Gasoline Prices and Speculators: They Think You Are Stupid

[denner]

It appears that they are taking the "transform the US into a third world country" route. Sort of a high end Mexico. Debase the dollar enough to attract more foreign interest to take this absurdly large (and mostly hidden) housing inventory off the market.

They've already given up on saving John and Jane Doe. Now they will simply throw them under the bus and permanently impoverish them and the while marketing the low cost of living (for those who aren't holding the US Peso).

 

[olias]

good article here:

"Nothing brings out the shamelessness of Washington politicians like rising gas prices, and President Barack Obama is the latest case. His Justice Department on Thursday announced a task force to investigate oil industry prices and practices for fraud. But if there is fraud here, it is that the president and Republicans in Congress continue to fuel the myth that the federal government might, with an investigation here or plans to drill there, affect the short-term world-market price of a commodity America doesn't and never will control.

If Obama's new investigation sounds familiar, that's because it's the sort of thing President George W. Bush and the GOP Congress did in 2005 and 2006. Their probes were a waste of money. Not only did investigators conclude that there was no widespread price fixing, they had a tough time even finding credible complaints of price manipulation

Does Obama really think that his administration will find anything fundamentally different about the sorts of factors that are pushing up gas prices now? Republicans are cynically encouraging this nonsense.

National Journal reports that GOP lawmakers are passing bills and holding hearings that won't result in actual laws but will allow them to bash Democrats on gas prices, which they plan to make a major theme heading into the 2012 elections.

Among other things, they are preparing to hit Democrats for not supporting a trio of bills from the House Natural Resources Committee that would expand offshore drilling. More offshore drilling isn't a bad idea in the long term, but it would do nothing to lower current gas prices.

The Republicans' gas-price campaign should also be familiar. Liberals tried something similar during the previous administration, when they blamed higher gas prices on Bush's foreign policy.

Rising gas prices simply aren't Obama's fault. Just as they weren't Bush's fault. Americans need to get used to factors affecting gas prices that aren't in America's control, particularly that the developing world will demand more oil as the economies of nations such as China and India grow.

That's not ideology; it's supply and demand."

Steve Stromberg is an editorial writer for the Washington WC1>Post. This is an excerpt from the Post's opinion blog, updated daily at washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Quote from olias:

good article here:

"Nothing brings out the shamelessness of Washington politicians like rising gas prices, and President Barack Obama is the latest case. His Justice Department on Thursday announced a task force to investigate oil industry prices and practices for fraud. But if there is fraud here, it is that the president and Republicans in Congress continue to fuel the myth that the federal government might, with an investigation here or plans to drill there, affect the short-term world-market price of a commodity America doesn't and never will control.

If Obama's new investigation sounds familiar, that's because it's the sort of thing President George W. Bush and the GOP Congress did in 2005 and 2006. Their probes were a waste of money. Not only did investigators conclude that there was no widespread price fixing, they had a tough time even finding credible complaints of price manipulation

Does Obama really think that his administration will find anything fundamentally different about the sorts of factors that are pushing up gas prices now? Republicans are cynically encouraging this nonsense.

National Journal reports that GOP lawmakers are passing bills and holding hearings that won't result in actual laws but will allow them to bash Democrats on gas prices, which they plan to make a major theme heading into the 2012 elections.

Among other things, they are preparing to hit Democrats for not supporting a trio of bills from the House Natural Resources Committee that would expand offshore drilling. More offshore drilling isn't a bad idea in the long term, but it would do nothing to lower current gas prices.

The Republicans' gas-price campaign should also be familiar. Liberals tried something similar during the previous administration, when they blamed higher gas prices on Bush's foreign policy.

Rising gas prices simply aren't Obama's fault. Just as they weren't Bush's fault. Americans need to get used to factors affecting gas prices that aren't in America's control, particularly that the developing world will demand more oil as the economies of nations such as China and India grow.

That's not ideology; it's supply and demand."

Steve Stromberg is an editorial writer for the Washington WC1>Post. This is an excerpt from the Post's opinion blog, updated daily at washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan.

as i mentioned in your same post in the economics forum, this ignores the real reason for the rise in gas prices - the Fed.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Quote from denner:

It appears that they are taking the "transform the US into a third world country" route. Sort of a high end Mexico. Debase the dollar enough to attract more foreign interest to take this absurdly large (and mostly hidden) housing inventory off the market.

and it might work if it were not at odds with the specter of higher taxes (both personal and corporate) and loss of liberties.

