New Republican coordinated plan to blame Democrats for high oil prices - Page 5

Apparently the Saudi's think oil will hit ~$170/barrel by year's end. Hold ontaurseatz.

EDIT: I'm pouring over the latest EIA stuff, AEO 2008, IEO 2008, etceteras. I'll try to post something coherent after I've generated a few dozen charts. Fascinating stuff I tell you, just fascinating.

Doom and gloom, we could be heading for a major recession, so horde you gold so that you can eat it.

How Iran Has Bush Over a Barrel


That's a speculator mind you...still, I wonder if Bush's request for releasing North Korean's sanctions and removing them off the terror list has anything to do with this.

"See? If you act like good boys, we'll be here with open arms. Give it a try!"

yup, and maybe it will, but for how long can the graph go vertical? This is a bubble. Bearing in mind that at todays price, we are already off the top limit of that graph.

Just like the dot-coms could magically produce massive profits without lifting a finger, just like house prices could only ever rise, just like there could never be another recession, that interest rates will stay permanently low...

This is just bullshit - the only people who would tell you such crap - is the person who is trying to steal your wallet in broad daylight.

Yep, it might reach $250 next week, but if you cant read and understand the implications of a graph thats gone exponential.

Taking into consideration that oil is only rising because there is money to be made in oil at the moment, what happens when all the potential has been stripped. Everyone knows that there will be a worldwide economic depression if it keeps rising exponentially, and if it gets to that point, there will be no more money to be made from oil. At that point, it doesn't just stay where it has reached in value - because the speculators will move on to something else. Therefore the money moves out of the oil, oil prices crash, probably too far and all the people who were late to the party lose out big time.

This is what always happens, always will. Speculators are talking up the price of oil because at the moment it works, but it wont work for much longer.

Stunning. Still in the dark about many aspects of how commodity speculation works...
Not that it matters, this is a talking point and ideology we're hearing here. Carry on.

Gold is another waste of time. There is no point in buying gold now, 2 years ago yes, now, waste of time. If I was holding gold, now would be the time to get out and invest in something else.

Gold is pointless stuff - it was only ever of value because of tradition, it isn't useful for much, isn't used in industry for much, its main use is for jewelrey - which is pretty pointless in a severe recession if no-one can afford it. Thats why Gold, while initially rising sharply as the dollar devalued over the last couple of years - traditionalists looking for safe bets - hasn't gone stratospheric as you would expect, and has been cooling for the last 6 months. Its value is completely rooted in tradition and in the confidence of its ability to retain value - but as we have all discovered - the real value of something in todays society is how useful it is - which is why investors turned to oil.

Like you say, you cant eat gold, so a better investment would be cans of beaked beans.

show me one graph, one commodity, one investment, one anything - that increased in value exponentially over a rapid duration of time to stand at 10 times its nominal value - and didn't crash, let alone hold that value in the long term.....

I agree that it is a bubble. And that it will burst. And the market will take care of it. That's not at all the issue.

What I keep pointing out to you, as you continue to toss this attribution on "those damn speculators" is that you need to be better informed WRT what speculators actually accomplish in the market. They have an important and beneficial role to play, and NO, they aren't ALL getting rich. Some speculators are losing their ass because they bet against oil prices. This is not, as you portray it, a bunch of people sitting around a table in complete agreement to run the price through the roof. There are laws against such things, and you can bet that our wonderful Madame Speaker would have already blown the lid off of this if she could with a Big Oil / Evil Capitalist collusion scandal.

Speculators are like the CIA... they take the risks so you don't have to.

(I know, I know, you think you are completely removed from the effects of oil prices...)

go on then, enlighten me as to these wonderful benefits that these speculators are having on the economy.

Just so I understand correctly, are these the same bunch of halfwits that bought all these wonderful sub-prime investments from the banks and brokers who dished out all the money to people who could never pay it back, and then had to be rescued from financial catastrophe by the very same tax payers who just lost their house?

Funny when you think about it....these fine fellows were handing out the free money, selling their dodgy loans as investment vehicles - and then buying a different set of the same dodgy investment vehicles from the other dodgy loans given out by the banks - thinking that there was loads of money to be made!

What a fine bunch of educated, intelligent, unselfish people these must be, cant wait to hear what a damn fine job they're doing for the economy.

The speculators are what stands between you and paying the brunt-force of supply and demand. They absorb risk in both directions, in exchange for the chance to make a profit. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't.

Your flippant "they are wonderful" is enough to make me think we've exhausted this line of inquiry.

Their job is not to execute MarcUK's will. Their position and profession means that they risk their capital on what may or may not happen... and it is a very risky profession. Many of the things that affect oil prices are far beyond the control or prediction of commodities traders. Did you lament George Soros when he almost personally cleaned out Asia and shorted your currency?

I mean, do you oppose equities trading in general? I would assume you oppose publicly traded companies, the other commodities markets... in fact, the entire investment world that depends on people SPECULATING that what people put in today will be worth more tomorrow.

