Why? One word: Speculation!

See, if you see my post prior, I made some convincing statements to show that oil prices were due to speculation. Well, looks like I’m not alone:

Oil executives are telling Congress that speculation is the cause. George Soros, the financier who Mahatir Mohammed blamed for the Asian financial crisis also says it’s a speculative bubble. And so does OPEC!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=adq_deGSUtgg&refer=canada

June 3 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire investor George Soros said the record oil prices weighing on the economy are the result of a “bubble” caused by speculation from index funds and a tight balance between supply and demand.

“The bubble is superimposed on an upward trend in oil prices that has a strong foundation in reality,” Soros said in testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “The rise in oil prices aggravates the prospects for a recession.”

The committee is holding hearings on potential energy price manipulation. Congressional leaders are pushing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other agencies to step up efforts at overseeing the markets for fuels such as gasoline as retail prices are forcing consumers to drive less. The hearings come as oil has retreated from a record $135.09 a barrel on May 22.

The average nationwide pump price for regular gasoline rose to a record $3.978 a gallon yesterday, AAA said. The price was above $4 in 12 states and the District of Columbia.

Gasoline demand in America fell 4.7 percent last week, which included Memorial Day weekend, from a year earlier, according to MasterCard Inc.’s SpendingPulse report. Sales have declined in 16 of the past 19 reports.

Soros laid some of the blame on recent oil price rises on commodity index funds, which only buy oil contracts, helping to push prices higher.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/31/business/AF-FIN-Algeria-OPEC.php

ALGIERS, Algeria: The current OPEC president blames the weak U.S. dollar, speculation and the sub-prime crisis for the spiraling price of oil.

Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil says the cartel will make no new decision on production levels until its Sept. 9 meeting in Vienna.

He notes that OPEC controls only 40 percent of world oil production, and says the high prices do not reflect market conditions but rather other factors linked to the weakening U.S. dollar, market speculation and the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market turmoil.

Khelil was speaking with reporters Saturday in Algiers.

Oil prices recently reached US$135 a barrel before falling to less than US$130 Friday.

More about the new prison anal rape in the Bloomberg Article. Thanks for IHT and Bloomberg for letting me steal their shit.

Anyways, here’s some more food for thought: http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif

(Click on the link as it won’t format right on my layout. Sorry, I don’t code HTML for a living)

Yeah, WTF is this shit? Drop in the dollar? Sorta, PVDSA? Fuck Hugo Chavez, cocksucker. Even after 9/11 prices rose and THEN fell.

See, what justifies such a sharp price spike? There was no shortage created by war since Iraq did not cause an insane increase in oil prices. There was no shortage created by political instability like in Iran in 1979. So what was it?

Well, if you examine my last post, you’d see why.

Here’s a one year chart:

Now, can someone PLEASE explain this to me? Wait, NO ONE FUCKING CAN except to show that speculation is the SOLE cause. There was NO significant increase in demand or supply decrease to POSSIBLY justify this sort of price rise.

None. Nothing. At All. Nada. Zenzen. Nathan. Zero.

Oil started at about $65 12 months ago to shoot to $135 at the peak. There’s a very minimal cause due to the decline of the USD since interest rates fell but even if oil was $80 then it wouldn’t be all that bad for what it’s worth. Highly leveraged, speculative investing is the sole cause. Why should one settle for less when stock prices are declining? Sure, lets just loosen up our assholes to get fucked buying gas.

See, the drop at early April? Yeah, that was the Bear Stearns collapse. What happened was that the speculators got out of their positions for fear of their credit lines getting yanked. What happened? Prices dropped.

Government decided to start finally cracking down speculators and manipulation. Guess what? Prices are down over $10 in 7 days. Go figure.

This world has a ton of oil. A lot. More than we can handle. Massive finds come about month after month. Brazil is about a year for starting to tap their megafind off the coast of Rio de Janerio. Supply isn’t exactly bursting at the seams but there’s NO shortage to justify such a one-year run-up. None at all. And you’re insane if you think this will last.

How can people deny that I was right the whole time? It’s ok, I don’t make such statements to get my rocks off but to show that prices are well into a bubble and unlike the idiots who bought into tech stocks at the peak, this is a bubble and will not last.

PEAK OIL!!! OH GOD WE’RE RUNNING OUT!!!

Or is it not true?

