That's just not true. Speculators impact the price. Opec cotrols the price. Our administration impacts the price. The fed reserve impacts the price. Storage numbers impact the price. Spin and prognostiators impact the price. Supply and demand has litte to do with it. The proof is in the fact that oil rose to an all time high while having alltime high storage numbers.
That's just not true. Speculators impact the price. Opec cotrols the price. Our administration impacts the price. The fed reserve impacts the price. Storage numbers impact the price. Spin and prognostiators impact the price. Supply and demand has litte to do with it. The proof is in the fact that oil rose to an all time high while having alltime high storage numbers.
Speculators are part of the market. Spin and prognostication are part of the market. But speculators speculate and hope to profit from their guesses. Their guesses can have some effect on the market, but they don’t control that effect. They just hope the speculate correctly.
OPEC has their hands on the levers that can control a portion of supply which will affect cost via the market. But the levers on any domestic production of oil is not in the hands of the GOP or the Administration. There has been no evidence that American producers are under GOP control and they have exhibited no actions that appear to be geared towards price manipulation regarding this or any other election cycle and if they did it would be illegal, easily detected, and ineffective.
There has been no evidence that OPEC is manipulating the market to help Republicans. Given the fact that OPEC is largely run by muslims and Venezuela, the concept is absurd.
There is no plausible way to secretly control the markets. If OPEC wanted to shut down or severly trim production, they could drive prices up, but even they couldn’t control the effect on their own profit margins. In addition, such actions would be transparent and most likely bring economic hardship down on them. It is not currently happening, obviously.
Gee, I think you are BOTH right! Yes, the market controls the price, but speculators, Kim Jong Il, Red China, Hugo Chavez and even George W. are part of that market. Oil was sky high with large stores because Iran was taking a threatening posture. One major flare up, and the speculators take a windfall. As it is, they should be taking a bit of a beating right now. When George W. talks about alternative energy incentives and new regulations, that has an effect on things, too.