Well I know as a libertarian you don't like this but the Feds are looking into the speculators.

But, I can't prove it at the moment. But what I have looked at from the EIA, shows a short term demand spike on the week of the 21st of December 2007, and I think that's approximately when oil prices really took off. It has all the markings of a speculative market.

As to ever increasing oil prices, I have never believed it, at least I don't want to believe it. Not in constant dollars anyway.

But will oil prices drop down to $20 to $30 a barrel, like they were in 2002? I don't think so.

Will oil prices drop down to $70/barrel? Perhaps, but I don't think so if more supply isn't forthcoming, since I don't see demand dropping significantly (on the order of 5-10%).

If I understand the term elastic properly, supply is fairly inelastic at the moment, while demand may be somewhat less inelastic. WARNING: n00b on board.

So are speculators losing their shirts?

I'm all for the free market, but seriously, you don't present a convincing argument.

I'd rather close the Enron Loophole, be done with it and see what happens.

Why should there be another set of middlemen, between the oil producing nations, oil companies, refineries, distributors, and gas stations.

Adding another player to this mix doesn't make any sense, I know this simply because of the quarterly profits the oil companies make, $40+ billion in a quarter ought to be enough to handle short term fluctuations, you think?

Try to at least present some scholarly insights in this regard.

All the hand waving just doesn't cut it.

I don't have a problem with them "looking into it." That never has been the problem. It's what they decide to do to "fix the problem" that becomes the problem. See Corn Ethanol, 2007-08.

Straw man.

You need to look up "strawman."

I didn't attribute to jimmac a position that he did not take, for the purpose of easily defeating it.

Corn ethanol is an excellent example of "wow, this looks good" but turns out to be yet another polished turd of "unintended consequences."

Yes I know about the corn issue. If food prices keep going up they'll probably curtail that.

As for the speculators they may try to stop or limit them if they feel they've been manipulating the price of oil too much. Which of course is what everybody's been talking about.

Oh Please!

Which is your SOP PrisonPlanet answer. D'oh!

"Oh look I found an exception to the rule."

So what does ethanol subsidies have to do with oil speculation? Nothing.

Gobbermint iz baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddd.

the old franksargent is back, everyone. "Alex Jones" and "it doesn't compute."

The "Exception to the rule"- there are myriad examples of where the government got in the middle of things, only to exacerbate the problem or produce "unintended consequences." That is what we risk with government going after speculators... it must be done with some logic to avoid the same "oops" that happened with corn ethanol. Simply saying "we ought to make a law" and then doing it stupidly does not magically fix things... it simply empowers government. Got it?

If you don't think the failure of ethanol has affected the commodities markets, I really cannot help you.

Which is mostly about high oil prices. At least that's what I want to discuss.

You want to apparently discuss or digress into why that glass you're holding is forever empty.

Boorish.

Let's review... as if it is going to do any good.

jimmac brought up the feds looking at speculators. I said "great, but I hope they are thoughtful and do not look before they leap like they did with ethanol."

Right here. On topic. The whole time. Not really interested in getting rolled into your particular interest in this thread, maybe someone else will.

Boorish? Maybe not the word you're looking for. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

Moving right along.

OK, works for me.

Like I said earlier, I'm not sure about the oil speculation is the sole cause of high oil price thesis, but it does need looking into, so at least we seem to be in agreement on that one.

Well there's an aspect of this that's easy to see. When oil producing countries like Libya say they're going to lower production because " The market is over supplied " something's wrong and someone is getting rich at the rest of the world's expense. I think this is mainly aimed at us because of our occupation of a middle eastern country. Also if the speculators are manipulating the price and part of this rapid rise ( which I think they are ) they need to be stopped. Even if you look at this like the libertarians do anyone can abuse a free system and should be controlled at that point.

And did I mention the value of the dollar.

This isn't simple supply and demand that's causing the rapid rise.

Like I've said before the people that could do anything about this don't have the motivation to do so because they're making a lot of money or benifiting from this in some way.

It's greed and politics. I agree with Marcuk this will pop at some point and the price will have to go back down. How far? That's anyone's guess.

House passes bill to reverse oil price increases


"Enron Loophole" I mentioned this before...

Discuss...well, explain to a n00b if this will do any good.

Well that's one thing down. Now we have to get a new person in the Whitehouse that knows how to run this country. Improve the dollar's standing in the world markets and get us the hell out of Iraq!

It has the same effect as closing banks or the stock market if there is a massive run on either system. This is just off the top of my head, but I believe these laws were passed after Black Tuesday, a long, loong, looong time ago.

Just the mention of the word Enron, their notorious energy market manipulation tactics, cooking their books, their subsequent total collapse, strongly suggests that this is long overdue.

Gaming the system for one's own selfish purpose does not serve the common good.

Though they should have a moratorium for a fixed period of time, but even a leveling of current oil prices would be a good thing IMHO.

Oil prices topped $140/barrel today.

