>>>To add to the nature of the beast, the big oil will take pretty much any chance they can to maximize their profits, as they did in 2006. And 2005.
>>>
>>>We may argue over the meaning of "artificial" in this context. IMO, it's the nature of the matter to overcharge for any possible risks whenever it can. And it can when it has a good excuse, like a war or hurricane. It feels natural to do so.
>>
>>When it comes to gas prices, it looks like they didn't change much for 2003 and 2004, but 2005 went off like a bottle rocket.
>>
>>If the war caused the hike, why did it wait two years after the start of the war?
>>
>>(BTW, I'm not using that question to advance an argument or make a point. I'm asking it to dig deeper into your POV.)
>
>But you did make a point - it would have been natural to raise the price in 2003, but they didn't.


http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

The price of gas in 2003 was the same in 2001 (9/11, presumably).

Maybe they manipulated it down for 2002, in the best interest of the world, took a profit hit, and then worked their way back after life started getting back to normal.



>The price is, however, manipulated and we know it. My point is that the manipulation comes natural to the manipulators - of course they will do it when they can. You call that artificial. I say we need to try to understand why didn't they do it in 2003. They could have, but they didn't. Why? It would be a natural thing - actually everyone expected it to happen.
>
>I think they are just lying when they do and lying when they don't raise the prices. If in 2003 they were able to keep the juice flowing for months without breaking a sweat while the oilfields in Iraq were sort of burning or under fire or the rigs were demolished and whatnot, then they have probably tapped other reserves. But then when it hit New Orleans, the prices went right up - where were those reserves then?
>
>The simplest conspiracy theory would be that they were (told they must be) keeping prices down so that the case for the Iraq war wouldn't be unraveled so fast (you can lie about WMD all you want, but don't touch the price of gas). Now come Katrina, they could make up for whatever they didn't profit in those two years.
>
>What's your theory?


My "theory" is that the war isn't as big a factor on the economy as the anti-war people want us to think.

What I meant by "natural" and "artificial" sort of got lost.

If we never invaded Iraq, and let things go on their course, I'm calling the "natural" path.

And the path of invaded Iraq, altering the natural path, is the artificial path.

I'm not making any judgements or using those terms with any positive or negative connotations.

I was just trying to distingish the two courses.


You made the point we don't know what gas prices would be like on the natural path because we don't have an alternative universe.

But that's my point. That before we say something like "Bush lives on another planet because he things the housing market is the reason for the economies condition, not the war", maybe we should have some evidence to back up that assertion.

If we want to examine the situation objectively, that is, rather than automatically promoting and defending our biases.