Just a snip from a very long speech which offers solutions/bills to this wholesale robbery:



A GLOBAL GAMBLING HALL? Someone is due an intervention.

It's always about the bubble. Bubble trouble is Bush/Cheney's pre-meditated middle name.

less demand

more bikes!

That's MY senator! I love Carl Levin!

Levin is one of my favorites. He is absolutely right. Global gambling hall indeed.

Here is a radical Idea....
Forget about the price of oil and everything going up, and start working on OUR PAYCHECKS going up.
That "otter" even things up a bit!
Minimum wage should be $20 an hour!

CEO's hoard, stockpile, put away, amass, store, collect, gather, accumulate, use frivolously,use flippantly, use thoughtlessly, too much money.

From the UK Guardian. Link below:

Guardian Story On Speculation


Germany in call for ban on oil speculation

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 12:53am BST 27/05/2008
German leaders are to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the latest spike in crude prices on manipulation by hedge funds.

It is the most drastic proposal to date amid escalating calls from Europe, the US and Asia for controls on market forces, underscoring the profound shift in the political climate since the credit crunch began. India has already suspended futures trading of five commodities.

Uwe Beckmeyer, transport chief for Germany's Social Democrats, said his party would call for joint measures by the G8 powers to prohibit leveraged trading on energy contracts. "It's an extreme step but it has to be done," he told the Berlin media.

Mr Beckmeyer said the last 25pc rise in the price of oil to $135 a barrel had nothing to do with underlying supply and demand. “It’s pure speculation,” he said.

Oil has doubled in price over the past year and the concerns are echoed on Washington’s Capitol Hill where irate Democrats want rules compelling traders to take delivery of crude oil, a move which would paralyse the market.

There is now broad support in Germany for a clampdown on “locust” funds. President Horst Köhler said modern capitalism had turned into a “monster”, bringing the entire financial system to the brink of collapse this spring.

The Social Democrats form part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition. Her own Christian Democrat Party shares concerns that funds are causing a fresh bubble in commodities, risking further havoc for the real economy and society.

In the long run, any scheme to ban futures trading would be extremely hard to enforce as the markets would tend to move offshore. Hedge funds are probably not the culprit in any case.

Speculators are split, with some betting that oil will fall. The mass of money coming into the commodity indexes is mostly from pension funds and long-term investors.

Oil markets are likely to shrug off the moves as political posturing, instead focusing on Norway’s suspension of crude output at three platforms, cutting supply by 138,000 barrels a day.

The news comes as Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence reported Opec oil shipments fell by 1m barrels per day in the four weeks to May 4, confirming suspicions that the market has been chronically short of supply.

To me there is a weird irony to all of this that can be explained by a Bush Administration obsession to protect America's "Vital Interests". Again, I will ask who made though interests so vital ? Most people give lip service to diversifying their own energy consumption.

I myself have yet to add solar panels to my own home. When I planned the foundation about five years ago, I used the Sun as guide hoping to add solar panels to the roof on down the road. If I could afford a tractor and/or new pick-up truck, I would go for natural gas fired engines using local and available resources. In fact, an entire farm could be operated here on natural gas and perhaps coal, to include electricity generation solely dependent on local and available resources. There is so much natural gas in this area that local industry could be enhanced through utilizing that energy source in the manufacturing sector creating new jobs and stimulating local economies. Over fifty new wells are being drilled, fractured and added to the pipeline this year.

I may be a little off subject here but the overall picture is price stability of our vital interests. Lessoning demand on foreign oils reduces future speculation so the net effect would be more price stability. The Saudis are considering tapping an untapped field in their Kingdom. Like the Anwar theory, proven reserves tapped have a tendency to reduce speculation as new available sources come online. Of course, strategic reserves figure in there and do matter as evidenced recently by shutting down stockpiling here in the United States in a time when destablity in the Middle East sort of nullifies any gains hoarding crude at this time period in history. And the wildcard Iraq, has numerous fields untapped, something like 9 out of 17 fields have yet to be tapped. Of the 9 already tapped, natural gas in burned off and the enviroment was ruined due to bad technology like pumping water into the oil fields to extract oil. An American contractor did the natural resource survey of Iraq prior to expiration of sanctions, it is quite an enlightening report, let me tell you.

