Oil Speculators are taking a bath in the market right now. Remember when "some people" thought the speculators were keeping oil prices too high?
What happened?
As recently as last month, ever higher crude oil prices and $5 a gallon gas were still regarded as inevitable. Naturally, much of the blame was placed at the foot of speculators, or "gamblers," propping up the prices for their greedy and otherwise nefarious purposes.
Fox News: Lower gas prices = bad news (and Obama still gets no credit)
Earlier this year, Fox News hyped the rise in gasoline prices, blaming President Obama even though experts agree that worldwide market factors, not U.S. policies, set gas prices. So what is Fox saying now that gas prices are falling?
You know who else sees the drop in gas prices as a bad thing? Republican strategists who were hoping to reap the political benefits of high gas prices at the polls this year.
Stuart Varney, the Fox Business host pictured at the top, tried to explain the claim that the recent gas price drop might be "BAD," saying it may be "just a sign of a weakening economy." The Wall Street Journal reported that one of the reasons for the drop in gas prices was the "softening economies in the U.S. and Europe," along with easing tensions in Iran and changes in the oil market.
Note that Fox is now raising how worldwide economic factors are affecting gas prices, after spending weeks blaming Obama for the price increase since the president's inauguration. Fox won't explain that the extremely low price in January 2009 was a short-lived drop caused by the massive economic recession. In fact, last week on Fox News, Varney explicitly said with a straight face that the price increase since the bottom of the recession had "everything to do with" Obama, but the recent drop in gas prices "has nothing to do with" him:
Well, now I understand it. Worldwide factors, that have nothing to do with Obama are causing the drop, but it was all his fault that they went up! There you have it! FauxNoise Logic explained!
Boy, the Obama-Derangement-Syndrome is in full-bloom over there at FauxNoise. Apparently, the idiots are still in full-bloom too...
Part of the reason for lower petrol prices is because OPEC has pledged to keep prices below $100 a barrel. I am trying to figure out why they would agree to this. Bankrupt alternative energy startups?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
