Showing posts with label oil speculation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil speculation. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Watch "Big Oil's" profits in 3rd Quarter 2012
Monday, I noticed I was apparently one of the last people in the area to pay "only" $3.59 per gallon for gasoline for my car. I noticed the signage at the Quik Trip I pulled into had already been changed to $3.72 per gallon. I was paying that lower $3.59 rate per gallon.
Yesterday, Tuesday, I noticed it had gotten all the way up to $3.79 per gallon in the area--a 20 cent jump in two days.
The reason, I noted?
There had been a huge explosion at an oil refinery in Venezuela and Hurricane Isaac was rather notoriously making its way into the Gulf of Mexico, where so many oil rigs are, and on into New Orleans and Louisiana.
The fact is, on this, the oil companies shot their price up immediately, even though their costs for that oil and gasoline hadn't changed an iota. Not one bit.
So watch, folks. Watch the reports in October when the reports of "Big Oil's" profits come out. See what Exxon-Mobil and all the oil companies made at this time while you and I pay so much more at the pump.
I feel sure we're going to see some huge, huge profits from them.
And it all comes right out of our pockets, as we know.
Ever feel like a chump?
Links: http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/local_news/experts-gas-prices-will-surge-as-storm-surges
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-08-28/markets/33428180_1_oil-futures-rise-safety-and-environmental-enforcement-gasoline-futures
Monday, October 10, 2011
Gasoline jumps 10 to 12 cents per gallon today
The European Union declared they're going to strongly support the banks and financial system over there so the Dow and markets zoom up by nearly 300 points. Following that, oil per barrel zooms up in price, due to speculators. The result? You and I pay 10 to 12 more cents per gallon today at the pump. Ah, progress. We need to stop oil speculation, folks. It's not good for the country, let alone the world. It used to be illegal. It needs to be again. Links: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-jump-european-pledge-help-banks-134246596.html; http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Oil-prices-above-85-for-first-apf-972074541.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=
Monday, November 9, 2009
We need to get a handle on energy speculation
I know the White House is busy, what with wars in two countries and health care reform and all that, but they'd better also be working on putting back regulation of energy speculation and speculators, too. If they don't, any economic recovery could get squelched quickly and simply, by rising prices that benefit a small group of those speculators.
There is a report out now, showing that gas is rising in price, due to the weak dollar and Hurricane Ida, in the Gulf of Mexico. (Good news there, at least--Ida was downgraded).
As long as oil speculation is left unregulated, people and businesses are going to try to make money on the rise in price.
This is crazy. I've written about this before and it's important.
The world economy is in a very weak, bad state but oil prices have been running up lately, prompting this observation:
"'In the real world, there is very little evidence that the underlying market fundamentals, both in the overall economy and more particularly in the oil market, are improving fast enough to justify these price levels,' said analysts at KBC Market Services in Britain."
And yet the price goes up because, again, there are people wanting to bid it up, to make money and these markets have been unregulated since 2000.
People and companies might buy up oil, counting on an increase in price, only to later sell it back on the market at the higher price, just for the gain. In the meantime, the airlines and energy companies and, ultimately, you and I pay higher prices just for their greed.
It's no way to run an energy market.
It's bad for individuals, rich and poor, around the world, but it's even bad for businesses.
This needs to get fixed, one day soon. We need the energy markets overseen, as they used to be, and as soon as possible.
If we don't, our economies the world over could come crashing back down--or even just be held back in any recovery--just because a small group of people want to benefit.
Here's hoping.
Link to story: http://www.kansascity.com/382/story/1557497.html
There is a report out now, showing that gas is rising in price, due to the weak dollar and Hurricane Ida, in the Gulf of Mexico. (Good news there, at least--Ida was downgraded).
As long as oil speculation is left unregulated, people and businesses are going to try to make money on the rise in price.
This is crazy. I've written about this before and it's important.
The world economy is in a very weak, bad state but oil prices have been running up lately, prompting this observation:
"'In the real world, there is very little evidence that the underlying market fundamentals, both in the overall economy and more particularly in the oil market, are improving fast enough to justify these price levels,' said analysts at KBC Market Services in Britain."
