If powerful forces control prices, why do they go down? I don't believe in the gouging rhetoric because interested parties benefit from not only high prices, b

If powerful forces control prices, why do they go down? I don't believe in the gouging rhetoric because interested parties benefit from not only high prices, but stable prices, which we haven't seen. Unstable, skyrocketing prices encourage competition from alternative energy sources, right? I don't think we have to imagine an alternative to the situation in recent years, but can look to history for context. If you look at any really long term chart of oil prices, there is a dramatic change in the early 00s, from a regime of fairly stable prices to one where they skyrocket and crash. I think statisticians have a term for this: heteroscedasticity. It kind of looks as though energy prices were stabilized deliberately, and then those forces lost control. Maybe it was related to fracking, or the invasion of Iraq. Or maybe it was a reaction to newly perceived fragility of the Saudi monarchy. Or maybe it was because Russia became a bigger player not under the control of OPEC. Or the US, similarly.