dear idiot Republicans

welcome to exactly what you wanted

no government interference in the markets

America is so much better off eh?

6/6/2008 10:36:00 PM

stfu ^ you ball-less fucks

israel is its own entity.

6/6/2008 10:42:24 PM

^^ Oh great, another thing for you to try to pin on big business.

What did big business do to you anyway? Did a CEO fuck your girlfriend or something?


If you'd care to notice, skyrocketing oil price is a global phenomenon. No amount of market regulation is gonna change the fact that demand is rising and supply is inelastic.

6/6/2008 10:51:09 PM

Not true. If the government manages to cause a major recession then demand will drop and prices will fall, problem solved. It should require no more than 10% unemployment to get oil under $70.

6/6/2008 11:34:20 PM

Quote :

"Oh great, another thing for you to try to pin on big business."

All the analysts are saying hedge funds and speculators are buying up huge oil futures contracts to drive the price up. And the lame dick president isn't going to investigate his cronies. Its the real estate run up and crash all over again.

6/7/2008 12:56:19 AM

Government suffers from trying to control things they don't properly understand. (e.g. Fed keeping rates too low for too long)

Business suffers from a sort of tragedy of the commons. (e.g. "So long as the music is playing, you've got to keep dancing", Mozilo, Summer 2007)

Any way you look at it maintaining a healthy economic is a tough fix.

6/7/2008 2:05:49 AM

^^ It's true, speculators are doing this. It'll be their own downfall though as public anger leads to government threats to take action, then by their own volition (to avoid pain and suffering on their part) they quit buying so much to avoid an investigation of their methods/rationale. If their purchasing scheme drops a bit and the price of oil starts to go down their only choice might be to sell, as once you piss off the public and the public writes their senator about "those god damn speculators" they generally won't do anything else sketchy to avoid being investigated.

That's being optimistic, but as soon as more voices start to say "hey what the fuck are you doing" and some investigation is done to see how much purchasing in the oil markets is due to speculators and how much is actually due to market demand, it'll lead to some sort of investigation that'll pop the bubble. I don't think the government has to go and take over the oil markets or ban speculating or anything like that. Putting more rational limits on the amount of speculating that can occur that is not related to actual demand could be within order, but it's more intervention than I'd like to see. If they won't self-regulate though, somebody's going to have to do something about it, I agree.

I'd just prefer the "you'd betta change your ways, faggot" method before the "hi I'm senator so and so and me and my douchebag friends have passed a law which bans speculating in american markets" method.

^ Good post, I like the way you worded that, lol. I definitely don't think one entity should be the absolute solution over the other. The government just needs to go through and shake things up every now and then, not regulate businesses to within an inch of bankruptcy.

[Edited on June 7, 2008 at 2:15 AM. Reason : ]

6/7/2008 2:14:24 AM

Quote :

"All the analysts are saying hedge funds and speculators are buying up huge oil futures contracts to drive the price up. And the lame dick president isn't going to investigate his cronies."

So now the oil speculators are Bush cronies? Wait, what?

Sometimes you just need to stop, take a deep breath, and realize that you are batshit insane and borderline paranoid schizophreniac.

6/7/2008 3:27:24 AM

the speculators and Congress meeting with Oil executives is just a smokescreen, the real blame is on how shitty the dollar is.

6/7/2008 11:09:52 AM

Oil analyst: "Oil will be $150 a barrel by July"

Oil futures investors: *panics*

End result: Oil is $150 a barrel by July

6/7/2008 11:15:26 AM

The Speculators need to sit the fuck down and just stop listening to Al Gore.

We aren't going to run out of oil for another 500 years.

6/7/2008 11:55:59 AM

6/7/2008 12:09:24 PM

so more drilling would close the gap. thanks

6/7/2008 12:51:26 PM

Quote :

" It's true, speculators are doing this. It'll be their own downfall though as public anger leads to government threats to take action,"

Nonsense. Speculators are buying slips of paper called futures contracts. Oil inventories are closely tracked and there is no evidence that anyone has started hoarding physical oil, they are all hoarding pieces of paper. As the speculators in question never accept delivery of the oil entitled by the contracts, opting instead to either take cash or sell them, there is no physical effect upon oil demand: all oil produced is delivered to consumers.

As such, in today's market speculation is irrelevant. All current price increases are due to indefensibly high growth in Chinese importation. Unlike American speculators, it does turn out that the Chinese are hoarding physical oil products in preparation for the olympics. I have even heard stories they are switching some of their coal-fired power plants to burn diesel in order to reduce smog during the olympics.

6/7/2008 9:01:44 PM

Quote :

"We aren't going to run out of oil for another 500 years."

wtf...500 years......i'd freaking hope in the next like 30 years we figure out something thats better than gas

6/9/2008 3:06:02 AM

500 years is an exaggeration, but even if no alternative fuel proves viable in the near future, we'll be alright.

Quote :

"The United States has the largest known deposits of oil shale in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 2,500 gigabarrels of potentially recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current rates for 110 years."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale

At $20 a barrel, oil from oil shale is worthless. But at $130 a barrel, suddenly all that oil shale in our backyard becomes very valuable.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 3:31 AM. Reason : 2]

6/9/2008 3:29:19 AM

N/M

ALL IS WELL

Wait...you don't eat or drive do you?

