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It's really hard for me to want for higher gas prices so we can develop "alternatives" when I'm going broke just filling my car up.
What kind of hippie liberal crap is it to say that we should want higher prices? Tell you what, you that want it, go ahead and ride your bike to work. I'd rather pay 2 bucks a gallon or less and take my car.
Last week in Cantwell Alaska, and this was not the highest we paid on our trip through the state. Did I mention we have a pipeline through our back yard and two to three refineries?
Futures trading is not driven by the profits of oil companies. It is driven by traders' belief of what the price of a commodity will be at the time of delivery. This has little to nothing to do with any company's profitability. And futures trading is not done on the stock market. Futures are traded in their own markets. Trading stocks and trading futures contracts are two very different animals.
And I'm sick of the proliferation of ignorance on the relationship between futures trading and the price of commodities. People act as if futures trading is some risk-free undertaking where people can simply drive up the price of a commodity and then make money on it. That's ridiculous. For every winner in the futures market, there is a loser. It's a zero-sum game. If you guess wrong, you're screwed.
Commodity speculation can create short-term spikes, but they can't keep bidding up the price of a commodity long-term if the underlying fundamentals for continued price increases are not there. And this has been a long-term trend since oil began its climb from $12 a barrel in 1998. If there isn't a fundamental cause for a rise in the commodity price, commodities traders can't indefinitely count on a bigger fool to pay even more for the next contract. If the fundamentals aren't there, the market will correct the situation in short order.
In short, oil speculators will stop bidding up the price of oil when they stop being proven correct. Blaming speculators for the price of oil is like blaming the thermometer for your 102° fever.
Well said Drover Blaming speculators for the price of oil is like blaming the thermometer for your 102° fever.[/quote]
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