I don't know if this has been posted before or not but, I thought it was interesting. I've been able to find fairly good evidence on the web for an inverse correlation to Bushs' approval rating(rising) and gas prices (falling). However, I haven't found anything specific linking this to Clinton or previous presidents. I have the hunch that they're similar. If any of you google-fu masters could find anything one way or another I think it would start an interesting debate. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-20-bush-gas-prices_x.htm
Jimmy Cooper
Posts: 33 | Registered: Feb 2005
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Gas prices are falling here-- I think because they're trying to get us not to pass a proposition that is supposed to make oil companies pay more taxes instead of passing them on to consumers (although I haven't read it myself yet, all I see indicates it would be bad for oil companies, not sure whether good or bad for consumers yet.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Are gas prices really falling over there? All summer gas prices here stayed exactly the same (very HIGH) then about 3 weeks ago they went down a few cents and this week, they went down 10 cents. I have to say, I was shocked to see the price go down at all, because in the 5 years I've lived here, I think this is the third time they've gone down at all (although every time the news reports that gas prices are up on the mainland, they go up here too).
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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Personally, I saw gas prices fall forty cents in the past month or so(at least in Colorado). As for the conspiracy theories I saw while researching this, not bloody likely.
Posts: 33 | Registered: Feb 2005
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They've fallen dramatically where I live-- about 90 cents in the last three months. And they're still dropping.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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You can see in the gas prices thread how the prices by me have fluctuated and dropped like a stone in the last few months.
They were down to almost two dollars then popped back up a bit, but they won't fall much further. The president has almost nothing to do with gas prices. Supply and demand, combined with a tightly regulated control by OPEC over production is what controls the price of gas.
As far as the approval thing goes for the President, I think it's more of a coincidence honestly. When you ask someone why they disapprove/approve of his job, I don't think the average person's answer has to do with the price of gas. There's too many other hot button issues to worry about something the man has no direct bearing on anyway.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Here is a site that you might find useful. It displays graphs for up to the last 36 months showing the fluctuating of gas prices in major cities around the country. If you can find something similar for presidential approval ratings you should be able to compare the two fairly easily. In googling around I found this, which doesn't present the data in a convenient way for comparison, but which you could use to plot your own graph.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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My gas prices have fallen about 70 cents in the last 45 days. My normal station is at 2.48 tonight.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I HOPE Americans don't approve or disapprove of their president because of gas prices... In reality, gas prices SHOULD be high. It's annoying, but it keeps people from buying SUVs that use up tons of gas and pollute the air that much more.
Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:O noes, SUVs are destroying the entire world.
Huh? I believe Soara was indicating that SUV's use tons of gas and pollute the air more than most vehicles. I take your eye-rolling smilie to mean you don't think much of that idea, or that you disagree....?
posted
There's a story about a hunter who takes a little wooden god with him. If hunting is good, he makes offerings to it. If hunting is bad, he beats it with a stick.
That's how we deal with Presidents and economic situations.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Here in the Detroit area, gas prices peaked at about $2.98, and now are down to about $2.07. This may have an impact on the auto industry, lessening the interest in buying hybrids, and revitalizing the SUV and small truck markets--which were on the verge of collapsing. It should also have an effect on airlines, possibly saving some of them.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:O noes, SUVs are destroying the entire world.
Huh? I believe Soara was indicating that SUV's use tons of gas and pollute the air more than most vehicles. I take your eye-rolling smilie to mean you don't think much of that idea, or that you disagree....?
May I ask why?
Because I think we have better things to worry about than the evil, evil SUV drivers. And because plenty of people drive SUVs for real reasons. And because in all honesty, until hybrid cars improve a LOT, most people probably aren't going to want them. Because people choose their cars for reasons other than to get from point A to point B. And because I think pointing the finger at the evil, evil SUV drivers and manufacturers is ridiculous. If SUVs weren't useful, people wouldn't be buying them. No one wants to spend thousands of dollars on a car that isn't what they really want or need. Oh, and there are plenty of SUVs that get better gas milage than many cars.
posted
Ron, down here, prices peaked at over $3. I know for a while, I was paying $3.40ish for premium. It made me cry to know I was spending fifty bucks just to fill up my car once.
Back in my day, twenty bucks would fill your tank and then some, and radio stations had contests to see which gas station would drop its prices the lowest. Of course, we had to walk uphill both ways barefoot in a tornado monsoon blizzard to get there, but we did it and were glad for the privilege.
Really though, no hard feelings. It just seems like the average size of cars has risen dramatically over the past five or ten years, whereas the number of children per household and number of camping trips have not risen. THOSE figures have probably fallen, actually. Mini vans are just as big -- actually bigger in most cases -- get much better gas mileage, and they're safer. Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Soara: I bet you just bought an SUV.
Really though, no hard feelings. It just seems like the average size of cars has risen dramatically over the past five or ten years, whereas the number of children per household and number of camping trips have not risen. THOSE figures have probably fallen, actually. Mini vans are just as big -- actually bigger in most cases -- get much better gas mileage, and they're safer.