Just looking at the headlines today can anyone question that we have the crappiest president ever in office? I mean how bad does it need to get before it's ok to say Bush is a total failure? We'd be better off with no one at the wheel! This president has to be working against us as he certainly isn't working for us.

For the last few years I've been dumbfounded at Bush's approval ratings. Yeah I know it's historically low already, but I'm sorry... I still can't see how nearly a quarter of the population can actually APPROVE of Bush's job as president now? I'm dumbstruck. Just as I am when I see people still driving around with W bumper stickers on their cars. I ask myself, are they fucking retarded or what? I can sort of understand supporting him initially, but to actually continue to approve of what he's done up to now? Jesus fucking christ. These people should never be allowed to vote again.

We're fucked.

Well it seems clear now that the economy will be the top issue for voters. Even over Iraq.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/01/news...ion=2008070112


Americans say they'll vote with their wallets
The battered economy is the top issue for voters, and that isn't expected to change by November.

From that article :



And SDW wanted reasons for Obama winning.

I've had the same thoughts. Why on earth would you continue to keep a W sticker on your car after all of this.

And to be fair I think the same thing when I see people still driving around with their Kerry/Edwards stickers on their cars. My first thought is, "Dude, they lost. Time to move on!" I was so pissed on election night I walked out to my car and RIPPED that fucking sticker off! LOL!

Yep. People love tax increases. Just LOVE em. And they do WONDERS to help the economy. Nothing quite like taking money out of people's pockets to help the sputtering economy.

Tired. Old. Rhetoric.

So... Obama isn't going to raise taxes? Is that really your position? And taking money from people for liberal social spending helps the economy? Cool!
Psst.. you better tell your liberal democratic friends in the US Congress who voted for the stimulus package about that "tired old rhetoric" of giving money back to taxpayers.

Sigh.

The drilling argument is a bogus one, the area estimated by the MMS to contain the largest unproven reserves is the GOM, specifically the central and western portions where drilling is already allowed. It is also apparent that the eastern GOM (intermediate to deep water areas on the western Florida coast) has significant unproven reserves. And according to the USGS we have 48.5 BBO of onshore unproven reserves, and I believe most of these areas (excluding Alaska) are currently unregulated from drilling.

The next offshore area with the most unproven reserves is the Alaska North Slope.

I have spent some time going over the EIA energy data for crude oil and refined gasoline and diesel prices, and it becomes obvious that there is profit to be made in trading oil futures.

The crude oil and natural gas markets are being manipulated by oil and natural gas institutional and individual speculators.

See Energy Speculation: Is Greater Regulation Necessary to Stop Price Manipulation?,
Energy Speculation: Is Greater Regulation Necessary to Stop Price Manipulation? – Part II, and
Ending Excessive Speculation in Commodity Markets: Legislative Options.

The first two links are from The House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the last link is from Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. You can listen to the Senate (audio in RealPlayer format (Question: How do I download this audio onto my computer? All I seem able to do is listen to it in streaming mode. n00b on board)). The two House sessions have WMV files (which don't play on my G5 Mac (I have a bought and paid for Flip4Mac) so I used VisualHub to convert to AVI format and used VLC to view them), but be warned each video is several hours long. Note also that there are plenty of PDF files for each of these sessions from various industry experts giving their testimony before these congressional sessions.

So in December of last year our elected officials were already aware of the problem, but did nothing for six months, six months.

Also familiarize yourself with the acronyms CFTC, FERC, ICE, and NYMEX.

Also from the CFTC website see CFTC Emergency Authority Background (PDF file dated June 26, 2008);


Note the time periods (all during the Carter administration) and an absence of the CFTC to use their regulatory powers since then, when the Republicans have either held the highest office or controlled congress for 26 of the last 28 years.

So if you want to blame someone for the CFTC inaction, blame the party of record, Republicans.

My take? If the CFTC had used their regulatory powers in a timely fashion gas prices would have stayed in the $2 to $3 per gallon price range, and crude oil prices would have stayed in the $60 to $80 per barrel price range.

As to the USofA demand for crude oil and refined products, demand for both peaked in the first half of 2007 (EIA data source using 5-week, 13-week, 26-week, and 52-week running moving averages of weekly price reports). As should be obvious this peak demand occured before the most recent crude oil price spike (from ~$70/barrel to ~$140/barrel). I have one other very interesting plot of EIA data that I"m just in the process of finishing as I write this.

In closing, it is very possible that had speculation not run rampant, crude oil prices would have stayed in the $70/barrel range, and with the CFTC using it's regulatory powers, perhaps this temporary price spike will go away, so that in the fall we could see crude oil prices drop below $100/barrel. In other words, keep your fingers crossed.

Well when you over extend yourself how do you take care of the problem? You try to pay for things don't you?

Sure you do. You start by cutting the government and it's associated bill. You reduce spending on endless entitlements and endless wars. Deficits are caused by spending more money than you have, and we need to stop it. How many weeks of unemployment benefits are we up to with this last war spending bill... 3,927?

Nah, just borrow more.

From other countries.