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Friday, December 19, 2008
Dan Gainor :: Townhall.com Columnist
Media's Gas Price Crystal Ball is Murky
by Dan Gainor
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This oil and gas price information comes from a new study by the Business & Media Institute, which analyzed evening news 548 stories about oil and gas during 2008 from Feb. 11, when gas prices hit an early season low point, to the end of November. The results show that supposed experts were wrong both about how high prices would go and then the price collapse that followed.

It wasn’t just the predictions that were wrong, of course. Reporters ignored the impact of lifting the ban on offshore drilling. President Bush made that move on July 14, the day oil closed at its all-time high of $145. The steep drop started the very next day.

Journalists also chose to focus only on the bad news of energy prices. When prices were rising, newscasts were awash in oil and gas stories – 114 just in July. And rightly so. The cost of energy rippled through everything from food and travel to the stock market. One estimate said $1 on the price of oil meant $1 billion out of consumer pockets. But when those prices dropped, those issues were no longer important – even though that meant a savings of $100 billion. In November, as gas prices dropped to less than half their highs, there were just 26 stories.

One of the biggest national news stories of 2008 had ceased to become important because it became good news and the media were predictably absent.

OPEC is moving aggressively to increase the price of oil and gas prices might soon follow. Though it is hard to guess the future, I predict the media will continue to get gas prices wrong.

OK, some predictions are easier than others.

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About The Author
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow and director of the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute.
 
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Reply # 1
Date: Dec 21, 2008 - 8:52 AM EST
Restrict Energy, Limit Freedom,
Does anyone else find it odd that once high gas prices triggered the inevitable collapse of the poor-grade 30x leveraged mortgage debt that had fueled the bogus "Clinton's Great Economy" of the '90's & now formed the basis of our financial system, they fell back to right around pre-Katrina levels? Does the word "bubble" come to mind in this connection?

Everything about the anti-energy ranting and "climate change" dogma has to do with facilitating leftist big-government agendas & attacking the American way of life & std of living.

All this obsession over "sprawl" & "McMansions" (the latter due to the destruction of creditworthiness standards thanks to CRA) & carphobia, is rooted in the desire of the elite to corral us into little boxes in cities where we will be subject to hi taxes, untouchable criminals, gun bans, officious bureaucrats running every aspect of life, public-employees unions, city budgets treated like windfalls to be gifted to supporters, public schools run by federal judges' fiats, & so on.

One circumstance that has irked and frustrated leftie elitists since the 1970's has been our ability to simply drive away from their urban disasters. Energy is freedom, & their strategy is to restrict our ability to get & use energy so we have to live where & as they say.

The REAL impact of energy restrictions is felt w/ heavy industry. The elites have been trying to eliminate heavy industry in the US for decades, & the "climate change" dogma will probably complete the process.

There is so much more to it tho. Our present ruling elite seem poised to reduce America to 3rd world status & a province of the UN.
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Reply # 2
Date: Dec 20, 2008 - 6:52 PM EST
Obama's Gas Price Crystal Ball 2

This coupled with Obama's saying:

"The problem is not technical, and the problem is not sufficient mastery of the legislative intricacies of Washington."

"The problem is can you get the American people to say this is really important and force [force?] their representatives to do the right thing? That requires mobilizing a citizenry [read: brainwash with global warming nonsense]. That requires them [the ignorant masses] understanding what is at stake, and climate change [we need to stop the climate from changing,i.e.,contol the universe's thermostat from a secret bunker in Al Gore's basement, I suppose] is a great example."

"When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal...under my plan of cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket...even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas...you name it...whatever the plants were [note past tense],whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations."

From the donkey's [read: @$$'s mouth]:

1.Higher gasoline prices & taxes

2. Skyrocketing electricity rates ["necessarily"]

Change you can believe in?

...absolutely.

Aren't we going to be so-o-o much better off now that we have a good president like Barack Hussein Obama?

...I can't wait...

...can you say...pass the Vaseline?
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