It sure sounds odd to me in spite of all. In contemporary dollars the barrel of oil is fairly close to what it was when GWB left office.
How could stimulus possibly get a price bubble going? Has availability of new money (to whom? I sure don’t see it) bumped up the demand for gas to the point that prices virtually doubled? I don’t think so either.
I’m tending to think refinery issues and/or fears. No refinery wants to be the first to slash prices because they see something ominous now that won’t go away, at least, until Obama is out of office.
The price chart makes it look like Zer0’s immaculation drove the price way down.