Posted on 04/30/2008 7:19:14 PM PDT by Charles Bronson Forever
Futures manipulation has nothing to do with Chavez or OPEC.
Your assertion that low income people are not still taking unnecessary trips is wrong. Your assertion that discretionary spending has dried up is wrong. Your assertion that new borrowing is at an all time high is not correct (that was the housing bubble).
Any assertion that this is not the land of opportunity and ANY American cannot or should not improve their standard of living is stupid.
My assertion that the price will not come down unless: 1) there is an increase in supply; 2) and/or a decrease in demand is correct. Let's see what the consumption numbers are like. I bet they in no way reflect a secession in demand. The only way you could be correct is if there was no discretionary driving - I bet half the use of gasoline is driving around and going to tennis or seeing gramma or going to to the bar.
I can tell you in FL there are millions of cars on the road. We still have thousands of out of state plates. How many trips to FL are necessary. There are still millions of people cruising to Orlando. People love to complain, but they love their cars, and love to go places. I see nothing wrong with either complaining nor driving. I just find it insufferable whining when they do both. I started over a year ago talking to people at gas stations and watching their behaivors. Try it. They all complain but ask them where they are headed. Or where they are from. Watch the pop and smokes they buy. Ask them if they know we have massive deposits that are not taped. Ask them to compare the profit margins of MSFT and XOM. Ask them if they know the ratio of profits to taxes either at the pump or at XOM. Ask them if they would give upa six pack a week to buy XOM shares.
Wake up America. If you want lower prices stop driving or drill.
We’ll just agree to disagree.
Yeup. The gas prices and mild winter helped me get a GMC Yukon cheap for the wife. Hammered them down on the used price. She drives to work and back, which is just 3 miles away, so lower mileage wasn’t an issue very much.
Paid $1.47 for propane last April (pre-buy for the Oct ‘07-Mar ‘08 season). Folks that didn’t pre-buy for last season paid as high as 2.69 per gal..
Just paid $2.15 a gal. for pre-buy for next season.
Not good. This is going to break alot of folks!
bump
What does CONGRESS have to do with futures?
Should Congress step in and set limits on something that has been a free market function for over 100 years?
The only thing I see politicians doing is the usual class war and envy demagoguery....Obama says we need to do something about “CEO salaries”..
If EVERY American bought ALL their automobile gas for a year from Exxon (the company the media and politicians love to point a finger at) and IF the CEO worked for FREE...it would save the American public 48 cents per year....Yeah, those politicians (particularly liberals) know that they can lead the public by the nose and make them think they are doing something for the little guy.
over 100 years? You are so ignorant, that its clear you aren’t worried about facts...
GO do some research on exactly how long energy futures have been traded.
This isn’t class war, its fact my friend, you can play your market is the alpha and the omega nonsense.. Me, personally, I’ll keep GOD in that category all by himself.
100 years or ten minutes is not the point EINSTIEN..
Answer the ACTUAL question..Are you suggesting that CONGRESS can lowewr gas prices at the pump by regulating the futures markets?...yes or no Mr. Know-it-all....
How has Congress done “helping” us all with say ETHANOL? (they have made quite a mess there...addint to world hunger to boot).
When the democrats were sworn into office as a majority in both houses of congress in 2007, pump prices averaged 2.29 per gallon...they were elected promising to do something about those HIGH prices...average prices are now 1.23 per gallon higher as the pump prices FOLLOWED crude prices up as ASIAN demand SOARED.
You are silly to point only at those MEAN out market traders, and even sillier to put your hope in a democrat contolled congress.
And who in the world knows what you are talking about with the GOD reference.
Keep regurgitating your pinhead talk radio talking point rhetoric, its is so obvious that you are so uninformed that reality is irrellevant to you.
Crude price right now has NOTHING to do with demand or supply.. its all about speculative bubble and has been for at least the last 3 years. Secondly, the price per bbl that the oil companies are paying for the oil out of their own fields is between 75 and 80 a bbl, they aren’t paying the 120ish futures price, but are pricing their product as though they were paying those prices.
Go get a clue, because you clearly don’t have one. Keep worshiping at the alter of the market, with it as the alpha and the omega.. don’t let reality and facts get in your way... you’re head just might have to explode when your dillusions are shattered.
“Crude price right now has NOTHING to do with demand or supply”
Price has everything to do with demand and supply. Demand from India and China isn’t helping, and the weak dollar makes all of our imports expensive.
Keep worshiping at the altar of socialism. You’re delusional if you believe the United States will retain its superior position in the world if we go Marxist at a time everyone is getting competitive. We will become irrelevant.
Gingrich once remarked that the lack of math and science education in America is our greatest security threat. I believe him — Americans cannot even master proper spelling. Some take pride in being “expelled.” *Flunked* is a better description.
It is GOOFY, even dillusional, to suggest that futures speculation by a few is the cause of spikes WORLD wide in crude oil prices. It is in the realm of TIN-FIOL hat conspiracy mind set.
Does it have some impact, of course. But it is NOT THE cause.
You VERY arrogantly assume your view as the Holy Grail, and assign those who offer a dose of reality as “pinheads” spouting talk show rhetoric...a real class act you are.
Additionally if is GOOFY, almost child-like, to assert that demand as NOTHING to do with crude oil supplies right now.
And just for the record concerning domestic crude being processed by evil BIG OIL, consider this:
U.S. crude oil production peaked in 1970 and has declined gradually since then. In 1970, domestic production of crude oil (including lease condensate2) averaged 9.64 million barrels per day (MMbbl/d). In 2006, total U.S. domestic crude oil production, including Federal offshore, averaged 5.102 MMbbl/d, a decrease of about 47% from 1970.
“Secondly, the price per bbl that the oil companies are paying for the oil out of their own fields is between 75 and 80 a bbl, they aren’t paying the 120ish futures price, but are pricing their product as though they were paying those prices.”
More than 65% of the crude processed by US refineries is imported. So to your point, should the pump price be less when considering that approx 35% of the refined product costs considerably less than current world crude barrel prices? Perhaps...on this item I see your point.
Its not a matter of simply being domestically produced, its a matter of oil fields they own or operate around the world. BP/SUNOCO/TEXACO/SHELL etc are not paying 120 BBL for the crude they refine, they buying it from their own fields at about $75-$80 a bbl, regardless of where those fields are located. They aren’t buying it via futures contracts from other producers generally speaking.
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