 

[murray t turtle]

Quote from bugscoe:

Good read:

Gasoline Prices and Speculators: They Think You Are Stupid
By Joseph Svetlic
April 25, 2011

It is with great interest that I read this past week about the President's initial response to rising gas prices. What or who was to blame? According to the President...speculators. Nameless, faceless speculators. They are to blame for the rising price of crude oil up and the accompanying price at the pump!

Now this interested me because I worked in the petroleum industry and I studied energy law at law school, and I have taken a strong interest in macroeconomics in recent years. (I read Market Ticker and Zero Hedge, if you are wondering.) I'm going to disregard for this note the fact that higher gas prices are not objectionable at all to our President, despite the fact that they are connected to every product we buy. He doesn't have a problem with high gas prices, only wishing that they become high on a gradual basis. I'm also going to ignore the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf and general opposition to domestic exploration and production of petroleum by this Administration.

No, the main culprit here isn't the nameless, faceless "speculators" that are now the object of the President's scorn, but government policy itself, both with the Federal Reserve (monetary) and the budget deficits accrued in recent years (fiscal). What is going on is that the government is trying to deflect blame to these nameless, faceless speculators for their own disastrous fiscal and monetary policies.

In other words, they think you are stupid.

Let me remind you that the Federal Reserve (Fed) began "quantitative easing" (using printed money to buy assets, chiefly Treasury Bonds) in September 2008 with over $2 trillion. "QE1" continued through the end of the first quarter of 2010, the end of March 2010. Thereafter, we got QE2, which continues to this very day but is slowly wrapping up QE2 is a third the size of QE1, but it means the same: monetizing debt.

On the fiscal side, our President has run up a lot of debt in the past two years, despite running in 2008 on a "net spending cut." He's up to nearly 4 trillion in debt over just a little more than two years.

How are we financing this? Well, the Fed is stepping up to buy 70% of treasuries. They're doing it with printed money, "quantitative easing." What's the effect of this? You're dollar is worth less. Using printed money to buy the debt of the same country will inflate the currency. Our dollar is not backed by anything. It floats. Therefore, the money that you have has been drastically devalued since the onset of "quantitative easing." This is what I call "loose money."

Why is it important to you? Because inflation is a stealth tax on every dollar you have.

Whom does this hurt the most? The poor and those on fixed incomes. To any progressives reading this who really do want to help the poor reach the middle class and get off government assistance: is the way to help them through a stealth 20% tax on every dollar they have in their pocket, a unilateral tax that bypasses Congress? That stealth, regressive tax can only drive more middle class into being poor, right? Shouldn't we want every dollar they own to have maximum purchasing power, to be worth as much as possible? Does this have anything to do, you suppose, with the record number on food stamps, one in six Americans?

These are the ravages of a loose monetary policy, high-deficit, spendthrift government. It is impoverishment. It is precisely the opposite of what is necessary for a true, strong recovery. A true recovery will feature fiscal responsibility and a strong dollar. The President ran in part on such a platform in 2008, promising a "net spending cut." Had he run on trillion-dollar deficits and monetizing debt, he would've never been elected. Such a strong recovery will have to wait until the President and Fed Chairman are replaced, beginning in 2013.

This spendthrift, loose (and reckless) policy is also reflected in the price of gold and silver, which are historical safe harbors from inflation because (as precious metals) they store value and are never worthless. Gold as of this writing was over $1,500/oz, silver over $46/oz. Gold at the beginning of the Obama Administration was just over $850/oz, silver at under $11.50/oz. Just this month, the price of silver skyrocketed from $40/oz to $45/oz in only 12 days. The loss of confidence in the dollar has been striking.

So, they are hoping that you don't pay attention to their fiscal and monetary policy. They want you to blame nameless, faceless "speculators" for the rise in the price of gas, even though everything else has risen, thanks to their loose monetary policy and spendthrift fiscal policy. They want you to ignore the rise in commodity prices and the drastic hike in gold and silver. They think you'll go after the nameless, faceless "speculators" because they think you are stupid.

My question is this: Are they right about you?

=================
Excellant points;
however as far as gas goes, PT Jones did say he could go in to any market & create the illusion of a bull market.

So specs mabe doing about 3 days of it. Much more the Arabs need to pump more oil, US gov needs to get out of big oils way. Algore hated big oil & global warming-wrong on both of them.

 

[olias]

Quote from Tsing Tao:

as i mentioned in your same post in the economics forum, this ignores the real reason for the rise in gas prices - the Fed.

I disagree