Staggering Idiocy on Oil

Townhall.com ^ | February 25, 2012 | Mike Shedlock

[Kaslin]

Bernanke is hell bent on producing price inflation. He has succeeded, just not where he wants most. What Bernanke desperately wants is for housing prices to rise because that more than anything will help the banks and all the foreclosed properties they are sitting on.

The Bernanke Fed has certainly assisted the stock market, as intended, but that is not doing the average Joe much good in the face of soaring oil prices, soaring food prices, falling home prices, and zero% interest on savings.

Oil Shock Coming

As a direct consequence of Fed policy, in conjunction with an inane US and European oil embargo on Iran, Europe (already in the midst of what is going to be a long and deep recession) will be hit with an oil shock on top of it.

Record Price of Oil in British Pounds

On Wednesday the Financial Times reported Record sterling oil price sparks fears

Oil prices have soared to a record high in sterling terms and are approaching euro highs, raising fears that European countries struggling with heavy debts will face further barriers to economic recovery.

“This is a regional oil shock,” said Amrita Sen, commodities analyst at Barclays Capital in London.

Brent rallied to £78.48 a barrel, passing the previous all-time high of £77.71 a barrel set in April last year at the peak of the Libyan civil war supply disruption. In euro terms, the oil benchmark reached a three-year high of €92.70 a barrel, a fraction below the peak of €93.50 a barrel set in July 2008.Record Price of Oil in Euros

It took precisely one more day for the Financial Times to report Euro denominated oil hits record

Oil prices soared to a record high in euro terms, surpassing the peak touched in the 2008 price spike and posing a fresh problem for eurozone economies already struggling under the weight of the region’s debt crisis.

The euro-denominated price of Brent crude, the global benchmark North Sea crude, rose to a peak of €93.63 a barrel on Thursday, surpassing the previous high hit on July 3, 2008. The new euro record comes just a day after Brent hit a record in sterling terms.Nancy Pelosi Blames Speculators

The Hill reports Dem leader Pelosi blames Wall Street for spike in gas prices

Oil speculators, not a lack of domestic drilling, are to blame for the nation's rising gas prices, the top House Democrat argued Wednesday.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said unscrupulous Wall Street investors have artificially inflated prices at the pump, which are climbing toward $4 per gallon.

The California Democrat called on Congress to take "strong action" to rein in the allegedly excessive speculation, and accused Republicans of protecting Wall Street profits at the expense of consumers.

"Wall Street profiteering, not oil shortages, is the cause of the price spike," Pelosi said in a statement. "Unfortunately, Republicans have chosen to protect the interests of Wall Street speculators and oil companies instead of the interests of working Americans by obstructing the agencies with the responsibility of enforcing consumer protection laws."Irony of it All

No one gives a rat's ass if speculators drive up the price of houses or the stock market to absurd heights. Indeed, Congress goes out of its way to actively promote rising home prices.

The Greenspan and Bernanke Fed did the same. Now Bernanke openly takes credit for the rising stock market and encouraging speculation.

And where the hell is the blame for this absolutely inane embargo on Iran?

No Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program

As a matter of record, Israeli intelligence concluded in January of this year, there is No Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program!

As Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Israel Thursday, the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper dropped its own atomic bombshell.

Israeli intelligence agencies have worked up an intelligence assessment that Iran has not yet decided whether to begin a military program to construct a nuclear warhead. Put in other words, Mossad believes that there is no current Iranian nuclear weapons program. Haaretz writes:

“The intelligence assessment Israeli officials will present later this week to Dempsey indicates that Iran has not yet decided whether to make a nuclear bomb. The Israeli view is that while Iran continues to improve its nuclear capabilities, it has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon – or, more specifically, a nuclear warhead mounted atop a missile. Nor is it clear when Iran might make such a decision.”

This is the same conclusion to which the 16 US intelligence agencies have come in 2007 and 2010. It is also consistent with what the Iranian government itself says, which is that the Iranian nuclear enrichment program is a civilian one and that Iran is not trying to construct a nuclear weapon. Likewise, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which continues to inspect Iranian nuclear facilities, has repeatedly and consistently stated that no nuclear material has been diverted from the civilian program.

Haaretz says that Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak gave an interview with the Army radio, in which he come to another surprising conclusion. Asked if Israel plans a military strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz near Isfahan, Barak replied: “We haven’t made any decision to do this . . . This entire thing is very far off.” ZeroHedge properly blasted Pelosi two days ago in his take Nancy Pelosi Issues Statement On Soaring Gas Prices

Speculators? Such as the Federal Reserve and other central banks who have pumped $2 trillion of "liquidity" into the capital markets in the past 3 months just so Italian BTPs don't implode to fair value and so Europeans can continue living in a socialist "paradise" even as the bankers steal their gold?

Or is it the same congressional speculators who until recently had every right to front run the public on advance knowledge that the SPR would be tapped due to Democrat insistence to sacrifice America's last energy backstop only to win the election?

