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.

DS Gas Price Excuse Tracker 4/21/11 Update

Well it wouldn't be another day without another excuse, I mean...the "real reason", why gas prices are so high.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/21/markets/oil_gas_prices/index.htm?hpt=T1

Because it's a broken benchmark that has something to do with West Texas and Oklahoma, blah blah blah. "The answer is that the price of oil Americans see every day has little to do with the price of gasoline at the pump." Really? Well why is that?

Also, "it's important to remember that oil and gasoline prices don't move in lockstep with one another. Gas prices lag behind oil prices by a couple of weeks.....During the oil price spike of 2008, gas prices were still trying to catch up as oil prices had already started falling. That put refiners in a tight spot."

Oh my, we wouldn't want them in a tight spot, now would we? Well then, I guess that settles it then.

Or maybe not....

Because Climate Change Deniers refuse to tackle Global Warming.

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/04/21/obama-climate-change-deniers/


Time to update the list!


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!
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 $.

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Dangerous

L.A. TIMES OPINION ARTICLE:

U.S. nuclear industry: Not safe enough

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-reynolds-nuclear-plants-20110318,0,6550182.story

Notice the talk always revolves around how strong an earthquake it can survive. It's bad enough building this and the other California plant near, or directly on, earthquake faults. But....no one discusses the alleged "25 foot seawall" and it setting right on the edge of the coast, practically taking a swim in the Pacific.

Should the plate that lives in the Pacific off the California coast slip and cause a wave, will we have the same power/backup power problem as Japan did?

Remember, it wasnt the earthquake. It was the tsunami!

Worries over Calif. nuclear plants after Japan

Utility officials assure the public that Southern California's seaside nuclear plant is safe. But San Clemente residents wonder if the facility is vulnerable to the shaking and flooding.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/worries-over-calif-nuclear-plants-after-japan-24542252

San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant

With the nuclear power fiasco going on in Japan post: earthquake/tsunami.....it's time to look at some of our current nuclear power plants here in the United States....

I expected to find secure.....smart....locations......instead, I find an example of one not near a fault....but on a fault.....and, could they have put it any closer to the pacific ocean? I believe there is a few inches of beach left before the ocean waves....

Can it be any more alarming? Who is going to tell me this plant is defensible against a tidal wave from a quake in the Pacific? If the quake isn't directly under it's foundation.

Could we also attempt to poison the ocean with radioactivity should there be a breach, more effectively than this?

$100 per barrel is unjustified!

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud discusses the oil situation and the high prices, saying the high prices are unjustified.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42037137

BARTIROMO: So based on where the supplies are now, the levels of supply, is oil justified at $100 a barrel?

Prince ALWALEED: It is not justified. This is a panic situation because people are concerned. They don't understand what's going on, they just are worried about what's happening in Libya. And I tell you openly, bluntly and blatantly, if all the production of Libya disappears, one country only, which is Saudi Arabia, can cover it immediately.

See more of the transcript here

.OIL FUTURES: Crude Retreats On Rising US Oil Stockpiles

Wall Street Journal Reports:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110309-711419.html

Of significance:

Saudi Arabia has said it is increasing production to make up for at least some lost Libyan crude oil. The kingdom's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, on Tuesday said there is enough crude oil and spare capacity in the market to meet demand.

and.....:

"The inventories are weighing a little bit," said Dominick Chirichella, an oil analyst with the Energy Management Institute. "But we're still in the Libya mode."

We're still in "Libya mode". Yes, yet another "mode" in addition to the 100s of other "modes" that we use to speculate and excuse raising gasoline prices.