Oh...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/13/AR2008061301264.html?hpid=topnews

6/13/2008 6:51:36 PM

Everything is so confusing right now.

I almost feel like what we might be beginning to feel is a break from the traditional idea of inflation and deflation.

All signs point to us heading for a deflationary period in the US, however it seems like a number of commodities will break away from the rest of the economy. Food I would guess will be the most extreme example of this, as well as investments realted to the water supply. Oil too, to a degree, but that is a trickier animal.

However, at this same time, retailers in general are facing some of the smallest profit margins ever, so as demand wanes how will they go about cutting prices?

It seems like our standard of living will only be able to support itself as long as techonogy keeps pace.

6/13/2008 7:16:42 PM

The general discussion about oil's economic impact is all static analysis, IMO. The question of alternative energy depends not only on technology, but also on oil itself.

We'll drive cars that run on gas until a cheaper alternative is found. That statement is self-evident. What's less obvious, is that the definition of "cheaper" changes daily as the price of oil rises.

When we pass the point of equilibrium, then alternative energy sources are cheaper just by virtue of oil being expensive. Then people will adopt a lot of alternative fuel sources. That adoption will then drive technological progress and the equilibrium between oil and alternative fuel will be pushed down.

When oil costs $10/gallon (God forbid), an electric car that costs $9.99/"gallon" (say, for 30 miles of usage over its lifetime) will start to be an acceptable alternative and people will switch. Then electric car companies will be better capitalized and have better ability to fund new models at lower costs. You can extrapolate out how this plays out, as the price of oil would then drop due to lowered demand, and so on ...

This dynamic is a big reason I think, for example, that Peak Oil and other soothsayers are full of shit. Right now oil is expensive, but it's still "cheap." There is a point where cumbersome new technology and over-used oil meet in the middle, and interesting stuff starts to happen. One of the nice things about the Tesla roadster (for example -- maybe Prius too) is we now have a starting point for figuring out where that equilibrium is.

I won't bet on doom & gloom -- the economy is dynamic.

[Edited on June 13, 2008 at 8:27 PM. Reason : foo]

6/13/2008 8:26:29 PM

^

How does this affect the Peak Oil hypothesis, though?

6/13/2008 9:36:41 PM

dont worry fellas. The dems put up that bill to expand unemployment benefits and make it where you only have to work 2 weeks to draw up to a year of unemployment. Gotta love a democrat.

Repubs blocked it.. but the dems are going to bring it back.

6/13/2008 10:22:23 PM

^^Substitute goods. I'm sure you are familiar with the concept.

It's not so much that the theory of Peak Oil is wrong, it's the idea that there will be catastrophic ramifications as soon as we hit that theoretical peak production. Peak Oil theorists frequently cite a number of alarming effects of reaching this peak, from sky-high prices and a global depression to a full-blown Malthusian Catastrophe.

Realistically, oil prices cannot exceed a certain threshold before petroleum products are replaced by alternatives. And as Smoker4 stated, the market is dynamic. Businesses and consumers have the ability to modify their energy habits. It's only a matter of time before electric cars and alternative energy generation becomes the norm. Oil will find it's natural equilibrium at a price comparable to that of these alternatives.

6/13/2008 11:29:30 PM

Quote :

"It's only a matter of time before electric cars and alternative energy generation becomes the norm."

They said this in the 1970s, too. At the same time they were making these "peak oil" static analyses and scarecasts...

A matter of time can be generations.

The market is dynamic, yes. But that doesn't speak to the degree at all. I wonder how rapidly Smoker4 and the optimistic wing of this party would expect the transition in technology to take place.

[Edited on June 14, 2008 at 2:50 PM. Reason : ...]

6/14/2008 2:50:10 PM

^

I thought I made it pretty obvious already. Once the cost of alternative energy is less than the cost of oil, then people will switch. Whether that happens because of oil prices rising, or alternative energy prices dropping, or both, doesn't matter.

6/14/2008 5:43:15 PM

Not exactly true. If people believe the current price situation is temporary, then it does not matter how cheap alternatives become relative to oil, people will stick with oil.

People talk about the apparently slowness of markets when it comes to adjustments. But this is a rational self-imposed limitation. Markets can adjust remarkably fast if only everyone became convinced it was the way of the future. Whenever mankind has reached that point in the past the problem usually becomes too rapid change producing a speculative investment bubble which bursts, etc.

6/14/2008 6:22:17 PM

^

I'm sure people will be reluctant to switch over to something else when gas is $15/gallon.



[Edited on June 14, 2008 at 6:31 PM. Reason : foo]

6/14/2008 6:31:20 PM

When that something else is $14.95 a gallon equivalent then you're damned right they'll be reluctant.

6/14/2008 7:58:36 PM

Ross Perot is so worried about the deficit to set up http://perotcharts.com/. He makes a good case.





Many many more charts if you want them.

6/15/2008 10:52:44 PM