Well, well - so much for gasoline conspiracy theories

A few months ago, gasoline was selling for more than $4 per gallon in much of the nation and just a few pennies below $4 in my hometown.

Today, there are parts of the country paying $2.99 per gallon (I saw $2.81 in Eufala, Alabama) and my local 7-11 is charging nearly that price.

So what happened?  I thought that 'BIG OIL' (the catch phrase used by all non-thinking hysterical liberals) could do whatever it wanted to us?  I thought the law of demand did not apply to gasoline?  I thought that a conspiracy was afoot to take advantage of all of us poor drivers who could do nothing to combat the omnipresent power of OPEC, Exxon-Mobil and the speculators in New York?

My, my, how sad it must be to be so economically ignorant. 

To you liberals out there, please tell me something.

If $4 per gallon causes very little change in human driving behavior, wouldn't that signal 'BIG OIL' to raise prices to $4.01?  If $4.01 doesn't do much but cause more grumbling why not try $4.09, then $4.32?  If 'BIG OIL' is in control it can do whatever it wants until we are forced to ride donkeys or walk to the store.

For the last time, oil prices change because of changes in supply and demand.  Period.  There is nothing else out there.  No bigfoot, no Loch Ness Monster, no UFOs, no government plots, no billionaire-CEO torture tests.  Nothing.  There are only the forces of the market that guide prices up and down.

Right now those forces (led by falling demand in debt-choked Europe) are guiding prices down.  So fill up, be happy and when prices stop going down please do us all a favor and save your silly arguments for when you meet people like President Obama, Nancy Pelosi or other folks who would fail my economics class.

Thank you.