And yet the price goes up because, again, there are people wanting to bid it up, to make money and these markets have been unregulated since 2000.
People and companies might buy up oil, counting on an increase in price, only to later sell it back on the market at the higher price, just for the gain. In the meantime, the airlines and energy companies and, ultimately, you and I pay higher prices just for their greed.
It's no way to run an energy market.
It's bad for individuals, rich and poor, around the world, but it's even bad for businesses.
This needs to get fixed, one day soon. We need the energy markets overseen, as they used to be, and as soon as possible.
If we don't, our economies the world over could come crashing back down--or even just be held back in any recovery--just because a small group of people want to benefit.
Here's hoping.
Link to story: http://www.kansascity.com/382/story/1557497.html
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Good news/bad news
Two bits of news have come out this morning.
First, it looks as though President Obama's $825 billion stimulus bill will go through.
For better or worse--and we hope not worse--hopefully this will be a positive stimulus to the economy, what we need to get banks and businesses working again so more people don't lose their jobs.
Hopefully, too, it won't just be pork barrel politics with millions and billions wasted.
Hey, I'm an optimist.
The Dow is up on this news so that's good, too.
The second note is that the price for a barrel of oil just jumped, too, to $42.00 a barrel.
And there's a rub.
Can you imagine how many speculative dollars are going to flow into oil futures if anyone senses that even the American economy begins to recover, let alone the world? How about just the United States, China and India?
There will be so many people buying oil futures, there's no telling how high it would return.
This points out that we have to put back into place the curbs on speculation that our government took out in 2000. The ones we were missing when oil went to $147.00 a barrel and it was in the range of $4.00 a gallon at the local Kwiky Mart.
If we don't, forget about business recovery.
We'll have a small contingent of oil millionaires and everyone else choked off from work.
Here's the links:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obama_economy
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=72189
First, it looks as though President Obama's $825 billion stimulus bill will go through.
For better or worse--and we hope not worse--hopefully this will be a positive stimulus to the economy, what we need to get banks and businesses working again so more people don't lose their jobs.
Hopefully, too, it won't just be pork barrel politics with millions and billions wasted.
Hey, I'm an optimist.
The Dow is up on this news so that's good, too.
The second note is that the price for a barrel of oil just jumped, too, to $42.00 a barrel.
And there's a rub.
Can you imagine how many speculative dollars are going to flow into oil futures if anyone senses that even the American economy begins to recover, let alone the world? How about just the United States, China and India?
There will be so many people buying oil futures, there's no telling how high it would return.
This points out that we have to put back into place the curbs on speculation that our government took out in 2000. The ones we were missing when oil went to $147.00 a barrel and it was in the range of $4.00 a gallon at the local Kwiky Mart.
If we don't, forget about business recovery.
We'll have a small contingent of oil millionaires and everyone else choked off from work.
Here's the links:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obama_economy
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=72189
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Things we need to do
The economy's a mess.
The world economy is in the same shape.
We're a mess--and in a mess.
So what to do?
What should be done so we clean up this mess, first, and make sure it doesn't happen again?
Here are but a few of the most important ones:
1) REGULATE BUSINESS. (notice all caps, boys and girls). We need to regulate business, period--especially Big Business.
Whether they're banks or oil companies or energy markets or stock markets, what have you. For the last 8 years, no one's been at the governmental, regulatory switch, so to speak, and we absolutely need them there.
We have to keep greedy people from acting on they're desires and greed. Regulating business is how you do that.
2) Make Hedge Funds illegal. They used to be. They should still be illegal. They are "bets on bets". They were unregulated, again, for the past 8 years on top of being just sheerly stupid. They shouldn't even be allowed. Do away with Hedge Funds.
3) Make "short selling" of stocks illegal. This, too, is a "bet on a bet." Short selling is betting, literally, on a stock's rise or fall. A stock, ladies and gentlemen, is, basically, a bet that a stock's value is going to rise. To allow this short selling is to allow a bet (that the stock will rise or fall) on a bet (the stock itself).
It's stupid. It's irresponsible. It shouldn't be allowed.
It makes for wide and wild swings in the market that are dangerous to our economy and country.