Globally, I think that it is in everyone's interest to reduce this vital interest obsession. There was kind of the same obsession over Vietnam for a different vital interest involving national security that few people talk about today but relates to Iraq in real time right now. Kissinger found out much later in life that most people in Indo-China just wanted American boots off of their soil too. Before us, they wanted French Colonists off their land, etc... etc...

So far, and meaning no disrespect to Arabs, we have all become patsys to OPEC. My thoughts this day concern enabling insanity by acting with insanity which makes no sense to me. There are noble goals behind alot of operations and yet illogical and irrational means sort of nullify any gains to be had. I still have a Habeous Corpus hangover here because they were warned along time ago and so it is today. What's next on the list, hmmmm, Posse Commatis, unlawful imprisonment, wholesale violatons of Civil Rights to include each inclusion of the Bill of Rights,,,the list goes on and on...

Literally, I got my own vital interests right here, right now and readily available with minimal infrastructure improvements which could empower me to stablize global markets in my own little way.

Interesting post, A little dot on earth.

It's all lies and delusions on paper and dreamed up by some pathological form of greed. They get the prize!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan, let's HOPE the rest of the world gets a clue and shuts down the global gambling hall.



Was watching Moyers last evening. One guest was talking of these free marketers (Friedmanites). He believed "they" did not even REALLY believe their own bullshit by all indications of their real behavior.

They're just lyin' greedy, snake oil salesman.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey, Lila, I'm ready to ride the bike. I just need to not get run-overed by the passing SUV or random semi on my left.



Anyway, I'm glad Randi has been opening up this subject for more understanding and systematically debunking all the damn lies repeated in the media about our present situation.

Pathological liars is a good term. I would add to that an m/o of "Sticking to the story". And just what prize did they win ? If the prize is food riots evidencing growing instability in the world, I would say their efforts have been counter-productive. I would like some of the usual suspects using Christianity as a political advantage to explain to me how this expansion of chaos fits into "Feed my sheep" literally. One suggestion that I have is to look up a voting record striking down Habeous Corpus amendment to the new and improved Detainee Act ordered by the Supreme Court. Seems to me in the scope of things, a pathological semi-noble effort only provided a short-term relief delaying accountablity and/or liabilities. Sort of like continued instability on Arab soils increases speculation of fuel shortages in oil markets. I look for a big price jump in the price of crude on Sunday night our time because negoiations on future security of Iraq are in the toilet today. In fact, political posturing in Iraq anticipating provincial elections uses threats of more instability to come as a political tool. Wow, just like the fear-n-smear politicians of the United States, wtg Condi.

Those rabate checks didn't do shit, and we all knew it wouldn't work, but hey, why not try to bribe us? That's what it was, a bribe, they bribe each other all the time, so the tried it on us.

Tap, excuse me for being a butinski, but did you see the stock market yesterday ? There was a one-percent increase in retail sales which was attributed to the rebate checks. However, day traders bought into this idea of a temporary influx in disposable income in my world. That's because the bigger picture shows major corporations like G.E. and Exxon Mobil are getting out of retail sales.

Sales do not equate to profits. Quarterly earnings statements will show if major retailers used this temporary influx of disposable income to generate sales in the Summer sales season to dump off inventories expecting a deeper and longer lasting recession. In otherwords, did they dump off using rebates to dig themselves foxholes for the long haul ? Quarterly earnings statements are the real deal to measure economic stimulation. But politics will say, "See my plan is working". Cheney said the rebate checks were just in time. Just in time for what, historical inflationary prices for gasolene Dick ? Once a bullshitter always a bullshitter, so what.

