SHOCKER: Oil speculators charged with price manipulation

http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/24/markets/oil_price_speculation/index.htm

New YORK (CNNMoney) -- Federal regulators charged five oil speculators Tuesday with manipulating the price of crude and making a $50 million profit from the scheme.


http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/24/markets/oil_price_speculation/index.htm



One small step for CFTC in the right direction. One giant leap is now needed to cure the problem. Continued investigation is warranted, do not stop here.

Simple really, when the prices reflect high demand, yet the suppliers are dealing w/oversupply and storage issues, this means there is no one RECEIVING what they "purchased". It's a red flag.

Also necessary, find out who constantly leaks/releases to the press the constant fudge excuses for higher prices at the pump. Trace it all the way back and I bet you find the arsonists known as speculators.

Oil Speculators: Manipulative Evil Masterminds or Just Savvy Investors?

Daily Finance Article:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/10/oil-speculators-manipulative-evil-masterminds-or-just-savvy-inv/

Oil Speculators: Manipulative Evil Masterminds or Just Savvy Investors?

Floods drives up gas prices

Nope. I'm not kidding.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/11/markets/gas_prices_flood/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

"When we've had flood waters in this part of Louisiana before, it has closed up to 12 refineries," said Peter Beutel, analyst with energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover, referring to the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "The fear here is that we could see refineries close again."

We're not even getting the decency anymore of hearing an excuse telling us that it actually is causing disruption. Now we're getting "it coulds" for an excuse to raise the prices.

"The concern is that the infrastructure could be dampened or knocked out for a while," said Joseph Stanislaw, an independent senior adviser at Deloitte LLP & Touche LLP.


Time to add to the list again.


DS Gas Price Excuse Tracker for reasons that gas prices increase:
1. Winter months, heating
2. Hurricane in Gulf of Mexico
3. Manufacturing demands by industrial nations, i.e. China
4. Americans and SUVs
5. Market speculation
6. March and April "pressures on refineries"
7. Tensions in Middle East
8. A whale died in the Atlantic
9. A turtle sneezed in the Pacific
10. Global warming
11. Pollen levels
12. Jupiter's red spot
13. The dog ate it.
14. Gas prices take a while to come down because the stations are still selling what they bought at the higher prices
15. Gas prices take no time at all to skyrocket overnight, because reason #14 doesn't apply the other way around.
16. Oil up to pay for alternative resource research
17. Because OPEC says so!
18. A special summer blend is more expensive than the winter blend, as it uses special ingredients! But I thought it was higher in the winter because of the heating demands?
19. Summer vacation, kids are off! And since they all drive cars, this makes total sense! (I guess all the school buses were running on pixie dust)
20. Memorial Day weekend and Independence Day, even tho it's still May and that's in July.
21. Weak dollar causing gas prices to rise
22. Strong dollar gets it back under $80
23. Fuel supply shortage (because OPEC cut the supply in half, right?)
24. Dollar against the Euro
25. See #1 - winter heating, as it got cold in some parts of the U.S. in October, thanks to...global warming?
*NEW*
26. Libya. It's all about Libya
27. No it's not, says Saudi Arabia. Everything is fine. Not sure why the high prices.
28. Gas station owners raise the prices ahead of time, expecting oil prices to go up. But then that means #14 can't be true!
29. Because of the unrest in Libya, more countries are buying from Algeria and Nigeria, which is where the U.S buy its oil from!
30. Benchmark broken, price of oil not related to price at the pump.
31. Gas prices lag behind oil prices by two of weeks, putting refiners in tight spot.
32. Because Deniers refuse to tackle Global Warming.
33. Saudi cutting back oil because market is flooded w/oil, no reason for high $.
34. "Hiring spree" means more people are using gas to drive to work!
35. River flood COULD cause disruptions, so we'd better raise it just in case.

Vicious Cycle

How many investigation teams and/or czars will we need in order to figure out what intelligent U.S. citizens seemingly already know? The economy simply can not recover, when by every time the economy show signs (or said to be showing signs) it is recovering, investors send oil price futures through the roof. This in turn tanks the economy. Oil tanks other commodities. Economy tanks, oil plummets. Economy picks itself up. 2008, rinse repeat.