Right this moment, the SEC has made short selling on 19 specific stocks illegal so it's clear we can do this.
We can do this. We should do this.
Stop "short-selling."
4) Regulate the energy markets.
I've written about this before.
For 78 years, up until the year 2000, we regulated the energy markets.
Then we stopped.
Since that time, our energy markets and costs have gone crazy wild. That should be enough indication right there of what we should do.
The energy that runs a country is far too important to be exposed to the greed and selfishness of Big Business, speculators and deregulation.
Even if you could disregard that people's lives are at stake--irresponsible enough, I know--then we have to take into consideration business own existence. Business can't afford the wild swings up and up that we've experienced in the last 7 years.
No, regulate the energy markets. Regulate them completely and responsibly, for everyone's concern--the individual and business.
And do it as soon as possible.
(While we're at it, Congress, why don't you look into that GM "Impact" automobile that ran 120 miles on a charge of electricity? For readers, see "Who Killed the Electric Car"--the movie. Very informative, if disheartening).
5) Take profit out of health care in the United States.
Granted, this will not happen for a long, long time--if ever--but this is what we need to do.
It's antithetical to our society and culture and that's too bad but we need to do this just as we need to do no. 4, above (regulate the energy markets).
We want and need people to be healthy, of course, not the least of which to work in our society, right? But if someone should get sick (and we all do, at one time or another, right?), we throw them to financial dogs, by letting our worship of the rich and wealthy and profits and big business instead of making health care available for all, LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES).
6) We need to, as a country, stop worshiping wealth, the wealthy, business, Big Business and profit.
We really do, you know, worship wealth and the wealthy, just as we worship "things".
Can we all just accept that this is not, any longer, a good idea?
We need to fuel our society on something beyond products and items.
How many Ipods are we going to buy, for God's sake? (How many versions of that little bastard are they going to keep remaking?)
Think about it, folks. It's blind consumerism that's gotten us into this mess, in a large part.
We HAVE to stop just buying and buying and buying.
The United States has SO MUCH more retail space than any other country on the planet.
All of us--the United States and all the countries in the world--need to get off this product-driven, production-crazed treadmill. China's environment, and so, their society, will benefit from it, too. (No more melamine- or lead-laced products, for starters).
So there you are. Six easy and, I think, obvious things we ought to do for ourselves, for the planet and mankind.
Some of them I do think we'll do and that gives me hope.
Some of them we won't and that's unfortunate.
Some of them we're not even capable of--and honestly, that makes me sad.
The world economy is in the same shape.
We're a mess--and in a mess.
So what to do?
What should be done so we clean up this mess, first, and make sure it doesn't happen again?
Here are but a few of the most important ones:
1) REGULATE BUSINESS. (notice all caps, boys and girls). We need to regulate business, period--especially Big Business.
Whether they're banks or oil companies or energy markets or stock markets, what have you. For the last 8 years, no one's been at the governmental, regulatory switch, so to speak, and we absolutely need them there.
We have to keep greedy people from acting on they're desires and greed. Regulating business is how you do that.
2) Make Hedge Funds illegal. They used to be. They should still be illegal. They are "bets on bets". They were unregulated, again, for the past 8 years on top of being just sheerly stupid. They shouldn't even be allowed. Do away with Hedge Funds.
3) Make "short selling" of stocks illegal. This, too, is a "bet on a bet." Short selling is betting, literally, on a stock's rise or fall. A stock, ladies and gentlemen, is, basically, a bet that a stock's value is going to rise. To allow this short selling is to allow a bet (that the stock will rise or fall) on a bet (the stock itself).
It's stupid. It's irresponsible. It shouldn't be allowed.
It makes for wide and wild swings in the market that are dangerous to our economy and country.
Right this moment, the SEC has made short selling on 19 specific stocks illegal so it's clear we can do this.
We can do this. We should do this.
Stop "short-selling."
4) Regulate the energy markets.
I've written about this before.
For 78 years, up until the year 2000, we regulated the energy markets.
Then we stopped.
Since that time, our energy markets and costs have gone crazy wild. That should be enough indication right there of what we should do.
