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USA Today Finds Negative Slant To Falling Gas Prices
Business & Media Institute (businessandmedia.org) ^ | Jan. 16, 2007 | Ken Shepherd

Posted on 01/16/2007 12:35:36 PM PST by freemarket_kenshepherd

Gasoline and crude oil prices are both on a downward trend and some media outlets even are reporting the story. But USA Today’s Barbara Hagenbaugh presented a negative spin on the positive development and failed to disclose her source also linked lower gas prices before the election to a possible conspiracy.

“[D]rivers who expect gas prices to fall as sharply as oil prices in recent weeks will likely be disappointed,” the paper’s Barbara Hagenbaugh lamented in the first paragraph of her January 16 front page story.

According to the AAA’s FuelGaugeReport.com Web site, regular unleaded is down to $2.22 a gallon compared to $3.04 this past August and $2.29 last week.

“Gas prices are down 4% this year,” but oil prices have dropped by more than 13 percent, noted the USA Today reporter. While Hagenbaugh explained that most gas stations actually “lost money in November and December” from stiff competition, she ended her story with a hint of conspiracy theory as she found an activist suspicious of the difference in the price drops.

“Judy Dugan of The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights [FTCR] calls the small drop in gasoline costs ‘a real scandal’ and says oil companies are to blame,” wrote Hagenbaugh. “We have no trust at all in the oil companies’ excuses for gasoline pricing,” the reporter quoted Dugan at the close of her article.

Yet Hagenbaugh didn’t explain why Dugan’s group has no faith in the oil companies: her organization is a persistent liberal critic of the industry. What’s more, in July 2006, Dugan called on California voters to approve a “profit-based levy on companies that extract oil in California,” in other words a tax, to “support vigorous research and development of clean alternative fuels and vehicles.”

(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: conspiracytheory; gasprices; mediabias; usatoday; uselesstoday
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1 posted on 01/16/2007 12:35:40 PM PST by freemarket_kenshepherd
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To: freemarket_kenshepherd

So, RBOB gasoline at $1.37 is a good idea? A bad idea? What it is?


2 posted on 01/16/2007 12:38:31 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: freemarket_kenshepherd
"Gas prices down. Poor and minorities hardest hit."
3 posted on 01/16/2007 12:38:49 PM PST by Past Your Eyes (Some people are too stupid to be ashamed.)
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To: freemarket_kenshepherd
“Gas prices are down 4% this year,” but oil prices have dropped by more than 13 percent...

I guess she has no clue that oil is also used for other products and the drop in demand for those could lead to a greater decline in oil that wouldn't reflect in gasoline prices?

4 posted on 01/16/2007 12:39:09 PM PST by mnehring (Virtus Junxit mors non Separabit)
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To: RightWhale
Not to worry, if USA today doesn't get traction that it's bad that prices are falling, then they will reverse course
and call it good. Thanks to Nancy Pelosi of course.
5 posted on 01/16/2007 12:41:08 PM PST by DAC21
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To: freemarket_kenshepherd

Simply put, she's right.

Please, no lectures about supply & demand or refining capabilities.


6 posted on 01/16/2007 12:42:58 PM PST by subterfuge (Today, Tolerance =greatest virtue;Hypocrisy=worst character defect; Discrimination =worst atrocity)
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To: mnehrling
Putative heating oil demand -- although it hasn't yet materialised in the NE, because winter has been temperate so far -- is what is holding up the product cracks. 30 more days of this moderate weather and you will see the products (#2 and RBOB) fall, bigtime.
7 posted on 01/16/2007 12:43:07 PM PST by SAJ (debunking myths about markets and prices on FR since 2001)
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To: freemarket_kenshepherd

Gas is $1.97 a gallon in Grayson, Ky today.


8 posted on 01/16/2007 12:45:11 PM PST by Armedanddangerous (Master of Sinanju (emeritus))
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To: DAC21

They should let the Sports Editor write these pieces.


9 posted on 01/16/2007 12:45:18 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: subterfuge

Sounds like you might review some Milton Friedman.


10 posted on 01/16/2007 12:45:27 PM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (BTUs are my Beat.)
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To: Armedanddangerous

$1.89 in Detroit - the lowest price I've seen in a couple of years.


11 posted on 01/16/2007 12:47:03 PM PST by Tokra (I think I'll retire to Bedlam.)
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To: subterfuge
Simply put, she's right.

Care to explain how you come to this conclusion (and please do use supply and demand & refining statistics even though you don't want to hear about them yourself..)

12 posted on 01/16/2007 12:48:04 PM PST by mnehring (Virtus Junxit mors non Separabit)
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To: freemarket_kenshepherd

Front page of the Lansing State Journal (MI) today: "Gas at $1.90, BUT..."

They just can't bring themselves to write something that might possibly ever conceivably make Bush look good.

Every Islamist world-wide could convert to Christianity and renounce all violence and the papers would spew about the damage to world diversity.


13 posted on 01/16/2007 12:48:21 PM PST by No.6 (www.fourthfightergroup.com)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

Does Milty describe how crude oil prices are sliding yet petrol prices are rising in my area? I'd be real interested to hear that less the hoop-jumping and the usual regulatory contortions.


14 posted on 01/16/2007 12:49:38 PM PST by subterfuge (Today, Tolerance =greatest virtue;Hypocrisy=worst character defect; Discrimination =worst atrocity)
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To: mnehrling

No thanks. See my previous post to this one.


15 posted on 01/16/2007 12:50:35 PM PST by subterfuge (Today, Tolerance =greatest virtue;Hypocrisy=worst character defect; Discrimination =worst atrocity)
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To: subterfuge

Sounds like greed. You might consider using less.


16 posted on 01/16/2007 12:51:15 PM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (BTUs are my Beat.)
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To: No.6

Why is the cheapo regular in Florida still $2.30 a gallon?


17 posted on 01/16/2007 12:51:44 PM PST by subterfuge (Today, Tolerance =greatest virtue;Hypocrisy=worst character defect; Discrimination =worst atrocity)
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To: freemarket_kenshepherd

If GAs prices fall, Dems and Pelosi can't justify thier hit on "Big Oil", which distracts from thier corrupt influence by "Big Tuna"....


18 posted on 01/16/2007 12:52:35 PM PST by tcrlaf (VOTE DEM! You'll Look GREAT In A Burqa!)
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To: subterfuge

19 posted on 01/16/2007 12:53:24 PM PST by mnehring (Virtus Junxit mors non Separabit)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
Sounds like greed. You might consider using less.

Don't need to really. But make no mistake, there is manipulation going on. It isn't a pure, free market.

20 posted on 01/16/2007 12:53:43 PM PST by subterfuge (Today, Tolerance =greatest virtue;Hypocrisy=worst character defect; Discrimination =worst atrocity)
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