[vrwc1]

Just goes to show how much speculation was driving the cost of crude way above its "real" value.

[griswold3]

Be patient. Let the rest of the commodities reach their natural level. And they will.

[ari-freedom]

no credit, no speculation because there’s no leverage

[DoughtyOne]

A b s o l u t e l y !

[Alberta's Child]

It wasn't just speculation -- it was a steep decline in the value of the U.S. dollar.

Odd as this may seem in the midst of all the financial chaos here in the U.S., the U.S. dollar has actually gotten considerably STRONGER in the last few months against most world currencies. And THAT is what has driven this decline in oil prices.

[SouthTexas]

It’s the same thing driving stocks and commodities down, fear. Funndy thing is, it was the fear of not being able to get it, that drove the price upwards.

[frogjerk]

Gasoline looks like it is dropping a couple of cents every single day.

[SAJ]

And speculation is driving it right back down. Amazin’, ain’t it?

[TommyDale]

So is gas back to $1.99 per gallon now?

[Brilliant]

It’s a plot by George Soros. Why is it falling just as Obama is becoming President?

[familyop]

You’ve seen the stampede of bears. Moo! OPEC will be mad when its peoples run out of toilet paper again. Next, east and south Asia will further stock-up reserves.

[R W Reactionairy]

IMO it was not speculation per se, but the most highly leveraged speculators did become part of the game. The basic supply / demand for oil does not look that bad.

Oil. Metals [except for maybe gold]. Stocks. Debt instruments other than treasuries. All getting beat into the ground by the great de-leveraging as cash becomes king ... at least for now. When the commercial paper market isn't functioning, cash prevails over maintaining optimal product inventories.

You may see $50 oil in the near future, but if so it will not be a cause for celebration. It will mean that world economy is in the dumpster / the financial markets are tied up in knots or both. Longer term, look for higher oil prices at least in real terms. It isn't getting easier to find or cheaper to produce anywhere on earth and at 86 million barrels a day the world needs to find another billion barrels every 12 days ... and that ain't happening nearly often enough.

[xmission]

Why aren’t we hammering the fact that the oil drilling bans have expired, and the price is dropping? The MSM is tying this to the economy, and letting the libtards off the hoof for holding the price of oil high by holding America’s assets hostage.

[RobRoy]

And as the last layer of “perceived inflation” is peeled away with oil prices, our deflation is fully exposed.

It’s hard to monetize debt when you are in deflation. And we have never needed to monetize it more than right now.

My gosh this is going to get ugly! At least we’ll have relatively cheap gas for a while...