Comments on: Supply and demand, my eye

By: LonnythePlumber

LonnythePlumber — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:39:33 +0000

Protecting the under-informed or less-empowered purchaser should not be considered socialist. Capitalism should not be cheating for all you can get.

By: bth

bth — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:28:06 +0000

I must admit that I find a tremendous amoput of irony in this entire energy/oil/price situation. Having worked in the energy industry in the past I remember meny warnings that we were taking short-term profits and ignoring long-term realities. Sure enough, we were right. And now America finds itself driving Hummers and short on fuel. No credible coal liquification processes, no clean coal technologies, no energy efficiencies, etc etc etc.

And, to make manners worse, many of us have abandoned the industry. So, someone will have to reinvent the nascent technologies we had been working on and will have to find and train people to work on them. I would suggest that someone needs to get to work assembling a team of scientists and engineers to pick up where we left off so many years ago.

By: bth

bth — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:13:21 +0000

Problem is Joe!, I’m a capitalist. I do, however, have issues with monopolies and oligopolies.

By: ictBest

ictBest — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:19:48 +0000

Well Good Luck for the Federal Government to do anything.

Ben, you’re not alone. Plenty of socialist in the USA for you. You should know that. The Wichita Eagle is not immune of them either. You’re in good company.

By: bth

bth — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:29:53 +0000

Bill – and just how does the Federal Government take over the international oil markets? I thought I was supposed to be the Socialist around here!

By: knkoenig

knkoenig — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:56:08 +0000

Right, first political maneuvering, then speculator activity to mess with the market. Oil hasn’t been a free market since Nixon was president…

By: Bill Wilson

Bill Wilson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:59:38 +0000

Actually, demand is one relatively minor factor in speculator activity, and you conveniently omit any mention of supply, which many analysts say remains high. The strength of the dollar has a lot to do with speculator activity.

I don’t question the fact that oil supplies are dwindling and that America needs to wean itself from over-reliance on oil; however, it seems pretty obvious that the haste with which it is dwindling has been exaggerated in the name of personal profit.

In this fragile economy, that, in my opinion, should be stopped – and quickly – by the federal government.

By: ictBest

ictBest — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:29:03 +0000

Scratch my last post.

hmmm. That’s happened before. My previous post won’t show up until I make another post.

It’s all good.

By: ictBest

ictBest — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:24:54 +0000

Well, I had a response, but it was deleted. Oh well.

I guess I cannot post web links, but it was Bloomberg article that had a report that gasoline demand was at an 18 month high.

By: ictBest

ictBest — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:05:58 +0000

Oil is still a commodity in great demand, regardless of the cartels that control most of the supply. Sure, when you have Leftist Governments and Dictatorial regimes that belong in the cartel, there is some price manipulation. But that is like saying that illegal narcotics prices are unduly influenced because they are controlled by Drug Cartels and Leftist Governments, but the demand is still the main reason for the price.

See, Mr. Wilson’s thinks there isn’t a supply and demand side of the oil price increases, so he posts a story about a rouge futures trader.

Then Bloomberg as a story (the same day) about Gasoline Demand reached an 18 month high. http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=awafUrOBalCc

So is it supply and demand? That what drives a lot of futures traders into the business.