I'm getting a bit annoyed by the breathless coverage:
Gas Prices Jump 14 cents In Texas!
Gas Prices Rising – How High Will They Go?
…and there's just some plain, factual statement of the matter:
The average retail price of a gallon of regular gas stood at $3.54 on Feb. 4, its highest level since October. Thus far in 2013, gasoline prices have jumped 7%, hitting the pocketbooks of Americans already grappling with higher payroll taxes. Prices at the pump remain slightly below the average last year of $3.62 a gallon.
Hmm. Look at that pattern. Do you think there might be something seasonal going on? We see only one full year in that graph, so let me give you a longer time period to look at. First, a governmental source of data, the Energy Information Administration. I can get the info for average prices for unleaded gas going back to the 70s, but there's a lot of inflation effect, yadda yadda, so I'm going to show the graph going back to 2001:
Oh look at that. Some very interesting movements over 2008, I see. I wonder what happened then.
If you don't trust government data, I've been keeping my own data since April 2011. I commute a lot, and have to fill up my tank 3 times a week. I tend to go to one specific gas station, so vagaries of localprice differences generally don't hit, except for the one or two times a year I go on a car trip.
So let's take a look at the average gas prices I saw:
So: prices fluctuate. Ta da. I saw the exact same rise in prices one year ago. I am not seeing what the big deal over seasonal fluctuations is.
EBL on February 8, 2013 at 1:42 am said:
Gas prices going up in the summer, coming down in winter. Crazy!
Starless on February 8, 2013 at 7:39 am said:
A boring, predictable, and repeating cycle (like…I dunno…weather driven by solar cycles) doesn't put eyeballs on text and local TV news, nor does it put donations in activists' coffers or give excuses for punitive taxes.
"Something must be done!" after all.
Meep on February 8, 2013 at 8:00 am said:
We keep CNBC on at work, but I don't even look.
What do I care about something that changes in one day? My shortest time horizon for analysis is one year.
Starless on February 8, 2013 at 9:22 am said:
CNBC — heh. I think if this is your guy for investment advice, you're incapable of thinking a day ahead, much less a year.
BTW, in my paranoid conspiracy theory regarding the world, I can't let the ee-vile oil industry — including "speculators" — off the hook on gas price hysteria. If everybody is constantly biting their nails over oil, there's always an excuse to jack up prices. East Timor is unstable? UH-OH! That's causing "market uncertainty" so we have to raise price per barrel! All you proles get ready to pay the price for your gasoline addiction.
Blaine Dunning on February 12, 2013 at 4:40 pm said:
I think people would just like to see gas get back to pre-Obama levels of pricing. The cost does always go up and down, it just has been much hight overall.