Factcheck.org TANBI Style

So, frequent reader Josh decided that my rant against the oil companies should not go unchallenged...

David-

You recent blog post piqued my interest... and I decided to do some research.
I had no idea what I would find, and therefore, did not go into this with any particular slant... except to say that, politically, I tend to distrust massive unregulated corporate entities.

Thought you might be interested in the results.

I make NO claims that this is a complete or accurate analysis of gasoline prices... merely that it is interesting.

The data is from two websites:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_spt_s1_w.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html

The trendlines are polynomial 6th-order (in Excel), and I calculated the derivatives myself to try to answer the question: "Are gasoline prices increasing at a faster rate than crude oil prices?"

I used the rough metric of 19.5 gallons of gasoline produced per barrel of crude oil.

Enjoy.
-J

Here's his results:



So, if I am reading his work properly, it would appear that the price of oil has increased faster than the price of gasoline. Which I guess you can spin into saying "they are cutting us a break because they haven't passed the full increase on to consumers."

Perhaps.

I interpret the data a little differently. My conclusion is that the price of gasoline is not volatile due to the price of oil. This makes me even more cross, because if they made 300% of what they did last year, and if the increase in prices at the pump is not dependent on the price of oil, then this just means that the price we are paying is what someone in a smoke filled room somewhere thought they could get us to pay without raising hell.

I think we should show them they were wrong.