Real Truth Behind Oil Pricing? (video)

That is some of the most disturbing news i have heard in a long long time. There really is no choice here as i see it. Every sane American most vote for Obama. We simply can not withstand Gramm calling the economic shots in Washington.


Quote from walter4:

Phil Gramm is back as McCain's chief economic adviser:




McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'
by Jason Leopold

John McCain May 19, 2008 Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California's electricity prices in 2001.

Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron with Gramm's wife Wendy serving on its board of directors worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls "McCain's econ brain," not only filling the Arizona senator's acknowledged void on economic expertise ("I don't know as much about the economy as I should") but recognized as one of McCain's closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.

A McCain aide told me that the Arizona senator opposes the farm bill because it "rewards lobbyists" by granting rich farmers lucrative subsidies, although he would support "a reasonable level of assistance and risk management to farmers when they need America's help."

But the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee also opposes the farm bill because Gramm advised McCain that he should resist its regulatory language on the energy futures market.

Democrats have dubbed that gap in energy futures regulation the "Enron loophole," but it played a part, too, in the more recent attempt by the Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to corner the national gas market by shifting trades to the unregulated "dark markets" of the Intercontinental Exchange.

The "Enron loophole" also has become part of the debate over the soaring price of oil. Last week, a study sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, concluded that speculative futures markets were partly to blame for the surge in oil prices that have pushed gas at the pump toward $4 a gallon.

At a May 15 news conference, Levin said the skyrocketing price of oil is not the result of supply and demand. Speculators have taken over most of the futures market."[...]


http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2008/051908Leopold.shtml
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Quote from wiesman02:

if you're a daytrader, do u think this will be of ANY benefit to you ?

The only thing this can do is hurt us.
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I would disagree. Good, consistent regulation of markets levels the playing field and makes it easier for the retail trader to profit. Look at what happened when bucket shops dominated trading if you want to understand non-regulated markets and what they do for the average retail trader.
 
Okay - A non-partisan question here.


This time last year I bought two 50 lb. cast iron dumb bells. Cost me $40 plus tax.

40 cents per pound.


This year, I bought two 10 lb. cast iron dumb bells for my girlfriend. Cost me $19 plus tax.

95 cents per pound. One year later, a 100% plus price increase. Very similar to oil.


There is no futures market for cast iron. No Nymex cast iron markets, no ICE cast iron markets - but the one year increase is similar to that of crude oil.

Unless someone KNOWS OF and CAN PROVE that there is hoarding of physical cast iron - there can be no "speculation conspiracies" here. And even so, "increasing margins" would not work in such a case because there isn't a futures market to raise margins on.


The question is - How do these speculation arguments trump the argument of one billion people suddenly wanting the same stuff we want?

The Chinese and the people of India apparently want condos, malls, office parks and cars. Just like the people in Henderson, NV or Huntington, NY. All of which require cast iron and diesel fuel to build them. And then cars and gasoline to travel around, back and forth, to these new constructions. And from what I hear, they tend to like the bigger vehicles. Much like we do.



Just wondering.
 
Quote from trump-baja:
The Chinese and the people of India apparently want condos, malls, office parks and cars. Just like the people in Henderson, NV or Huntington, NY. All of which require cast iron and diesel fuel to build them. And then cars and gasoline to travel around, back and forth, to these new constructions. And from what I hear, they tend to like the bigger vehicles. Much like we do.



Just wondering.
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Well, not everyone can have everything they want. Life is zero-sum. Someone else must be exploited in order for people to attain those things.

A lot of people are going to be very disappointed.
 
I am only addressing their attempt to achieve these things and the recent significant impact on prices ... from oil to cast iron.

Not the "morality or immorality" of their (or our) pursuit of fufillment.


In terms of "not everyone getting what they want" and "disappointemnt" - could it be that this new competition puts us North Americans and other members of the developed world in the position of not getting all the we want (or all that we have been used to - in terms of large quantities of products available at cheap prices) ... ?


Not sure from your comment who you think will be "disappointed" - the people in the developed nations or the people in the developing nations.
 
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