Thursday, May 01, 2008

$30?

This week a co-worker of mine sent me an article that suggest the price of gas has been inflated, by shading dealings in future dealings. The article suggest oil should be closer to $60 a barrel, instead of $120. Now if that is correct then eventually we will see a sudden drop in gas prices, personally I think it is bunk. I'm still predicting you'll be seeing $4 prices before the summer is out (In fact I'm so confident in that I'm going to be some Exxon stock tomorrow). But the presidential election may give an opportunity for us to test this theory. Now true to my word I'm staying with the badical sabatical and I won't mention the election. But I will mention an idea some of the canidattes have. Two "defenders of the poor" want to get rid of the gas tax for the summer. That would save us 18 cents a gallon or an estimated $30 over the summer. Now if my friend is right and the price is inflated than we will save close to 18 cents on the gallon (you will never actually save all 18 cents, part of the tax is absorbed by the oil companies). But if the demand is still high enough for oil (ie. high enough to keep raising prices) than we will actually only save 8 or even 6 cents a gallon.
So far 2 presidential candidates (one from each party) think it is a good idea.
And 2 economist (Krugman and Mankiw) think it is lunacy.
As usual, I'm siding with the economist.

1 comment:

Steph said...

Since when have you been opposed to saving 6 cents? Just an hour ago I saw you pick up a penny from the ground. I'm just sayin'