zzziippyyy

Clicky clicky

Your going down!

kenta

"Traders manipulated oil prices - U.S."

OMG, Never

Why am I not surprised?

ajlafleche

Donning my tin foil anti conspiracy beenie.
I believe the whole gas/oil price run-up has been manipualted by the oil companies and their speculators to convince the easily convinced we need to drill insensitive areas. I suspect our president and vice president were in on this and it came now as a going away present from them.

TheToon

zzziippyyy

problem is You and I are paying for it!

NH_s2k_Guy

Don't we always?

Triple-H

I have to confess, the whole role of these oil futures speculators goes over my head. I get the fact that they are making the perceived value of oil go up, but this whole buying of oil futures leaves tire marks on the top of my head...

CTMechE

Ok, I realize you've got the tin foil hat on, but come on....

People seem to LOVE to say "Bush and his Oil Cronies" and draw immediate conclusions that "it's all about the oil." Honestly, it's easily said because nobody has to actually THINK to explain how that's possible. Can you actually tell me, specifically, how higher oil prices does anything positive for GW Bush or Dick Cheney? Or how Bush/Cheney do ANYTHING to affect the price of oil, which if you hadn't noticed, is traded like every other commodity (Gold, silver, platinum, etc..) ALL of which are going up because of reduced supply and increased transportation/processing costs? Nobody says "Bush and his platinum cronies are getting rich."

It's a load of BS, and people who spout simple lines like that just seem to be unwilling to admit that they just don't get how it works. It's not much different than the stock market, it's just that it's a tangible product instead of a piece of a company.

Speculators are investors. It's merely a betting game to guess what the price will be 6 months from now, and hopefully they guess correctly. When they do, they make money.

There are crooked people in ever investment scheme, so it's no surprise that there are people who inappropriately manipulate the commodities market. Raising the price of oil by cooperatively inflating speculation is no different than getting a bunch of friends to all buy a ton of Company X stock. The very ACT of investing money influences the value of that stock. Same deal with a commodity.

The only issue is that unlike stock, both investors AND consumers are affected by the investors actions.

The stock market has been flat for a while, and we all know what happened with the housing market. So where's the place to park the big money for an investment portfolio? Energy.

So you have investment companies, hedge fund companies, and pension/retirement plan companies all looking to shift their funds to a moneymaking markets. By dumping money into energy futures, people expect a profit, and they actually cause change by making a massive move to oil.




So there's that... but there's also one simple fact that cannot be ignored. Oil/gas cost as much as they do for one simple reason: People are still willing to pay for it. And in a capitalist society, ANYTHING is worth whatever you can get someone to pay for it. If you could sell your product for $4, why would you sell it for $1??

Bass

actually i think the middle east is controlling the oil prices because of our involvement there - they can not beat our military (and Haliburton ie dickie) so they will beat us on the economic front

oh and don't think for a minute that Bush wont go back into oil / middle east when his term is up to make $$$$

the guy is the worst president in history!!

and if we look at your capitalist views - gas can sell for 10.00 a gallon and we would still buy it because this country has not had an energy policy since Nixon

also i do know how commodities work - many people put there money in commodities when the bottom fell out of the real estate sector therefore people were looking for a greater return hence the run up on oil

RedY2KS2k

Why does everyone ignore one of the big reasons oil prices are going up: the devaluation of our currency.