No. We are not. Biggest myth evar. A myth of epic proportions. A myth costing us billions a day.

Took an excellent CATO Institute study to teach us how we’re all in a tizzy about… nothing.

Energy Alarmism: The Myths That Make Americans Worry about Oil

Many Americans have lost confidence in their country’s “energy security” over the past several years. Because the United States is a net oil importer, and a substantial one at that, concerns about energy security naturally raise foreign policy questions. Some foreign policy analysts fear that dwindling global oil reserves are increasingly concentrated in politically unstable regions, and they call for increased U.S. efforts to stabilize—or, alternatively, democratize—the politically tumultuous oil-producing regions. Others allege that China is pursuing a strategy to “lock up” the world’s remaining oil supplies through long-term purchase agreements and aggressive diplomacy, so they counsel that the United States outmaneuver Beijing in the “geopolitics of oil.” Finally, many analysts suggest that even the “normal” political disruptions that occasionally occur in oil-producing regions (e.g., occasional wars and revolutions) hurt Americans by disrupting supply and creating price spikes. U.S. military forces, those analysts claim, are needed to enhance peace and stability in crucial oil-producing regions, particularly the Persian Gulf.

Each of those fears about oil supplies is exaggerated, and none should be a focus of U.S. foreign or military policy. “Peak oil” predictions about the impending decline in global rates of oil production are based on scant evidence and dubious models of how the oil market responds to scarcity. In fact, even though oil supplies will increasingly come from unstable regions, investment to reduce the costs of finding and extracting oil is a better response to that political instability than trying to fix the political problems of faraway countries. Furthermore, Chinese efforts to lock up supplies with long-term contracts will at worst be economically neutral for the United States and may even be advantageous. The main danger stemming from China’s energy policy is that current U.S. fears may become a self-fulfilling prophecy of Sino-U.S. conflict. Finally, political instability in the Persian Gulf poses surprisingly few energy security dangers, and U.S. military presence there actually exacerbates problems rather than helps to solve them.

Our overarching message is simply that market forces, modified by the cartel behavior of OPEC, determine most of the key factors that affect oil supply and prices. The United States does not need to be militarily active or confrontational to allow the oil market to function, to allow oil to get to consumers, or to ensure access in coming decades.

Werd. Seriously, another thing the media has gotten us into a tizzy. Gotta love’em.

So, oh wise one, why is a gallon of gas $4 by my house?  Easy, speculation and non-oil industry investment

This article from Businessweek sums it up very nicely.

3. Speculation is Up, and the Dollar Is Down

On the same day the President and our Energy Secretary made those foolish comments, no less an authority than ExxonMobil (XOM) Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson was quoted by Marketwatch as saying, “The record run in oil prices is related more to speculation and a weakening dollar than supply and demand in the market.” He added, “In terms of fundamentals, fear of supply reliability is overblown.”

As for the speculators, in 2000 approximately $9 billion was invested in oil futures, while today that number has gone up to $250 billion. Now, if any publicly traded company had an additional $241 billion put into its stock in the same period, its stock would rise out of sight too—even if the company was not worth anywhere near that amount of market capitalization.

Moving on to the weak U.S. dollar as a primary cause for skyrocketing oil prices—there is “some” truth in that statement. But consider this: The dollar has depreciated 30% against the world’s currencies since 2002, while the price of oil has gone up 500%. So is it the weak dollar that has caused a 500% increase in the price of oil, or is it the extra $241 billion worth of speculation? You can make the call on that one.

Possibly just to ensure oil prices don’t respond to real-world market conditions, Goldman Sachs (GS) forecast on Mar. 7 that turbulence in the oil market could cause oil to spike as high as $200 a barrel. This flies in the face of all known information—but then again, Goldman Sachs is the world’s biggest trader of energy derivatives, and its Goldman Sachs Commodities Index is a widely watched barometer of energy and commodities prices.

It’s all speculation.  See, what’s traded on open exchanges, and thus quoted on TV, are not actual barrels of oil that you and your mother buy at the station but bulk future contracts. That’s right. That’s a contract for future delivery.

See, when so much money goes into these contracts, the price will go nowhere but up. That’s fairly obvious but how that affects us is that these contracts are finite. People bid them through the roof, usually highly leveraged,  in order to make money.  Since so much money is in chasing so little product in terms of these contracts, we all get fucked since the prices they create a base market upon which oil is sold around the world.