Did it ever occur to the D.C. intelligence that house payments / car payments for those paycheck in paycheck out Americans got difficult to make, when their gas-ups got 3-4X more expensive per fill? Just to get to work? Just to BE the economy?

The economy CAN NOT recover if it is offset each and every time by this ridiculous speculation of "oil futures". It MUST be dealt with. If you can not take delivery of oil, you can not be speculating and artificially jacking the prices.

Investigate THAT.

CNN Says WE are to blame

CNN puts up a video on their front page, "explaining" to us how
WE are to blame for the high gas prices at the pump.

Oil prices move higher after strong jobs report?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42929608/

Amazing! Yesterday oil plummeted due to unemployment figures, yet not less than 24 hours the economy added 220,000 new jobs. Oil rises. Apparently exactly half of the 440,000 unemployed last night all were hired in the middle of the night and drove to work this morning! WOW!!!

And we have another excuse to add to the DS Gas Price Excuse Tracker!

"The hiring spree last month was the biggest in five years. That could mean more people using gas to drive to work."


(interestingly enough, the link for the article from yesterday discussing oil's drop has been erased and changed to a different article about the increase...why?)


DS Gas Price Excuse Tracker for reasons that gas prices increase:
1. Winter months, heating
2. Hurricane in Gulf of Mexico
3. Manufacturing demands by industrial nations, i.e. China
4. Americans and SUVs
5. Market speculation
6. March and April "pressures on refineries"
7. Tensions in Middle East
8. A whale died in the Atlantic
9. A turtle sneezed in the Pacific
10. Global warming
11. Pollen levels
12. Jupiter's red spot
13. The dog ate it.
14. Gas prices take a while to come down because the stations are still selling what they bought at the higher prices
15. Gas prices take no time at all to skyrocket overnight, because reason #14 doesn't apply the other way around.
16. Oil up to pay for alternative resource research
17. Because OPEC says so!
18. A special summer blend is more expensive than the winter blend, as it uses special ingredients! But I thought it was higher in the winter because of the heating demands?
19. Summer vacation, kids are off! And since they all drive cars, this makes total sense! (I guess all the school buses were running on pixie dust)
20. Memorial Day weekend and Independence Day, even tho it's still May and that's in July.
21. Weak dollar causing gas prices to rise
22. Strong dollar gets it back under $80
23. Fuel supply shortage (because OPEC cut the supply in half, right?)
24. Dollar against the Euro
25. See #1 - winter heating, as it got cold in some parts of the U.S. in October, thanks to...global warming?
*NEW*
26. Libya. It's all about Libya
27. No it's not, says Saudi Arabia. Everything is fine. Not sure why the high prices.
28. Gas station owners raise the prices ahead of time, expecting oil prices to go up. But then that means #14 can't be true!
29. Because of the unrest in Libya, more countries are buying from Algeria and Nigeria, which is where the U.S buy its oil from!
30. Benchmark broken, price of oil not related to price at the pump.
31. Gas prices lag behind oil prices by two of weeks, putting refiners in tight spot.
32. Because Deniers refuse to tackle Global Warming.
33. Saudi cutting back oil because market is flooded w/oil, no reason for high $.
34. "Hiring spree" means more people are using gas to drive to work!

Oil crashes 10 percent in record rout

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20110505&id=13570430

And we should IMMEDIATELY see lower gas prices at the pump tomorrow morning to reflect this....just as fast as we see the higher prices reflect the same, at those very same pumps.....

Oh wait, that's right, that's not how it works....

Quote from article:

"Additional pressure came from news OPEC was considering raising formal output limits when it meets in June to convince oil markets it wants to bring prices down and reverse the impact of fuel inflation on economic growth."

Did OPEC just say they were actually going to do something that would HELP the economy? As in, raising the output limits that they had lowered, prior to the first meltdown?

I think they did.