Posted on 07/26/2008 5:28:44 AM PDT by decimon
All that’s needed is to investigate all the t-Bone Pickens, George Sor*sses, and Warren Buffet-lines, and upon conviction bury them where nobody will ever discover them.
The key word here is “futures”. If China and India’s need for oil continues to grow and there is still only a set supply then of course the price will rise. It is rising on the FUTURE needs. If we lifted the bans on drilling here the price would drop significantly because there would be an influx of oil from another source in the future. It is SUPPLY AND DEMAND, plain and simple.
"Raising taxes must always raise revenues!", etc.
“a finite global oil supply that is controlled by a cartel, which acts like a monopoly. The difference being that instead of setting the price outright, the cartel sets the price by limiting the supply brought to the market.”
There, fixed his statement. I can’t believe the people who are allowed to be “professors”. The only thing these economists profess is that capitalism is bad all the while ignoring the control that despots have over the oil market. Let’s see what the price of oil would be in a true free market where supply and demand truly are free to act.
Hay lets all buy items from China and India just think of ALL the money we will save,and they still do.
I disagree.
In the first place, Irwin sounds like a capitalist arguing against socialistic controls.
Secondly, that the rest of the world is less capitalistic than we, or wholly command and control, is nothing new. That has been true from the beginning of the Republic. Just another reality that we, as capitalist-realists, contend with.
This has been 30 yrs in the making. WE HAVE TO DRILL HERE AND NOW!!! That is the only option.
Duh, hasn’t anyone noticed the government is taking over our banks with our money.
The government has no right to limit free market financial transactions. The fact that it already does is no justification.
Government is always working to end the free market economy, and to acquire all control over all financial transactions.
Not entirley. Demand has been falling for 13 straight weeks. Bloomberg had the story on their energy prices page for about a grand total of four hours this past Tuesday or Wednesday. And they got rid of THAT in a big hurry.
But the price has been rising for those very same 13 weeks up until about a week ago. That is not supply and demand, that is speculation. The President talked about and then lifted the Executive order on offshore drilling. In those two weeks prices crude dropped $24-$25 a barrel. Seventeen percent! That is not supply and demand.
Some will say (Bloomberg) that it is because the Saudis increased production. Nope. They did that weeks before the President talked about and then lifted the Executive order on offshore drilling. Prices never flinched, they just kept right on climbing.
In other words, as soon as there was just a HINT, just a whispered rumor, that the United States might actual tell the likes of the communists (referred to in pee-cee circles as “democrats”) to pizz off, we are going to actually (gasp) drill for crude oil, the price of crude dropped like a rock.
Now is when we need to beat the drum in front of Nutjob Nancy's tent and make everybody look at her when she proclaims "I have no plans to do so," referring to scheduling a vote to lift an offshore drilling ban.
We need people to KNOW that the economic health and national security of the United States is going into the toilet because of one sociopathic nutcase. Nutjob Nancy.
We need to take up a collection and have a straightjacket with her name embroidered across the back delivered to her on the floor of the Senate.
Just imagine what would happen to the price of crude if we,… hang on…, actually did something, like explore and drill offshore on the continental shelf ? Would prices drop when the crude finaly hit the market in two or three years?
Or would the price drop when the drilling platforms are towed into place?
No conspiracy here. That demand has dropped, in the developed countries, has been widely reported. If that has translated to a worldwide reduction in demand then that, from all indications, is a temporary phenomenon and the markets look to the future. It's still about supply/demand.
This guy missed the whole point. The entire argument is long side only index speculators whose total holdings are a large fraction of the entire market. Every other class of speculator has position limits, but not these guys because of the Goldman Sachs “loophole.”
As usual, Congress is “solving” the wrong problem in ways which will only make things worse.
The drop would be immediate. The last thing any of these oil producing countries want is for the USA to become independent.
We are going to crash and burn if something is not done NOW. When it is all said and done, we will see our ecomony sink. Our economy is based on the buying of goods and services, if we are putting all our cash into our gas tanks with nothing left over we will see massive unemployment. Small businesses will take the hit the hardest.
Did he?
"The study shows that a surge in trading by commodity firms has offset the dramatic rise in speculation, maintaining a market balance of buyers and sellers.
“The bottom line is that the balance between hedgers and speculators in our commodity markets today is very much within historical norms for these markets going back to the 1940s,” he said. “We argue that when there’s a buyer and a seller, the market will balance itself.” "
Doesn’t matter if it was not in this country or some other. The price of crude is global. Since the futures market can be viewed as part of the pricing mechanism I suppose one could argue that "everything" is supply and demand. But that is a bit of a stretch as one would be dismissing speculation entirely. And since no other factors changed on the scale of the change in the price during those two weeks (17%), the only factor left that did change that much is the speculative market. It was not a corresponding change in the actual inventory.
What do you want done? What government controls are you calling for? If you are not calling for government controls then what are you doing?
Congress is, and has been the problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.