Contact your Congress critters to let them know that you are tired of high gas prices.
Posted on 08/05/2008 8:40:13 AM PDT by rightinthemiddle
I'm not much of a believer in conspiracy theories. I've seen up close and personal how wrong they were in the case of my old boss, Richard M. Nixon. He was not a criminal mastermind. He was not paying attention to a bunch of juvenile delinquent aides and they did him dirt. It was a case of an absent minded father, not a KGB plot.
But every so often something happens in the world of finance that is at least a bit like a conspiracy. The Drexel-Milken junk bond fraud was a conspiracy, at least as I saw it (though I could be wrong). A number of instances of looting Texas S&L's in the eighties were conspiracies. There were whole good-sized companies basically run as conspiracies in the S&L days.
Now, I see something that looks a bit like a conspiracy happening in energy commodities. I'm not at all sure it's an illegal conspiracy so maybe that makes it not a conspiracy at all. But in any event, here's what I see.
The price of oil in dollars was recently up by roughly 50% since the beginning of the year. In dollars, it was up roughly 100% recently compared to a year ago. Now, to be sure, much of that has been caused by the fall of the dollar in international markets. Oil is "only" up very roughly 15% in euros, which might make for a cleaner comparison with the past.
But why is oil up even 15% in euros in one year? What has happened to move it that much? Every self respecting free market observer says it's just supply and demand. Demand, so they say, is rising in the Far East and in the Middle East, and supply is stagnant. Hence, the rise in price.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
The price of oil is high because it is God’s will. Ben should stop questioning God’s will and pray that it be done insted.
Let’s hope we can get some drilling legislation passed before it declines too much, or it’ll never happen!
But here, he seems to adopt an odd writing style. It's all: I could be wrong, and maybe it's not a good example but ... and maybe it's the wrong comparison, and on the other hand ...
It doesn't sound like he has faith in this article. Maybe he got squeezed by a deadline and just had to dash something off.
Ben Stein Get’s it bump!
One of the reasons it will remain somewhat high is because the Fed devalued the dollar to deal with the housing “crisis.”
Ha!
Ben is a very wise guy.
Wonder if Ben is so confident that he’s shorting oil?
Contact your Congress critters to let them know that you are tired of high gas prices.
I read him very carefully and skeptically now that I know that he contributes to liberal democrat candidates.
Might not see any drilling soon with Pelosi & her obstructionists!! I bumped into this a couple of days ago & it kinda made me do a double take. Not that I buy into all of it but none the less kinda scarey!
Lindsey Williams expose’ of the peak oil lies.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147
Not only drilling legislation (that’s great in the short term) we want a source of energy for transportation that would compete with OPEC! We cannot be held hostage by OPEC indefinitely! Putting more oil on the market and OPEC will decrease their production levels. Homey, don’t play that!
Start with Coal to Oil diesel! Something that can be used with our current mode of transportation. Demanding hybrid-flex-fuel-vehicles would cause a collapse of the current vehicle on the road now. Ever try to trade in your 1-ton pickup truck? (Needed for business, can’t fit a truck hood in a Honda) You have to pay them to take it!
The price of crude may keep falling right up to the time the Israelis strike Iran’s nuclear facilities...I wouldn’t start polishing that muscle car sitting in the garage just yet...
I’ve been wondering, for years, if the US oil policy has been designed to deplete Middle Eastern oil reserves (while preserving our own) before they reach a more dangerous technological level.
As long as oil remains a monopoly, we will continue to pay ridiculous prices for it. Give it a competitor and watch it drop to $60 a barrel. Refuse to give it a competitor, and you’ll see $145 again before you see $100.
“I really do like Ben Stein. His writing is usually clear, and his points are usually ones with which I agree...but”
There’s something the matter with Stein. He’s been acting and thinking strangely. I think he has a brain tumor or his body has been snatched.
What is your “competitor” of choice?
Yes, I do believe that for a short period of time, that there was a bubble when investors fled from equities and went into commodities to collect some gains.
Investment houses and their respective hedge funds led the way, and everybody piled in behind them. This has now reversed, and they are going back to equities, but it all can easily reverse again, and again.
Putting aside perceptions, true, false or otherwise, the reality is that we are finding far less new oil and what we are finding is largely sour crude, and not the sweet stuff that our aged refineries can process. Emerging markets will continue to emerge as they now have tasted some degree of prosperity in the form of better food and transport, and transport still needs gasoline, as it will for the foreseeable future.
Oil prices will not hold long at the lower levels, and the resistance at 120 dollars per BBL appears to be holding up. As China's requirements drop in the post Olympic period, there will be a lot of pressure to drop beyond 120, but the hurricane season is only now getting cranked up and the smallest disruption will cause a huge jump in price. Iran, and the entire Middle East is still volatile and anything occurring there will cause a return to the 140-145 level and beyond. $200.00 is still in play this year and beyond.
As for me, I will never again short oil. I don't recommend that anyone does.
How about this: All the “liberals” in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire could STOP burning nasty old heating oil? Oil furnaces and boilers are by far the majority of heating systems in NE and they use 80% of the heating oil in those liberal states.
Hypocrites.
Anyone can play and they do.
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