Whatever the reason for the gas surge, with these idiots in charge, one thing is certain - the situation is about to get far, far worse.Staggering Idiocy

The idiocy of this government and central bank created mess is staggering. The Fed is actively encouraging speculators and the Obama government is angling for another Mideast war over weapons of mass destruction that once again do not even exist.

Instead of placing the blame on the Fed and on the warmongers, Pelosi is enough of an outright idiot to demand Congress do something to rein in speculators.

[FightThePower!]

Bernanke will NEVER get rising housing prices unless we have rising incomes. How can housing go up say 10% per year if incomes remain flat?

[Lorianne]

Why Gas Prices Are Actually Falling
http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/why-gas-prices-are-actually-falling/

When viewed in relation to gold, gas prices are low…only 82% of their average over the past 41 years.

“Gas prices aren’t high. The dollar is just falling, its value being undermined by politically-driven over-issue. So if you count the Fed-issued dollars as money — and are actually using it as a savings vehicles — then your world is being rocked by rising gas prices (and rising prices in everything else, too, except for computing power).”

“Also the price of oil has tended to track the price of silver awfully closely for about as long as oil has been industrially useful. And so it’s no mistake that you can still get a gallon of gas for about about $0.20…as long as that $0.20 is composed of a pre-1964 90% silver dimes.”

[hinckley buzzard]

That is the unspoken take home message from this article. Neither the Fed nor the gubmint has any idea what to do to enable things to start getting better. The solutions are there, waiting in the wings of the free market, but none of them consider freeing up the markets as an option. Stupidity all around, not just about oil.

[JudgemAll]

Bernanke is hell bent on producing price inflation. He has succeeded, just not where he wants most. What Bernanke desperately wants is for housing prices to rise because that more than anything will help the banks and all the foreclosed properties they are sitting on.

Welcome to our Fed Reserve becoming now a government sponsored slum lord. This surfing the properties and jacking up the prices of houses artificialy is never going to come back, but the government wants to gauge people out of their moneys so that their banker can be there to pay their wages.

This is outrageous.

[Battle Axe]

Rush was going off on all the bad stuff bambi has been spouting including POND SCUM.

Now that is the only thing that bambi has come up with that could actually work.

Algae and all it's related organisms such as regular bacteria and the brown algae, pond scum can be genetically engineered to produce what ever. This could work.

BA the FReeper Entomologist

[JudgemAll]

They are no better than the looting Iraqis at the Army water and food truck. They do not even think, they fight their neighbors, the thugs get the goods, the rest keep starving. This is what this slum lord “house price” jacking government is all about, trying to enlist now “home owners” on welfare and FHA loans to support it.

[Tucker39]

Meanwhile, Dear Leader, with malicious intent to destroy the United States through bankruptcy, blathers on about oil-from-algae and other assinine futuretastic concepts to tittlilate the technowhores; and provides “circuses” for the well-fed government-bread crowd by singing with the rock band in the white hut.....while the “watchdog” media swoons, and the “leadership” of the loyal opposition plots to scuttle the upcoming election and assure Dear Leader another term to finish his dastardly plans!

[JudgemAll]

This is another stealth attempt at controling and taxing you if you ever had a pond and got methane out of it. This is another green house gas scheme.

Obama is lying, it is not about freeing ourselves, but about government getting into every technology we can freely choose to invest in if the oil did become scarce. HE is playing like government is going to insure our “oil independence”. THis is total horse crap.

He is actualy serious about it, but not very well expressed.

[JudgemAll]

The currency is being debauched by taxing us via the Fed Reserve trying to prop house prices up so that it can keep lending to the government without tomorrows. This is inflation. We are indeed preventing inflation if the house prices do not follow the FEd slum lord’s greed.

We are cannibalizing by speculation, rotating the price of houses and Wall STreet Financial products in buy and sell schemes.

We are headed for a sponsored up spiral before the whole castle of cards is going to go down.

When EUrope bails out greece, the market player who KNOW it’s going to fail, pour their money in the market and wait for the next announcement to buy options to sell. Then the announcement comes, and they make a profit off of the options, effectively bailing out BEFORE it all crashes down.

The government is poised to tax these saavy people using OWS scheme.

Watch the scumbags in action.

[FreedomPoster]

That’s a good reminder, I need to get some more of those pre-64 dimes. Thanks!

[grey_whiskers]

In what volume, at what cost, with what environmental safeguards and remediations?

What is the energy content out in terms of fuel oil / diesel / alcohol compared to the light and cost of food for the algae, and for the factories required to separate the oil?

Details, please?

Cheers!

[Rich21IE]

I’ve studied on economics all my life since the age of 15 and I don’t understand whats going on with this. I understand what they’re trying to do, the devaluation of the currency, but I am confounded to explain the trillions of dollars of U.S. investment capital sitting on the sidelines with historic low interest rates. The only explanation I can come up with is investor fear of “political risk”.

[tcrlaf]

$1 Canadian now equals $1.001 US Dollars.
In 2008, it was around $.80 US Dollars.
We get around 24% of ALL of our oil from Canada.

