The Saudi's stated today that supply and demand are not the cause for the high oil prices! They are requesting an Emergency Oil Summit to find the cause. Speculation....hhhhmmmm?!
most of the futures being bought are not oil companies.. they represent 15% i think it was what i read. the rest... heh. speculation. they simply need to jack up the amount of money you need to buy these futures and most speculators will go home crying. say 50%? like stocks. "Just be aware that ONLY 6% of oil-futures bought and sold last week were acquired/disbursed by oil-companies/refiners and end-users. That means 94% of the action was by SPECULATORS."
I need some of those futures so that I can pay for my gas. Just paid $4.36/gallon today. This is plain ol' BS!
I've read the culprits are the big U.S. financial institutions--Lehman, Merrill Lynch, etc. Buying huge amounts of oil futures and driving up the price. They are even making press statements predicting oil will be $150 a barrel by July. They hope. Smell of scandal here. The Saudis say the price should be $70. Those that say the price should be sky high to use less of it are missing the point. The economies of major nations cannot survive at these levels of oil prices. They must be kept in line with supply and demand--as they have been prior to the last few years.
