hand. the companies are starting to figure out how to collectively withhold their supplies in order to drive the prices back up into the 3 buck range.

ok ive heard that argument before but id say i really disagree, i dont see how that would ever work, people arent really that ignorant. i mean demand for gas has fallen dramatically, shouldnt it be more connected to that rather than an election...and you say they tend to drop around elections, when has it noticeably before this particular election?

i hate oil companies with a passion

in 2004

oil companies also tend to jack up prices when people are traveling most (memorial day-labor day) and lower them when people arent (the rest of the year). so they will prob continue to drop for a while, but not as drastically

hmmm yea i havent really looked to into that, but then did they increase immediately after the election?

ha I'm pretty sure, I wasn't driving at that point in time but I remember noticing this little phenomenon

im happy they are falling but they will go back up

i think it wont be till after the new year at least, demand has fallen drastically, and i dont think people will simply drive more because prices are lower, why go back to your old ways of spending money on gas if your new ways save you money. High or low gas prices, people have changed their driving mannerisms and it will save them money either way, so its unlikely a majority of people will start increasing their driving, just my opinion.

we're past peak oil, it's going to shoot back up in no time.

i think prices will go up again. prices went up so people started to drive less and as a result there was a surplus. now the surplus needs to be sold so prices dropped. people will begin to drive more again driving the demand up therefore driving the price up. just what i think.

no
they are going to go back up
so enjoy it while it lasts

they are going to go back up because OPEC is going to produce 1.5 million less barrels of oil each day. with less oil on the market, demand will increase, and prices will go up. they only went down because they went up so much, and people didnt want to buy as much since it was more expensive and they realized there were ways around it. now that its cheaper its more 'convenient' but prices will go up

Next summer and they will go up again.  It's the same thing every year.  Once we get really close to finding these new breakthrough fuel saving cars they bring the prices back down just so we forget all about these new cars.

no they seem to go way down before presidential elections.

personally, i don't think we'll see them as high ever again, the demand just plummeted when they were that high.  People finally got smart about using their gas.  I'm so proud of us!  Plus I love paying half of what i was paying 2 months ago.

think about it 4 years ago u were what.. 4 years younger. personally i am 18 and 4 years ago i was 14 and at fouteen i didn't pay really that much attention to gas prices i have noticed though that gas prices always rise during the summmer

its a direct effect of the economy....since the US dollar is worth garbage right now gas prices go down because oil is priced according to the US dollar

no, that is very very very wrong, completely backwards....

first off, the worlds oil is not based off of the US dollar, just ours is...

second, if it was, that would mean almost all other countries would pay very little, but we would pay much, much more

you are right however, that it does partly have to do with the economy

its called supply and demand.... probably one of the most simple concepts ever. companies dont raise up prices because they think people are traveling more, the raise in price is in response to people traveling more.

Oil prices naturally fluctuate over time, 70's 80's and now today, they will stay down for a while but not forever. OPEC sets quotas on how much oil countries are allowed to produce, but when smaller countries with lower quotas see how high the prices are getting, they open the taps and overproduce their quota to take advantage of the higher market price. Once this happens, other countries tend to follow suit causing a domino effect in the production of oil hence lowering the price. Usage also has an effect, considered the US used a substantial lower amount of oil recently leaving suppliers with a surplus of what they were already supposed to push. Another thing to note is the rise of alternate energy. This scares oil and when we start coming up with these new sources of energy, oil prices come back down in hopes that we will forget about new energy and stop or at least slow research however, I think it may have gone too far this time. Thats basically the dumbed down version of how it works, but enough to understand pretty well, hoped that helped.

Hahahahaha right. You're living in America bud.

i'm gonna have to disagree with you. most of the predictions i have heard are that we have already reached the historic output of oil, so with more and more countries growing thats gonna be more demand and and a relatively unchanged supply meaning prices getting higher and higher. especially with oil countries cutting supply when oil drops to the price it was around a year ago, i think its just gonna continue to go up.

It's that mentality that will allow the price to rise again.  Americans consume way more than necessary and perhaps if their driving habits shadowed their habits when gas was $4.00+ a gallon the cost would be less likely to rise drastically.  But since everyone is stoked to pay "half of what I was paying 2 months ago" they will most likely drive more than necessary, forget about conserving gas, and take the SUV instead of the sedan to run errands. 

To be honest, high gas prices (IMO) are a necessity to find other fuels that will hopefully replace our dependence on oil somewhat.

The insane spike in the price of the barrel of oil was due to speculators...ie hedge funds. Now the dropping price of oil is largely due to hedge funds liquidating their positions in oil. I think the barrel will drop to 40-50 then bounce back up a bit but hopefully it will start to stabilize soon after that. That's just my guess tho.

i didnt read a single reply (due to time) so i apologize if I repeat what somebody else has said. Also, I am not an expert on any of this shit, so don't try to pin anything against me, because i don't care. If you have a better point, or a more insightful one, or a correct one, then that's chill.

With that out of the way, of course this will not last.
In my totally unprofessional unknowing opinion, this is a reaction of several things, most notably the inflation from speculation we saw primarily over the summer. Much like the dot com shit of the late '90s, oil was the thing to do, so... speculators speculated the shit out of it, so it skyrocketed. But when it popped, which was bound to happen, it was an explosion.

Of course the spec came from so much different shit, including, but certainly not limited to, war in the middle east, sketchy iran and isreali situation (tensions are always high), a plummeting U.S. dollar, ethonal, importing oil, greed, etc etc.Well, some of those things have been lessened, most notably the strength of the dollar, which has soared against pretty much all, including the despised Euro, and the much beloved CAD.

Hurricanes didn't do shit to offshore rigs.

It's an election season. I bet the day after the election you'll see a spike in the price per barrel, just because everybody is a pussy.

Also it is autumn, soon to be winter, and gas always gets cheaper during this time.

Provided some unforseen disaster or some crazy WWIII, oil will go back up, but I doubt it'll blow up like it did this past year, but it is certainly possible. If there is more domestic production (in the U.S.) coupled with some new techs that will hopefully come down the pipeline at some point, then that should hopefully keep a buffer on just astronomical prices, if anything.
But you have good ol OPEC countries which are just shitting themselves with lost incomes after banking on astronomical oil, so I know they've been talking about cutting production to keep the prices a bit higher, and who knows what else. If those assholes go overboard... well... what can we do? I bet they'll definitely do some shit next year and beyond to artificially keep the prices high.

So yea, gas will go back up again. I'm loving the drop and I'll take it, but it certainly shifts focus away as though it is no longer a problem, which is super dangerous, because it is just a sleeping beast for the world for now.

But I like paying $2.60 a gallon. Less would be nice, too.