The Fed has injected so much liquidity (Printed Dollars) in to the markets in the last few months, that it has SIGNIFICANTLY DEVALUED THE DOLLAR, vs other currencies, especially oil-based ones, like the Canadian Dollar.

But hey, as long as the Ponzi last past the Novenber election, it’s all good. Right?

[demkicker]

You are spot on. Opening up drilling, however, and not being so dependent on foreign despots for our way of life is the most frustrating part of the energy argument.

On this alone - if the right candidate can articulate what the BO administration has done to cripple us and CAUSE our economic state, we should win big.

[Pietro]

Inflation is the only way for the US to stay current w/ our debt.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

I like Mish and I read his articles every day.

But he really goes off the deep end.

He is strictly a deflationist and everything that happens in the world of economics (even rising food and gas prices) he refuses to ascribe to inflation.

It really is not that difficult to understand. Inflation is creating more money (out of pace with GDP). Deflation is taking money out of circulation. Both economic acts have both inflationary and deflationary effects.

As I said a couple of years ago, we are going to experience the extremes of inflationary AND deflationary effects with what the leftists are doing to the economy. Costs for the essentials will skyrocket (inflationary) because of the weakened purchasing power of the dollar. Asset values and incomes will decline (deflationary) because of the recession/depression and employers having to spend more money on higher overhead (fuel, taxes, etc.).

It is almost laughable to read Mish trying to explain the rise in the cost of petroleum as not being related to the weakening dollar. Up until recently, if you overlaid graphs of the dollar and the cost of petroleum, they were so nearly perfectly an inverse reflection of one another (dollar goes up, petroleum goes down and vice-versa) that it looked a mirror image. The reflection has skewed a bit in the past few quarters, but is still very traceable.

As for all the rest, Obammie the Commie stated clearly that the cost of energy would skyrocket under his control. He stated it plainly, and he and his cronies have caused it to happen.

If we had our own petroleum reserves tapped and ready to run at the flip of a switch, the troubles in the Mideast would have almost no impact on our flow and cost of oil. If they threatened to cut production, we’d just counter by upping it. The leftists have taken that trump card away from us.

Also, Mish is a diehard Ron Paul supporter. How can anyone delude themselves into believing that Iran is not trying to obtain nuclear weapons? Seriously, do they really need nuclear power when they have all the petroleum they need? Have they really proved themselves to be the sophisticated, peaceful global partner of the 21st century. I’ll have to look into that ‘report’ that came from Israel. But Iran is a threat, regardless of what Israel says.

Only a fool or your enemy tells you to ignore the bully who is threatening to kick you a$$, is stalking you, and keeps taking sucker punches at the back of your head.

[Battle Axe]

I'm just the idea person. I know this is possible. You might take one bacteria and have it complete the photosynthesis process, taking light and CO2 and making a simple sugar. Plants do this every day.

Then take a genetically engineered algae, such as brown algae and have it make the more complex molecule that would be made into gasoline.

Look at the refineries now. HUGE plants with complex processes. They take crude....and make it into diesel and gasoline. One of the reasons that it take this HUGE plant is that crude is highly contaminated with everything under the sun, literally. So they ‘refine’ out the gasoline and diesel.

If bacteria or algae are programmed to do this and some huge plant is set up in the deserts of Ariz or N. Mex. or anywhere where there is abundant light, you could produce oceans of it.

We have this knowledge.

I am familiar with genetically engineered corn. What they did was to take the toxin that B.t. has (B.t. is the stomach flu of larvae (fatal flu) and move it into the corn genome. Now every cell of the corn, including the pollen grains, has a copy of this gene that makes this alpha-delta toxin. When the larvae eat it, the stomach of the larvae is ruptured. It takes them 3 days to die....Oh the humanity, oh the suffering....don't’ tell any liberal weenies about this....But they do die. They stop eating the corn. Main target is the corn borer, as an adult moth it flies from Texas to the corn belt on storm winds.

You can see this on radar!

So it is not a stretch to think that some large city and facility could be built around a production facility somewhere in the southwest.

BA

[Battle Axe]

If this kind of plant is built, it must be built by private enterprise. You get the govt. weenies in this and it will fail like Solyndra etc etc etc.

[grey_whiskers]

You're missing my questions -- I don't know whether we're talking past each other, or if you're avoiding them.

What is the energy content of the bioengineered oil (kcal/mol, BTU/gallon, whatever) and how does it compare to gasoline?

What are the upfront (sunk) costs of creating the facilities?

What is the capacity in barrels / day of each plant?

What is the infrastructure for extracting the oil?

Does it have to be further refined?

etc. etc.

"It is feasible" is the question of professors and dorm-room bull sessions, which requires an Ivy League degree in order for the person speaking to believe that that is necessary and sufficient.

How much does it cost to start? How much does it cost to keep going? How much does it cost to deliver? are all the *relevant* questions.

Cheers!