If we were to cut to the chase there is a noble idea incorporated into the WTO Charter which is "Commerce without Conquest" which goes back to real enlightened societies such as the Phoenicians of 10,000 years ago ? Unfortunately, neocons flunkies like Wolfo and Bolton were appointed to world bodies trying to influence powers to adopt neocon experimentation. On a global basis, they are busted in spirit anyway. I understand now Wolfo is working for another Thinktank trying to stop the spread of Chaos, go figure. Heritage Foundation is on my shitlist too as supporting neocon objectives which devalued America in numerous areas, the least of all is equity. There are greater losses to be accounted prior to accounting material losses in enlightened societies in general. What a bunch of greedy fat pigs.

Which is why I ask what's going to happen when the bubble bursts. Will there be a pension fund crisis? Will we be expected to bail them out?

It's a bit surprising that you use politically conservative sources to support your argument. Perhaps Paul Krugman has a better explanation than I could muster:

Speculators probably had some involvement in the price increase, but if we miss the bigger picture that the oil is running out, what have we accomplished? I wish Randi would have considered this incident as a warning, not as evidence that a bunch of greedy, evil speculators were ripping us off. The sooner we realize the party's over and start to move to alternative/renewal energy sources the less painful it will be. Now that we've been warned, we'll do something, right? I mean it'll be different than after the 70s oil shock, right?

It seems to me that both schools of thought apply. Yes, speculators have made this problem much worse on the consumer than it needed to be at this time. But also, yes, there is an oil shortage because we have reached the time of diminishing supplies. The speculators' will not only make money on the rising prices, but they also will pressure the consumers to consider more drilling. It's a win/win situation for the oil companies and a lose/lose proposition for consumers.

Those who have opposed drilling in protected areas before, may see things differently now, because they themselves are hurting financially and there is a growing fear that things will only get worse. Some people will throw caution to the wind and embrace reckless programs of the oil industry, just as they embraced reckless programs of the defense industry after 9/11. The "we don't care what you have to do, just protect us" mentality still exists and now infects the issue of oil dependency as well as "national security". By worsening the oil crisis, the big moneyed interests exploit a national vulnerability to rake in the profits. Also, this crisis is conveniently exploited now, when the Republicans and the oil industry are still controlling the executive branch of government, as well as much of Congress.

But all these mitigating factors, along with industry manipulation, do not mean that the issue of PEAK OIL is not real. It is. Suddenly people are beginning to wake up and realize the immense implications of peak oil on our governmental policy, whether it's regulation of industry or commitment to OIL WARS. No political subject can be viewed with clarity without a deep understaning of the issue of peak oil.

Of course, Michael Ruppert and his website From the Wilderness have been warning us of these realities since 2001, if not longer. Because of his relentless reporting of these issues, Ruppert has been harassed mercilessly by the government, so badly that for a time, he sought safety in Venezuela, before realizing they could get to him anywhere. Thankfully his articles on peak oil still exist.

If you want to know about peak oil and what it means to each of us, you can read it here:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.shtml#oil

Everyone knows that hoarding is a natural element of human experience. That's part of the story.

Btw, it was Randi who said make the oil worthless. Not so black and white as YOU paint.

And it is way past the time to pop that oil bubble!

Grrr. Is no one capable of forethought? What happens when we burst the bubble? What are the consequences? Specifically, what's going to the pension funds?

Also, how can we pop the big oil bubble withut giving big money a place to go? Clinton was largely successful because of the internet bubble and the telcom bubble. Where's the next bubble? Micro energy? Telcom again? Renewables? Rechargeables? Energy conservation?

Of course. That's the scheme.

It has to give one way or the other. If the public is smart and diligent then it will be different. These are the same people that made it close enough for GWB to have the SCOTUS appoint him emperor. So unless it continues to cause them real and direct pain they will continue on the same path. Very much is riding on the November elections...


All of the above...


THE GREEN BUBBLE!

