Certainly not.... if it was a conspiracy.. it would be in the news right? Because they always watch our back and tell us the truth.
Its not a conspiracy, but several factors that work together so that the price of oil always trends upwards. Speculation Uncertainty of Supply Cost of extraction Cost of exploration Increased Demand by the newest industrial players (China, India, etc.) And the fact that we will pay whatever they charge within reason.
Don't know any traders huh? It's not like someone's sitting on the oil thinking "how much can I squeeze out of the sheeple" In all likely probability (assuming those tankers aren't just waiting their turn to dropp off their cargo at one of the large refineries there - remember all the talk about them shutting down because of hurricanes?), the oil sitting in those tankers is probably the result of a contago in the oil futures market back in January. It's all probably bought and paid for just awaiting the contract holder to take delivery. Read more here: Contango: The Most Profitable ?Buy-and-Hold? for 2009 So Far
Money is made when the price "moves"... going upwards is not critical... they can make as much or more when it goes down as long as they can predict it. Its like vegas, the more you can predict against the odds of what everyone else thinks "and be right" the more you can make. Knowing big big money behind the scenes helps that. The Media is their tool and the "worst" place for us to get info from to determine what prices are going to do. The media is fed info, told what they can and can't share, and also bought off too many times. Like I said.. many are naive. Its almost so bad that if you do just the opposite of what you hear on the news, you will fare well. Right before the big money is ready to sell off.. to get their best price they must have buyers. In order to have buyers, there must be people that think they will make money if they buy and so need to think the price will go up. So the media if fed info on how its going up.. sometimes with the help of speculators. The next day you wonder why the price plummeted? Because big money sold to the poor suckers that believed the media! Soon after that plummet, big money does indeed buy and the price is driven up to reinforce what the media said to give it credibility so they can sell again and lie to the public is some other believable story to repeat the process. This is why the stories conflict so much from month or quarter to quarter. They know people forget what happened yesterday easily and fall sucker to the same tricks over and over. Just the opposite happens when they are ready to buy.. Then you have the hedge fund managers... that really throws a loop in the equation as massive amounts of money can literally turn the market this way or that with the help of a little media news. I know many people like their warm and fuzzy feeling of security to think the media keeps of informed of all the buggie men out there, but in reality, big money runs the show... at least to a very high degree. If you really want to know whats going on, you must listen closely to hear the stories that leak out and then are silenced. One evening we heard how Hillary was changing camps and was praising McCain as president, followed by Mr. Clinton doing the same... this was about 8:00pm central time before the election on Fox news. The next day you heard "nothing".. not anything... not a whisper on any channel.. the story was totally squashed! Soon after that, you heard how she was getting an opportunity for her present position as sec of state. Funny what goes on behind the scenes isn't it? The media loves to get the stories out first if they can, but they have to not offend their sources or they will be cut off. Its a codependent relationship, the sources use the media, and the media use the sources. Most of the public doesn't pay attention.... in fact, most cannot tell you who anybody is in power, except maybe the president and if you ask any details, they will fail on that. You can watch Jay Leno to see that!
That's because Fox "News" just makes sh!t up. Don't watch Fox News unless you do it for entertainment.
Check out todays headlines. Note the links at the bottom too as they show the news trend for oil headlines the last 5 days. My guess is big money is getting ready to buy since they are trying to convince us that things are in the mulley grubs and no profit should be made the rest of the year.. that will cause those looking to make a quick buck to sell.... giving big money opportunity to buy at an easy price..... other few days, they will be telling us how demand is now higher etc and the price will fall as big money sells on the news as the gullible attempt to make a quick buck by buying. Its what "big money" does determines the direction of the price. But all the syndications make up stories to cast an illusion to sell ratings. Not just Fox. Its all about whos putting butter on thier bread determines who reports what.
I always found it ironic that people who commute 100+ miles each day in single passenger 6000 lb vehicles complain the most about "big oil". Gas prices couldnt possibly have anything to do their demand for the stuff. I dont think anyone can deny that the era of cheap (easy-to-find) oil is rapidly coming to an end.
You know that makes sense based on what you hear on the news, but I live around this stuff and did also as a child. There are "thousands" of producing oil wells that are cemented and capped off till later use. We are still finding more and more oil "without even trying". I remember when I was a kid and lived in Humble Texas that literally all over the place everywhere you drove and looked you could see an oil well pumping. When prices fell, they capped them off and they sat still. When prices rose to 4.00 a gal. you could see those wells that were pumping again. We have Millions of acres that the oil companies are sitting on and won't tap because there is no place to put it if they did, along with pressure from environmental groups not to. The best place to store it is to leave it in the ground. Alaska is a whole nother story of abundance, along with countless miles of coast lines we could still tap. We only have "two" refineries and although they have expanded in size, we won't build more because "we don't want more oil" as it will drive the prices down! Our problem has "never" been lack of oil except to the level that they have refused to release it or produce it.. but its always been there. It seems where I live that almost everyone has an oil well or gets royalties from one thats nearby. If we are low on oil, I just don't see it. When you look at a world globe, the USA is a tiny country compared to the countless square miles of acres Asia, China and Russia who have still not tapped but a tiny fragment of their land and have left virgin. What about Africa and even S. America and Australia and or both of the poles? Many city dwellers who live around constant horns, sirens, and flow of traffic soon start thinking we are almost out of land, when if they would just take a drive across country they would see there are countless acres with nothing on them.... just desert and/or forest. Oil is the same way.... Just because they raise the price at the pump and tell us its in short supply, has nothing to do with reality. Its in short supply because they won't give it to you unless you pay what they want! I think oil is a nasty product for energy and we should use many other options.. but if the prices are high, its not because we can't get it.
Like I originally said, we arent gonna just "run out", but just observing where we are going to find and produce oil now; The artic circle, very deep offshore drilling, not to mention the Canadian tar sands...should be a signal that the easy to find and produce (the good stuff) oil is becoming scarce.
While I respect your opinions and knowledge my friend, I am not sure I can agree. I know alot of geologists a few of whom work in the resource and oil sectors. Dr. Laird Thompson in particular has stated on numerous occasions in lectures or in personal communications that oil resources are indeed dwindling. As a friend/associate I have no cause to doubt the sincerity of his opinion despite working for Mobile Oil Corp. in the past. This is not really the forum to discuss this topic and we do have existing threads for such discussion in FHoP or the Environmental forum I believe.
It will come to an end, but rapidly? Wasn't that statement first heard about 1973? I remember hearing that right after my teacher scared the hell out of me(I was 6 or 7) talking about global cooling and the fact we might be causing another ice age.
Global cooling was never the climatology community concensus. A couple were concerned about sulphur based aerosols which were causing cooling, but the rest knew warming was a bigger long term problem. Polution controls addressed the aerosols. Newsweek is not a scientific journal, but it seems to have spooked your teacher and sold more mags.
Found that the motorcycle I just got is getting 45mpg, and I'm averaging around 49 in the Prius. Higher gas prices won't affect me too much!
