Oil conspiracy?

I don't know, but it seems sometimes that any conspiracy theory you can come up with might turn out to be true in the end. Is this one of them?

Lots of folks have been speculating about the price of oil and why it's been going down so much -- just in time for an election. ($2.09 is the cheapest price we're finding around here, and it hasn't changed now for over a week (now that early voting is going on)...for awhile there it was going down so often that you'd drive by a station and find it a couple cents cheaper on the way back.)

So, now The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights has issued a report on 'The October Surprise'. It claims that gasoline prices have been falling faster than the cost of crude oil, which seems to prove some sort of price manipulation. Apparently that also happened in 2002 and 2004. From the press release:

Oil companies were able to post another round of record or near-record quarterly profits last week, despite a 70-cent-a-gallon drop in pump prices from the summer's record highs.
..."This pattern of the last three election years is an indication that motorists who smell something fishy in the rollercoaster prices they've endured this year may be on to something," said FTCR President Jamie Court.

There are links to charts with the underlying data in the release.
(Via Docuticker.)