Tom Freidman was on Democracy Now some time ago and Amy Goodman just shattered him. He got so defensive he started sputtering. He's a shill -- a neo-liberal -- which is basically the same as a neo-conservative except that neo-liberals expect you to say "thank you" after you're job has been outsourced or your country invaded. They are ideologues as well and their arguments collapse when you press them on quoting facts and or sources.

What is Rahm Emmanuel?

If Randi talked about Peak Oil I must have missed it. Ok. speculation is part of the story, but she bashed the speculators far more than explaining the fundamental problem of declining oil supplies. After all, the speculators hoard would have had little price impact if it had been offset by greater world supply. But as we know, the world's oil supply has leveled in the last 3 years.

Although bashing speculators seems to be in vogue, you might want to consider a silver lining. Since most of the money in those index funds came from pension funds and university endowments, your gas money in part went to help people prepare or maintain their retirement income and help universities provide scholarships (it wouldn't surprise me if Harvard's well known endowment had some money in those index funds). Not to mention, less gas was consumed, the air is a bit cleaner, and Saudi Arabia has less of our money. Oh yeah, and they did give us one hell of a warning.

Also, I'm not quite clear on who Randi is actually bashing. Is it the investment firms that provide the index funds, or the people who provided the money to the investment firms? I'd say many of those investors are not wealthy, but working class people just trying to provide for their retirement. And the endowments provide scholarships to working class families. Are we to blame the fund managers who are doing their job, by providing a return to these investors? Or are we to blame the investors who shouldn't have given the money in the first place? Even if the results were harmful, could we say that all these people had greedy or evil intent?

Doesn't anyone else think it's rather strange that Randi has adopted the conservative view (according to Paul Krugman) on this topic?

Anyway, I think I've added a few shades of gray that Randi missed.

Personally, I think prices should stay high, even if done artifically. Before you start flaming me, promise you won't come back here next spring and blame another boogyman for the insane price of gasoline.

I'm not as familiar with him as I am with the other Friedman -- Uncle Miltie Friedman out of Naomi Klein 101 - Disaster Capitalism fame. I imagine they are cousins in ideology, though.

Whatever. I don't like your personal tone. Please fame it down painster.

What we are concerned about here is people being able to buy their way to work (is hitchhiking our way to work in our future?) - a short term problem that needs to be fixed quick. Also of note: The normal average, run of the mill poor person needs to buy food to eat that they can afford - not have to steal. Just a few little things of concern here. Get it.

Please read Levin's speech - it is all encompassing and just not centered on Congress keeping a watchful eye on markets being manipulated. I don't think you did that? And I don't think Randi was over-focused on one boogey. Sorry.

Thanks, Eggy. Good quote. I still doubt that many people see the problem coming. "Paine" even seems to thing pension investments of this sort are a good idea.

Senator Levin is one of Michigan's treasures, to be sure.

Love that guy.

His assessment is spot on! And the point is that you have to look at the supply and demand of any commodity and where that leads you, you have to acclimate. Fine. But this is not supply and demand, this is market fixing and speculation. Big difference. Right now Oil should be a little lower than 100 dollars a barrel considering the weak dollar and world demand. Countries are hoarding their produced oil rather than putting it on the market to keep the prices high, and traders never have to deal with the physical oil, they just trade futures.

How do we fix this? People that buy oil should have the capacity to market it or sell it, fair enough.

Look, if there was a limited supply of X product, and this kind of business needed it. What would happen if someone who wasn't in that business at all hoarded all of the supplies and then offered to resell it to the businesses at double the price? And to top it off, it was for future products, so the hoarder doesn't even have to find a location to put all this crap. By the time he sells to the desparate buyer, all he has to do is tell them to pick it up at the same place they would have.

So this fellow is making money purely by extortion. Now another fellow comes along and thinks this is a great idea. But he's smart, he's not going to compete with this guy, he's gonna work with this guy and drive the price even higher. Then another fellow, and then more come in. The next thing you know, ten guys are all getting a chunk of change off this product before the poor sap that just needed it ever gets a chance at it. All of these guys never stored anything, needed it for anything, they just all wanted some money off it.

