Big Pumpin': Gas Prices Shoot Up Over Past Two Days (Santa Barbara: costs, food)

[steel7]

A barrel of oil has dropped again to $93.00. I DONT believe in the refinery issues the crooks claim to have. Once a low life thief & liar always a low life thief & liar.

[nullgeo]

Serendipity at work ... Without looking for it I bumped into one of the articles about speculation affecting the gasoline prices. The article is linked below. It is a month old and so discusses different circumstances than those specifically addressed by the OP here. But the discussion relates. These speculations are not the same likely affecting the spot pricing currently in California. But if you read the article, note the situation mentioned about New England's recent variation from the rest of the country's trend. And the reference to refinery capacity in conjunction. Note too how the speculator's activities drive the market changes overall in larger amount, by far, than all other factors.

Do you think that nothing similar in manipulation is at the root of spot prices? No, I don't mean speculation is somehow targeting California supply specifically and intentionally. I mean that when these players play, the shat flies and collateral reactions happen all over depending on supply, output, inventory, and competing sales to foreign players. Sometimes it's one region that reacts differently than the rest -- other times it's a different region that falls out of the pattern.

Why Gasoline Isn't $4 Per Gallon Nationally - Businessweek

[user_id]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

I have an absolutely perfect understanding of what traders do ... And it's not work ... it is worthless except to themselves, and succubant to others whose labors they thrive on ...

In other words, you really don't know what they do....

Originally Posted by nullgeo

pretty much everything in our culture is now financially based.

So, like I asked before, how so?

Originally Posted by nullgeo

The true ways of the natural world are not found in obsessive labor.

Let's keep your religion out of it....

[user_id]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

Serendipity at work ... Without looking for it I bumped into one of the articles about speculation affecting the gasoline prices.

You're going to be able to find all sorts of articles on this topic, but to say it once more, what you're not going to find is agreement on how speculation effects the spot prices of oil and gas. This isn't well understood, the fact that you think you have the answer says a lot about you.

Also, you keep speaking as if speculators all benefit by high oil prices, but futures markets are more or less a zero sum game. When oil increases in price, some traders win some lose. Similarly when oil decreases.

What is funny is that nobody complains about traders when oil prices collapse, and yet that is just as much a result of trading activity as oil prices increasing!
Anyhow, traders are just a scapegoat. The liberals have their evil traders, the conservatives have their welfare queens, illegals, etc. Same shoe, different foot.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by user_id

You're going to be able to find all sorts of articles on this topic, but to say it once more, what you're not going to find is agreement on how speculation effects the spot prices of oil and gas. This isn't well understood, the fact that you think you have the answer says a lot about you.

Also, you keep speaking as if speculators all benefit by high oil prices, but futures markets are more or less a zero sum game. When oil increases in price, some traders win some lose. Similarly when oil decreases.

What is funny is that nobody complains about traders when oil prices collapse, and yet that is just as much a result of trading activity as oil prices increasing!
Anyhow, traders are just a scapegoat. The liberals have their evil traders, the conservatives have their welfare queens, illegals, etc. Same shoe, different foot.

User, you comedian you, no one will ever find agreement about anything in this world. No matter what. Least of all you.

And if speculation is a zero sum game, then a lot of really rich traders inherited their money and simply love to gamble, right? They win some and lose some but there's no ultimate gain that isn't lost.

No sir, that money from the increasing prices is definitely going into someone's pocket pretty consistently. But never mind the economists and journalists who study and report on the game. They just don't understand what user understands.

By the way, when was the last time oil prices collapsed? Since the speculators moved in, I mean.

[NewToCA]

Meanwhile, I just checked "gas buddy" and found that you can get regular gas at $3.51 in my old hometown of Columbus, Ohio, vs a price of about $4.20 out here in Sacramento.

Pretty big difference, especially considering the tax is only $.23 higher per gallon in California.

[Fontucky]

Just dumped 80 bucks into the tank of my F-150 @ 4.21 a gal. Good thing I walk to work.

[user_id]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

User, you comedian you, no one will ever find agreement about anything in this world.

I'm speaking about agreement among professionals, and yes, you find that all the time.....but not on this topic.

Originally Posted by nullgeo

And if speculation is a zero sum game, then a lot of really rich traders inherited their money and simply love to gamble, right?

Umm....huh? I have no idea what you're trying to get at here. Derivatives require a buyer and seller.....which result in a winner and loser depending on the outcome of the event.

Originally Posted by nullgeo

By the way, when was the last time oil prices collapsed? Since the speculators moved in, I mean.

Since speculators moved in? I hate to break it to you but "speculators" have been involved in oil for many decades.... The last time? A few years ago, oil was $40 a barrel in 2009. In 1999 oil was under $20 a barrel. Traders were just as active during these periods as they are today....

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by user_id

I'm speaking about agreement among professionals, and yes, you find that all the time.....but not on this topic.


Umm....huh? I have no idea what you're trying to get at here. Derivatives require a buyer and seller.....which result in a winner and loser depending on the outcome of the event.


Since speculators moved in? I hate to break it to you but "speculators" have been involved in oil for many decades.... The last time? A few years ago, oil was $40 a barrel in 2009. In 1999 oil was under $20 a barrel. Traders were just as active during these periods as they are today....

One last post for you to play with on this subject, user ...
Nonsense, about professional agreement. You wil find professional controversy on nearly all subjects in varying degree. And you will find considerable and growing consensus on oil traders having changed the game since the early new century here now.

Yes, they played before. But now they control at vastly elevated levels previously unseen. Which is exactly why the prices have gone through the roof as they have in this time period. The world volatilities combined with growing demand AND, most significantly, the essentially total lack of trading regulation, have made oil and gas a more fertile field to manipulate than ever before. It was always gold, but it was free flowing. Now the free flowing inventory is past peak, demand is soaring beyond present capacities, and supply interruptions are threatening before new methodologies to substitute in other areas are ready.

The 'winners' are the traders ... Even when they bet against themselves. The losers are always the consumer. There's plenty of reading material available on the subject -- with very substantial consensus. Except not yours naturally. But you belong to a different class of dissenter -- one who really only takes any position to maintain any argument. For instance when you recently proposed that a return to feudalist society is likely ... Where you argued against that very concept about a year ago when I proposed it. Now you may continue your continuous refutations without further interruption from me

[user_id]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

The 'winners' are the traders ... Even when they bet against themselves. The losers are always the consumer.

Sorry, but this isn't how it works. When commodities increase in value the only group that, as a whole, benefits is the producers of the commodity. Traders can profit just as easily from declines in commodity prices as they can increases, there is no reason for them to favor high prices that are costly to the consumer.

When a trader profits, he is making money from his counter-party (another trader) not the consumer.

But, you've found your boogeyman and you are obviously going to use it in your explanatory apparatus regardless of....well....reality.