The energy that runs a country is far too important to be exposed to the greed and selfishness of Big Business, speculators and deregulation.
Even if you could disregard that people's lives are at stake--irresponsible enough, I know--then we have to take into consideration business own existence. Business can't afford the wild swings up and up that we've experienced in the last 7 years.
No, regulate the energy markets. Regulate them completely and responsibly, for everyone's concern--the individual and business.
And do it as soon as possible.
(While we're at it, Congress, why don't you look into that GM "Impact" automobile that ran 120 miles on a charge of electricity? For readers, see "Who Killed the Electric Car"--the movie. Very informative, if disheartening).
5) Take profit out of health care in the United States.
Granted, this will not happen for a long, long time--if ever--but this is what we need to do.
It's antithetical to our society and culture and that's too bad but we need to do this just as we need to do no. 4, above (regulate the energy markets).
We want and need people to be healthy, of course, not the least of which to work in our society, right? But if someone should get sick (and we all do, at one time or another, right?), we throw them to financial dogs, by letting our worship of the rich and wealthy and profits and big business instead of making health care available for all, LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES).
6) We need to, as a country, stop worshiping wealth, the wealthy, business, Big Business and profit.
We really do, you know, worship wealth and the wealthy, just as we worship "things".
Can we all just accept that this is not, any longer, a good idea?
We need to fuel our society on something beyond products and items.
How many Ipods are we going to buy, for God's sake? (How many versions of that little bastard are they going to keep remaking?)
Think about it, folks. It's blind consumerism that's gotten us into this mess, in a large part.
We HAVE to stop just buying and buying and buying.
The United States has SO MUCH more retail space than any other country on the planet.
All of us--the United States and all the countries in the world--need to get off this product-driven, production-crazed treadmill. China's environment, and so, their society, will benefit from it, too. (No more melamine- or lead-laced products, for starters).
So there you are. Six easy and, I think, obvious things we ought to do for ourselves, for the planet and mankind.
Some of them I do think we'll do and that gives me hope.
Some of them we won't and that's unfortunate.
Some of them we're not even capable of--and honestly, that makes me sad.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Screw the little guy (read: you)
Further proof, as if we needed it, that the Republican Party is the political party of money and big money and big business in general and big oil, in specific:
Bill to rein in oil speculators wins test vote
By Tom Doggett and Thomas Ferraro 21 minutes ago
A Democratic-backed bill to rein in energy market speculators blamed for high crude oil and gasoline prices cleared a U.S. Senate procedural hurdle on Tuesday, but final passage of the legislation remained uncertain.
Yet Republicans may still block a vote on approving the bill unless amendments are added to increase U.S. oil production, such as expanding offshore drilling and developing oil shale fields in the West."
(See the original article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080722/pl_nm/usa_energy_vote_dc;_ylt=Aty_HZSVdVUj_uLuT82fhUas0NUE)
Remember a couple years ago when the Voting Rights Act renewal came up and the Repubs didn't want that to pass, either? Oh, yeah. Don't forget.
Anyone who says the Republican Party is one of inclusion is delusional. They'd sell us down the river for a few thousand dollar campaign contribution in a second. They would and they have and they'll do it again.
And again and again.
Bill to rein in oil speculators wins test vote
By Tom Doggett and Thomas Ferraro 21 minutes ago
A Democratic-backed bill to rein in energy market speculators blamed for high crude oil and gasoline prices cleared a U.S. Senate procedural hurdle on Tuesday, but final passage of the legislation remained uncertain.
Yet Republicans may still block a vote on approving the bill unless amendments are added to increase U.S. oil production, such as expanding offshore drilling and developing oil shale fields in the West."
(See the original article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080722/pl_nm/usa_energy_vote_dc;_ylt=Aty_HZSVdVUj_uLuT82fhUas0NUE)
Remember a couple years ago when the Voting Rights Act renewal came up and the Repubs didn't want that to pass, either? Oh, yeah. Don't forget.
Anyone who says the Republican Party is one of inclusion is delusional. They'd sell us down the river for a few thousand dollar campaign contribution in a second. They would and they have and they'll do it again.
And again and again.
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