A Quick Thought on High Gas Prices

I think I'm pretty much in tune with what is going on in the world. I listen to talk radio all day at work and on the way home. I watch the news in the morning and evening, read the paper and surf a variety of news sites on the computer. There is one thing that raises questions with me, and that is the idea of fluctuating gas prices.

Whenever there is a significant jump in gas prices you can usually tell beforehand that it is coming. Typically in the morning I hear news reports on the price of barrels of crude are going for. Typically when they announce a significant increase in crude prices, I can expect a significant jump in the prices at the pump. This isn't rocket science, I think everyone can probably figure this out.

The question I have is "why doesn't this work the other way as well?" I noticed on the news a few weeks ago that the price of crude jumped close to $10.00 a barrel. Shortly thereafter the gas station down the street raised it's prices by about 20 cents a gallon. Early this past week the same news program announced that the price of crude had dropped by $10.00 a barrel. That left me to expect a drop in gas prices of around 20 cents a gallon. That makes sense, right? Wrong. Three days after hearing this news report, the gas station down the street dropped the price per gallon from $3.29 to $3.25 a gallon. I wonder why this whole economic principle of supply and demand doesn't work when it comes to gasoline? Just a thought to ponder today.