Posted on 03/08/2008 3:59:54 AM PST by Man50D
The recent rise in oil prices to over $100 a barrell has been fueled largely by speculators, anaylsts say, hoping to hedge against the falling dollar and an unstable world situation - especially in the Middle East and South America.
But that might change in the next few weeks:
The stunning price rise has been driven almost exclusively by investors who were bailing out of the dollar and other financial assets and pouring into commodities, Judith Dwarkin, chief economist at Calgary-based Ross Smith Energy Group, said yesterday.
“The fundamentals don't support prices at $80, let alone $100,” Ms. Dwarkin said. She said global demand growth has slowed in recent years, while spare capacity among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has expanded somewhat, even as inventories of gasoline are at robust levels.
“The greater prices diverge from what is fundamentally supportable, and the longer they stay at a distance from what is fundamentally supportable, the greater the risk of a correction, and a large one.” She has forecast an average price of $75 a barrel for this year.
Oil consumption in the developed world is dropping more sharply than anticipated just a few months ago because the subprime crisis has contributed to increasing economic weakness, Mr. Lynch said. Even emerging economies have slowed their demand growth in the face of record high prices, he added. This speculative bubble, analysts say, may pop before summer due to increased gasoline stocks and a slowing economy.
At this point, any drop would be a welcome relief.
Yep. I don't think we'll see much of a decrease.
As soon as prices start dropping, they will screw us and hold production until prices are back up.
The only way to hit back is to drill our own oil and show OPEC that we don't need them. Even better would be to start building more power plants and using that electricity for cars. Preferably nuclear plants but we still have loads of coal to burn. New coal plants produce barely any emissions.
Hate the French all you want, but I'm jealous of their clean, cheap surplus nuclear power. The US was supposed to be this way until 3 Mile Island.
I think you have a point. In spite of govt. and Fed Reserve’s devices to try to get around the subprime crisis, this problem needs to be faced and resolved in order for us to restore health to the banking and credit system. There was a wild game of musical chairs being played for about 5 years with lots of house flipping, speculative construction, and lending to people without the means to pay. Some people like the real estate flippers will sustain paper losses whereas the first-time buyers caught without a chair when the music stopped either have to buck up, maybe find a second job, or else lose their investment. If I were caught in this mess I would be working a second job or doing what I’ve got to do to weather the storm. It’s natural that banks are tight with money and loan approvals because they’ve got so many questionable loans outstanding.
Interest rate reductions are not working because too many people are max’ed out on their credit. We’ve been hearing for years and it’s coming home to roost that our personal savings rates are by and large too low, and credit balance are too high. We have to work our way out of it and resist Obama’s Robin Hood campaign. He can really put us in a depression if enough people fall for his line.
Gasoline invintories are at historic highs.
“the first-time buyers caught without a chair when the music stopped either have to buck up, maybe find a second job, or else lose their investment.”
Isn’t the problem the ‘first time buyers’ without the means to pay who got caught with ‘a chair’? Now they have a house and a payment (a chair) and no means to stay in the ‘chair’.
Wait until we have President Hillary or Obama.
In 2000, I was an alternate delegate to the Republican convention. We were seated near the Alaskan delegation that worse vests proclaiming to “Open ANWR”. If that had been done at the beginning of the Bush administration, we would be using Alaskan crude right now.
The enviromentalist run our energy policy’s through the mouths of our rat and rino congress.
You could look at it that way. What I meant was the music playing while their ARM’s were low. When they got adjusted up, that’s when the music stopped for the subprime’s and it’s time to pay up. But I understand your angle.
the real price of somewhere around $40 supports this....
but, I fear the most is that Israel is about to pop and kick it up a few notches in the region before Bush goes.
Societies can only be pushed so far and I think the murder of these 8 holy men could be the proverbial straw. Israel isn’t going to hope for the best in Obama or Hillary to defend their sovereignty and I think the beginning of a massive preemptive strike is inevitable.
This could keep oil up indefinately. God help us.
If I remember G. Soros made millions and caused millions to go broke, lose their money, when he corralled the money market in the Far East. I would suspect that he and others who are anti-American pro terrorist are at the back of the increase in the price of oil and the downward plunge of the dollar.
I assume that he and his bunch left-wing supporters have made and will make billions from the futures market in oil and the futures market in currency. But no one will take him and his left-wing anti-American gang on, so hopefully the market for oil will fall and one must remember the only reason many countries make money is that they export goods to the United States and if our money keeps dropping then they will make nothing, nil, not-a-DT.
The price of oil, at present, is all done in the futures market where those that buy futures never use the oil that they buy, all they do in drive up the price so they can make billions.
Supply cannot be the cause as the supply is larger than at any time in the past several years.
Yep. It makes me wonder when the so-called "environmentalists" will start to feel the pain and start becoming part of the solution, instead of part of the problem. These "environmentalists" are perfectly willing to continue using crude that comes from some of the most polluted places on earth. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.
This also holds true for states like Florida and California, both of which have very large untapped reserves off their coasts. They are part of the problem, but could be part of the solution if they'd get their heads out of their arses....
Actually, your angle is just as good. My point was that these people are like those who won the ‘free car’ on Oprah and then learned they couldn’t afford the ‘free car’ due to taxes, etc. It’s not that these people didn’t wind up with a ‘chair’, the problem is that they did. They would have been far better off had they not.
I was thinking about this last night, so I googled ‘oil bubble,’ and found articles from 2006 saying the price was unsustainable, yet here we are two years later at $106 oil. So I’ll believe there’s a bubble when it actually pops.
Actually, if you look at the Carter years and compare it to now, it looks to me like we're headed for stagflation and that is a very well known territory to some of us that lived through those times.....
I remember them too. But the difference that I'm pointing out is that we're dealing with LOW interest rates. I actually remember my mother having a number of CDs in banks that were earning more than 18% interest rates. CDs were actually pretty good places to park money back then. Today a CD will typically pay less than 4%, and every drop in interest rates hurts savers more and more. The low interest rates seem to be designed to spur borrowing and spending, and to discourage saving and investment. But as I mentioned, many lenders will be more hesitant to loan the money out.
Mark
The dollar started weakening long before interest rates were being lowered. W's loss of his veto pen had a lot to do with that. As for now, you'd be better off telling the EU to lower their rates to bring down the value of their currency.
A lot of the so-called "subprime" crisis stems from federal banking regulations enacted during the Carter administration. Legislation passed way back when forces banks to make a certain percentage of loans to "underprivileged" home buyers. If the banks don't meet this certain percentage, they are not allowed to expand their businesses. It's very similar to the credit card regulations that allow deadbeats to walk away from credit card debt if they make a "good faith" attempt to pay back a fraction of what they owe.
There are a couple of bills floating in Congress right now that would extend these same insane banking regulations to the mortgage industry. If that happens, you can bet we will see a mortgage crisis the likes of which no one has ever seen. Can you say 30% mortgage interest rates? If this happens, it will bring the construction industry, and every industry related to it, to a screeching halt. Then, you'd better have a good way of feeding yourself, because it's going to make the Great Depression look like a cake walk.
It all boils down to the fact that we have the best goobermint that money can (and does) buy.....
I see this room with rows and rows of Bloomberg screens and Soros screaming at the flying monkey traders buying commodities, urging them on to destroy Bush and the US.
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