8.1.07

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5) Joe Biden is running for President? Hasn’t he been running for President since 2002 or something? This is the most unshocking news since, well until Hilary announces she’s running. McCain too.

6) When I wake up on a Saturday morning knowing there is a night football game, the last thing that goes through my mind is “hey I should totally stay home and follow the game on Deadspin” but apparently there are over 200 reasons to do so. I love Deadspin - it’s funny and informative, but is there anything more worthless than the Deadspin comments? For every fifty comments, four might be funny and two might be somewhat interesting/though provoking, and about 25 of ‘em are inappropriate or ignorant. I know the Internets has become and excuse to tell the world the blatantly obvious, but seriously these Deadspin comments are embarrassing. I’ve got to stop reading them.

7) It’s old news, but if you go down far enough, you’ll find our President in his head cheerleader garb back in high school. Our President, Our Cheerleader. I know, it isn’t that too interesting, but it sort of funny (the article itself isn’t worth the read even if you dislike Bush). I’ll never understand why Kerry didn’t do a split screen ad where he was in his Navy dress and Bush was in his cheerleading outfit. I mean, isn’t that what politics is all about… nothing that has to do with policy or government?

8) This just hit me… but the Eagles are playing well without McNabb partly because they’re running ball. Now, can you imagine how good the Eagles would be if they ran the ball when McNabb was healthy? You think they would have won a Super Bowl by now? I mean, if Mike Martz is going to get ripped for throwing too much, it’s only fair to point out that Andy Reid has never ran the ball enough.

9) Well we fan finally put this conspiracy to rest… cuz it’s actually a conspiracy. Maybe, well at least half of it. Gas prices.

Here’s the deal from NPR. We’ve heard it before, oil companies will cut the price of gas as elections near. The price of gas, for example, fell in the months leading up to the 2006 midterm elections. Since then they have risen a bit. Why?:

By the second week in October, gasoline prices fell 70 cents from summer's record highs. Refineries were running full throttle and America's gasoline inventories were up nearly 7 percent from the three previous Octobers…

Now, the oil industry claimed pump prices fell because crude oil prices dropped.

But gas prices dropped far more steeply than crude oil. Crude oil comes in barrels. There are 42 gallons in a barrel and the price of each gallon was down 10 cents this October over last. But gas prices fell 61 cents a gallon over the same time last year.

In other words, in the run-up to the election, oil companies cut gasoline prices 500 percent more than their raw material cost fell. And it wasn't because refining and distribution costs rose. They're relatively stable.

So the oil companies cut the price of gas and took less of a profit. But why? Now you could argue that they did this to keep the GOP in power, and this does look like the obvious reason. But of course we won’t know for sure why they cut the price of gas.

Hopefully the new Democratic lead Congress will attempt to do something about this because we’re all losers when something like this takes place (well all of us besides the oil companies and the GOPers who get money from the oil companies). While the oil companies in this country don’t appear to be a monopoly, it looks like collusion takes place in some way, shape or form.

10) I know some of us have our doubts about the Democratic Congress, but you know what… Pelosi at the very least is going to make Bush do some explaining and work with Congress. No more rubber stamp and this is a good thing no matter what side of the aisle you sit on. The last few years have been an utter disaster since Congress has neglected to check Bush in pretty much any way, shape or form (didn’t think we could use that cliché twice in a post did you? EH!) But now the Democrats have a chance to do that, and if they do, we should be better off as a country.

11) Finally, Ohio State wins and covers and all that stuff. I know we ‘stopped’ doing that (for reasons you won’t find interesting), but we were doing pretty well. I’ll lay the 7 and take the Buckeyes. They’re the best team in college football.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Crack spreads (the difference between oil and distillates prices) decline in the fall every year as the summer driving season comes to a close and the heating oil season is still several months away.

They fell further this year because every gasoline storage tank in the country had to be drained and cleaned out due to the changeover in additives mandated by recently enacted environmental regulations. This constrained gasoline supplies in the beginning of the summer, which drove up prices. On top of that, the New York Mercantile Exchange changed the definition of its benchmark gasoline futures contract, which caused energy funds to sell off positions in the old contract to maintain correct portfolio balances, driving down prices.

The decline in prices occurred in August and September in the wholesale markets, it just takes a while to work through the system to the retail markets. Or you can believe that Jamie guy with the cool beard...

Anonymous said...

Actually, Goldman changed what Nymex contract it would use in its commodities index. That is what caused reweighting by commodities funds. The announcements occured on 7/12 and 8/9.

Anonymous said...

with facts!