It's Enron all over again, this is what they did in California, and this is why they now have the Governator.

Regulate things like this, it's the right thing to do. When I read people saying that this helps their 401k realize that poor people suffer the most from this, and they are the ones least likely to have a pension fund. 5 dollars a gallon is nothing to me, I admit I have been lucky in that regard, and my stocks are looking good in the energy sector, but I can just put that money somewhere else, trust me on that.

But every little increase in daily living expenses means a lot more to the poor, and I was raised poor. It means families may not be able to visit each other as often as they like, they may not be able to see the country they live in. That's terrible.

The Wyoming shale deposit has enough oil to fully supply our country for 50 years, and there is ecologicallyn sensitive methods of extracting it using heat to age the deposit so the oil is extractable without strip mining it. There is more oil there than in the entire middle east, and it is the largest deposit in the world of any kind.

Start heating the shale (It takes 3 years to make the oil), drop the prices. The shale is economically profitable at even 30 dollars a barrel. Add a hefty surcharge to harvesting it and by the time that shale is dry we will have fully funded alternative and clean energy that will sustain the country and the world long term.

No doubt my message is painful (or maybe Paineful), but not personal.


I don't think there is a quick fix. Even if you bring down prices now, you are asking for a bigger shock in the future. More people will not get to work (that is, if there is any work to be had). People needing help now, will have to be subsidized by the government (Obama's idea).

Carl Levin's piece devotes 3 paragraphs to alternative source developement, the rest of it blames oil companies, Bush, weak dollar, India/China, tribal gangs, and yes speculators. While I don't doubt that all these things more or less contribute to the problem, the elephant in the room is the production/supply problem. Levin's piece demonstrates that politicians don't want to talk about it, much anyway. The reason being, it's going to be expensive to develope new sources, build new vehicles as well as the infrastructure to support them. This is something the public does not want to hear. Any politician "crazy enough" to tell them so, risks his office, and so we get platitudes from Levin like, "It doesn’t have to be this way". Well guess what, it is this way, not only because of all those things mentioned above, but because of you and me and the whole rest of the public. Someone is due an intervention? Yeah, it's us.


She called speculators "thieves". Did she call SUV owners thieves? How about people that drive faster than 55, wasting by some estimates $.85/gallon? Who's worse, the hoarders or the gluttonous users? I think Randi did focus.

BTW, I find it funny that Randi bashes speculators, while she runs an ad asking people to speculate in gold. Soon she'll be like Mike Malloy who's pissed off just about everyone.

I believe the difference is you take possesion of the gold you are speculating, and these chaps do not ever possess the oil they "buy".

Well whatever, that definition doesn't include me, I don't speculate and I drive a hybrid.

So far the only excuse I've heard from both the oil companies and the Bush Administration in regards to the high gas/oil prices is due to increase in demand. Yet every study/poll I have seen says demand is decreasing, that people are dirving less, car pooling, taking public transportation due to the high gas prices. And now I am hearing that....I think it is Saudi Arabia.....is going to step up the production of oil because of the increase in demand. Huh?

