In 2008...what was the price of oil compared to the price of gas?
July 2008 crude oil was $137.11 and gas prices were about this high. http://dow-futures.net/historical-crude-oil-prices-history-2008/
So oil is now just a little over $100...and gas prices are this high?
Where’s all the screaming and yelling today about the speculators or are we just supposed to wave our hands and call it inflation? Where is all this profit taking and looting going?
/shot in the dark..
When the media reports oil price in the US, they use the price for WTI deliveried to Cushing, OK. That is done because it is the basis for the NYSE commodities oil price for next month.
Cushing is having a surplus of oil due to larger domestic production around the Permian basin and some other factors. Where the WTI price has normally been a premium to our imported oil price, it is now trading at a discount.
But that doesn't change the fact that most of the oil we use in the US is imported. So most of our Gasoline is from the higher priced oil than that quoted in the media.
If you look at the following two source of data you can see this switch. The latest average cost of domestic oil is a few dollars cheaper than our average imported price. Back in July of 2008 the imported price was several dollars less.
U.S. Crude Oil Domestic Acquisition Cost by Refiners
http://eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=R1200____3&f=M
U.S. Crude Oil Imported Acquisition Cost by Refiners
http://eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=R1300____3&f=M
So the price of oil that is quoted by the media represents a minority of the oil that is actually processed in this county. And since 2008, the ratio of domestic oil versus imported oil has raised which compounds that difference.
In the 1973 -1974 oil crisis (the "oil embargo") American news media ran photos and video showing hundreds of loaded oil tankers offshore of American ports, waiting over the horizon for oil prices to get bumped up before they would come in and unload.
They were basically being used as floating storage to exploit price swings. There were so many tankers doing this worldwide that there was an actual shortage of tankers to transport new oil.
Of course in 1973 Richard Nixon was president, so the media had no problem attacking him and his policies over the price of oil. Today there is little chance they will do anything that would connect skyrocketing oil prices to Obama's inept administration and destructive policies.
“In 2008...what was the price of oil compared to the price of gas?
July 2008 crude oil was $137.11 and gas prices were about this high. http://dow-futures.net/historical-crude-oil-prices-history-2008/
So oil is now just a little over $100...and gas prices are this high?
Where’s all the screaming and yelling today about the speculators or are we just supposed to wave our hands and call it inflation? Where is all this profit taking and looting going?”
That was pre- QE 27.
Speculators are not the dynamic in prices rising.
They follow the trend wherever it goes and right now the trend is upward.
The fact that there is now QE is the major dynamic along with a chilling effect by the current adim on drilling exploration and excessive regulation to achieve a political, not economic, agenda.
Don’t expect major downward trends just yet.