No, I didn't. I, personally, have little to no interest in purchasing an SUV. And y'know, people buy cars who don't have families or children and who have other considerations than whether or not they can haul the soccer team to practice. Believe it or not, some people care about the style of the car, or the options it offers, or even whether it's easy to parallel park. I think it's silly to just claim that all people who buy SUVs are destroying the earth. And I think it's silly to make no effort to understand why someone might buy one beyond, "I want a big, hulking car."
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In my part of the Detroit area, gas peaked at more like 3.20. But that was short lived, and it was for the cheap gas, which means premium would've been about 3.40.
pH -
I've yet to encounter a tree hugger who said death to all SUVs regardless. All of those I know, myself included, will say that when one person buys an SUV for a status symbol it's a waste, but when it's a soccer mom with four kids, or a family with a disabled person in it, there's no argument.
And I don't think your complaints really hits the right chord. The fact that people buy large wasteful cars knowingly only because they care about style and status is what pisses them off so much. They don't villainize them because they think SUB drivers WANT to destroy the earth, they villainize SUV drivers because they don't really seem to care one way or the other.
My mom drives a Ford Escape. She feels safer in bigger cars, and would've bought the Hybrid version but couldn't afford it. She got used to driving bigger cars from when she was a soccer mom and feels unsafe in anything smaller, and I understand that. I stopped needling her about it when she switced from her Explorer to the Escape, which gets much better gas mileage.
If people want big, wasteful cars just for the hell of it, that's their right. If other people want to try and force them to effect change, so long as it isn't ELF type force, that's their right too. The added price, beyond the sticker and price at the pump of buying an SUV is the backlash of the hippies, get used to it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Believe it or not, some people care about the style of the car, or the options it offers, or even whether it's easy to parallel park...
People who care about these things don't drive SUVs. SUVs are all about relative safety and ostentatious consumption.
quote:The added price, beyond the sticker and price at the pump of buying an SUV is the backlash of the hippies, get used to it.
It's not a "backlash." The dramatic increase in gas consumption in this country was directly tied to an increase in SUV purchases; people traded in more "reasonable" cars for less reasonable ones, and wound up using more gas. Since even a 5% reduction is statistically significant, suppressing the number of SUVs out there is a very sensible goal for environmentalists -- not least because smaller cars also reduce gridlock, meaning that every SUV on the road is contributing to the severity of traffic jams.
That said, Christy and I might wind up having to own a SUV, since boneheaded safety regulations for children are going to force us to have two child seats in our car. And our current car -- a reasonably sized Geo -- just can't accomodate two car seats comfortably. Due to child seat regulations, even "wagons" are no longer sensible purchases for people with multiple children under the age of 12.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Lyr, I'm really not liking the hostility I've been getting from you in the past month.
People will buy more hybrid cars when hybrid cars give them what they want. If the manufacturers of hybrid cars aren't giving people what they want, people won't buy them. Part of what many people want is a car that doesn't look like an electric can opener. Some people live in areas in which driving an SUV is advantageous - there have been a few times I've wished I'd gotten an SUV because driving in the city here is like off-roading over a mountainous jungle. Some people don't want a minivan. Some people want to tow things. That was my point. And now I'm done with this thread.
Edit: You might also want to note that I only said that I thought it ws ridiculous to blame SUVs for all the oil-related ills of the world and that maybe other people's reasons for buying SUVs is valid and not just mass consumption. The "style" bit was related to minivans vs. SUVs.
quote:You might also want to note that I only said that I thought it ws ridiculous to blame SUVs for all the oil-related ills of the world and that maybe other people's reasons for buying SUVs is valid and not just mass consumption.
quote:The dramatic increase in gas consumption in this country was directly tied to an increase in SUV purchases; people traded in more "reasonable" cars for less reasonable ones, and wound up using more gas. Since even a 5% reduction is statistically significant, suppressing the number of SUVs out there is a very sensible goal
As Tom pointed out, the shift to larger, less gas-efficient vehicles does effect oil economics. I think the higher gas prices now would likely be good in the long run. Artificially lowering them for political purposes, for example by reduction of necessary taxes or by using the stragetic oil reserve, is a mistake. We already have some of the cheapest gas in the western world.
Oil is a non-renewable resource (unless the Russians were actually right). That means there's a limited and finite supply. The up and coming economies of China and India will put an unbelievable strain on the world's supply. Can you image the supply of gasoline needed if the same percentage of Chinese and Indian families drove SUVs as we did?
I'm not what you would call an environmentalist. I'm more worried about the immediate economic consequences than I am about the long term environmental at this point. High gas prices have really hurt the large truck and SUV market- which is dominated by the Big 3. A dramatic shift in sales to mainly Asian manufacturers of small cars, due to sustained high gas prices, might actually kick them in the butt and make them realize they've got to be competitive in the small car market. I kind of wish there was a big gas-guzzler tax on SUVs and sport cars with gas mileage below a certain level. I think it might alleviate a lot of problems.
Note: This is according to my limited knowledge of the subject. Someone with a much better grasp of economics, like fugu, may be able to correct or clarify what I've said.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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