Are you a speculator?

~~~~~~~~~~


First off there can be solutions to our present problems that will help allevitate some of the pain to the poor and what's left of the middles class.



As I said BEFORE, the world is not as black and white as you portray it in your writing.

Randi's stance on the environment is impeccable, and ownership of gold is not speculation as far as I know.

And the minimization of Levin's speech? Why you do that?

(correction: I meant to say "flame" instead of "fame" in previous post)




Btw, new sources (Greening the Economy) should fall to the brand new entrepreneur, and incentives should be set up by Congress. This is my dream.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are just here to bash NovaM's talent, right?

Does it make what I've stated any more or less valid? Like the journalist who remains neutral, I think I'll do the same.

On the contrary, I think I've added a touch of gray to this topic. I am sure Randi knows there's more to this topic than speculators. Wait a minute, she's bashing speculators as I write this. I think I'll let her own words stand as my evidence.

I don't disagree on the first phrase. As to the second phrase, if you know the future price of gold then I guess it's not.

I'm pointing out the major part of the problem. People want cheap energy, aren't willing to pay for the switch to new sources, and so politicians never take any real action except for playing the blame game. If this wasn't true don't you think we would have made the switch long before now? Wasn't the 70's shock enough? Apparently not. While the U.S. wallows in denial, the Europeans have developed their public transportation with gas taxes, Iceland has switched to geothermal/hydrogen power and Brazil has moved to ethanol.

Can't argue with that, but the incentives will cost us, and how many of the public are willing to spend the money now as I've already mentioned?

No, Mike Malloy jokes all the time about pissing everyone off. Just speculating that Randi was picking up on his habits. )

You left out, not driving over 55.

I would think it would be worse to possess it. Then you could hoard it as long as you pleased. Speculators have to sell the contracts within some time frame, thus returning it to the spot or cash market. From my understanding the index fund contracts usually run out in about a month or two. So if the oil is returning to the spot market, why is the price still going up?

Because oil price is determined primarily by risk - it is an actuarial calculation like insurance. If the Middle East is in turmoil or Israel says it's going to bomb Iran, the inherent risk to supply is increased.
Traders i.e. the speculators you are referring to, "trade the news". They accept a certain amount of risk in the hope of making a large profit. Today, for instance, the news was that the Saudis would be pumping more oil - oil price dropped a few bucks after a shot up. That's essentially how oil price works.

The oil futures contract delivery months are January through December. Expiration is the last day of the month. Settlement is in the "binary option" style - a cash settlement on the expiration date with an all/or nothing payout.

Click to view attachment

Traders sold today on the Saudi news.

See attachment.

What makes you think "the people" won't pay more for alternative energy? The people will pay what they have to pay to get what they have to have, if they can afford it. However, "the people" can't afford to pay the price they are now paying, and soon will lose their cars and homes so it will all be a moot point.

The 70s crash was countered by Jimmy Carter trying to do something about our dependence on fossil fuels. However, the first thing Reagan (aka Poppy Bush) did when he got in the White House was dump everything Carter tried to do and set us right back on the path to fossil fuels.

You can't put an oil man in office and expect anything different to happen. What you are seeing has nothing to do with what the people want, it has more to do with who controls the money and the congress and right now it is controlled by major corporations.

You know that's really a lot of crap. Why? Because any alternative fuel is subject to the same free market dynamics as oil. If there are unlimited resources to oil (which there are) and unlimited resources of other fuels (which there is not), the process is still the same.
Do you think that companies who develop alternative fuels are going to give it away? Do you think that alternative fuels are any less subject to diminishing returns on supply?

Energy is the life of the community. Whoever holds the key, be it oil or whatever, has a key worth a great deal of money.

There is no free market. The market is rigged and has been since at least 1980. Pay attention, how many mom and pop hardware stores are there in YOUR town?

That's also a lot of crap. Small business comprises 3% of all American companies and 60% of all employer firms.

See attached to be educated.

How many mom and pop stores are there? Practically every franchise in America is a "mom and pop" enterprise. Not everyone is working for Intel or CitiGroup.

Click to view attachment

Randi insists speculators are thieves. She further submits we know this because demand is down, and supply is sufficient so the high prices are unjustified. Well, that may be true for the U.S., but oil is a global commodity.

The following data shows the world's oil production has leveled.http://www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/supply.html
World Oil Supply (production of crude oil and other liquids)
2005 Average 84,631 thousand barrels/day
2006 Average 84,598 "
2007 Average 84,548 "

This gif shows the world's oil consumption along with U.S. consumption:http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Fig5.gif
You'll see from the graph that U.S consumption has gone down, but world consumption is up.

I submit Randi's evidence for calling them thieves is incomplete and misleading. Maybe Randi shouldn't be speculating on speculators.

BTW, she didn't mention speculators are taking hurricane related oil disruptions (among other things) into account.

Answer me this Batman: Why did W. keep putting oil in the Strategic Oil Preserve . . .. until Congress finally had to take his keys away, and tell him to go sit in the corner and stay away. What was THAT all about?

You left out the supply side. See: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/ieopol.pdf

The projection is for US production to continue to rise, so that near-term future domestic demands will be met with increases in domestic production. Likewise, near-term future world demand will be met with increases in world production.

There's no supply-demand justification for rising prices.

It was about getting ready to double the size of the reserve.

Why double? For security?

How about this?

World Production vs. Consumption:
My numbers in excel format come from here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo

World Annual Production 2008 : 86.54 mbpd growth 1.98969%
from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/xls/Fig7.xls

World Annual Consumption 2008 86.38 mbpd growth .99925%
from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/xls/Fig5.xls

86.54 - 86.38 = .16 mbpd surplus world production

So there is a bit of a surplus. However, since the U.S. uses about 20.4 mbpd, that surplus represents 0.8% (.16/20.4) or about 11.5 minutes (.008*24*60) supply.

This demonstrates how tight supply and demand is.

Please show your numbers here. I have a hard enough time finding and assembling my numbers.
mbpd = million barrels per day

Randi wasn't bashing ALL speculators. She was bashing those speculators who "play with" the market and artificially induce higher prices with nothing but paper to back it up. This is a big part of what caused the Great Depression, which I'm sure you know since you are so educated in economics.

I can't balance my check book, but I know this much, Randi is right when she says there is no supply shortage because there are no lines at the gas station. I remember the 70s, I remember knowing even then, as politically unaware as I am, that there was no real shortage then either, even with the lines. The only shortage was to the consumer, but there was plenty of crude.

These people need to be regulated. They need to be stopped. They are a danger to our economy when they play with something as crucial to our survival and our market as oil.

If they did the same thing with bombs they'd be tortured in Gitmo. Instead, its just another day at the office for these terrorists.

I am aware of that. Her evidence that speculators were responsible was that demand was down and supplies were sufficient. I challenged that evidence and found it wasn't true on the global level. Demand is up, and supply vs. demand is tight. I don't think I said "all", if I did, I retract it.

So how do you figure out if the speculators are criminals? How do you determine if the run-up is legitimate or not? There's no evidence. I've discounted Randi's evidence (check prior postings). People are only speculating about the speculators. Are they crooks or not? Apparently some here are betting they are. I don't gamble.

I agree if criminality can be proven.

Consider this. Normally speculators will take opposing sides of a price. That is, some will bet the price is going down, some will bet it's going up. Those that are right, profit, and those that are wrong lose. This tug-of-war with profit as the motive to choose correctly sets the price according to economic conditions. Well that's how it's suppose to work. It could go wrong if somehow most if not all got on one side of the bet. Then you could see an unexpected run-up or run-down in price. So how did they all end up on one side of the bet? Many here seem to think it's collusion or some such nefarious activity. Perhaps. But it could also be due to "group think" or just a coincidence and that's not intentional. And so I'm back to my previous paragraph, asking, "How do you prove it?".


Not me. I'm just trying to figure it all out.

So are we, but I saw what Enron did to California, I don't see the lines I saw in the 70s. No one is issuing gas based on odd/even license plates. No stations are closed saying they can't get gas.

They did the same thing to us in the 70s but at least they were smart enough to actually cut off the supply first. So forgive me if I don't believe the problem is supply. I've seen people play with stocks before. I remember the junk bond problem. You see a lot in 50 years and while we have laws, I know they aren't being enforced.

Our congress believes something fishy is going on and if the neocons are involved, then I tend to believe they are guilty because that's what they've shown me the past 30 years.

I believe Randi.

Ms. Rhodes is dead wrong on speculators. They can drive price up but they can also drive price down. Trading is a zero sum game. The price is oil is determined based on risk and risk alone. Traders merely look at the risk and trade with the trend or against it, depending on which side of the market they favor.

Randi doesn't do her homework.