And thus, we pay for a scenario that simply does not exist. There is no real supply demand. Chinese and Indian demand increases, while real, is so small  that it cannot possibly justify the huge and astronomical rise in a price for barrels of oil. The dollar has not lost 500% vs. other major currencies. It’s gained on some, lost on others.

A quick search on Google News since 1999 shows new oil finds everywhere… China, Australia, Gabon, Nigeria, Malaysia, Brunei, Alaska, Colombia, Argentina, India, Vietnam… China may have found it’s largest oil field since Daqing which was discovered in the 1950s. That field, located near Tianjin/Beijing in northern China could actually be larger than Daqing and one of Asia’s largest fields.

Brazil, a friendly southern neighbor found one field that would turn it into a major exporting nation. Less than five months later, it may have found the 3rd largest oil field on the planet.

This is good stuff… no doubt. But what we have done as a nation is create a situation where we’ve traded our own food security, one of America’s best exports, while forcing the poorest nations on the Earth to start paying much more for staples – in some cases, prices exceeding what we pay at a supermarket here – to create ethanol. Wow, we managed to fuck this shit up bigtime.  Food rioting is back as seen in Haiti, Bangladesh and Cameroon, among other places… and these are countries that really cannot afford basic food staples like us fat Americans  can 10x over.

Oil will runout….. probably around the time I turn 80 (Note: I’m nearly 30). By then, we can create a 100% purely synthetic fuel that will not require taking food from the mouths of the poor, expensive refining or gov’t lobbist $$$$$$ to promote in order to be adopted for commercial use. Technology developments increase year after year and the rate of development is accellerating.

I also highly support getting off the Saudi and Venezuelan tits and being somewhat energy independent, but America, as a country, a people and a government, has 100% no idea how badly they’ve fucked this entire situation up, and we’re all paying $115/barrel for oil because of it.

We saw this shit in 1974… then in 1979… now today. Why are we still believing this hyseria about supply problems?

If anyone every got anything so wrong.. it was William Penn when he named this place.

Now, I won’t rag on Philly… I do like it, all things considered. Let’s be realistic here, People here take sports way too seriously. I do love football and do love baseball, but any mention of another team at Citizen’s Bank park usually requires a few nights in jail, $5000 in legal fees and some crying in front of a judge to keep you outta Phila central jail.

Here’s a seven minute video taken at the ballpark during a Mets/Phils game:

Now I’m not going to make any excuses for Mets fans.. they’re some of the biggest douches around, but this fight was epic.

This video is a mix of various pics.. some funny, some stupid…. of Eagles fans.

People take this stuff entirely too seriously here. Their new football stadium hasn’t had an empty seat since a lightning storm once forced an evacuation.

Just some food for thought here…

Little quick on the throttle there?

http://www.amazon.com/19-0-Historic-Championship-Englands-Unbeatable/dp/1600781500

Here’s another gem:

And:

The end.. indeed.

So when they say that no one remembers second place… well…. not always… Not many teams come into a super bowl nearly 14 point favorites after going 18-0 for the entire season and just lose.

Epic Failure by the Patriots. Good work. Undefeated in the regular season? Wow… who cares now…. the parade’s in Manhattan on Tuesday, folks.

The last time a French guy looked this mad, Hitler was driving past his house!

Unreal. Who the fuck watches these guys? I can’t understand it.

Ok, I do have a secret interest in what happened with the king of future bets gone entirely too wrong, Nick Leeson.

He wrote a book called ”Rogue Trader” which illustrates how he went from a small error done by one of his staffers to a 1.2 billion dollar hole. He also said that no one could see the huge hole in the Barings balance sheet, and no one seemed to question his actions which involved continually asking for funding which made the situation even worse.

So now, instead of ultra-exotic (and ball-smelly hot) Singapore, we have a Frenchman, born in France, making massive (maybe upwards of $50 Billion) in futures bets on European exchanges. All I gots to say is.. “wow.”

Seriously, was everyone asleep at the wheel? How can no one actually see that he had used up what could amount to $50 billion purchasing securities? I mean, banks take money from their customers in the form of overdraft fees and other associated bullshit, but I don’t even think Citigroup (or, what’s left of it after the Subprime crisis) has that much capital to invest (or, had it in 2006, to put it into prospective).

So this fella had some backoffice knowledge. That’s great… what you need is to train a killer to kill his trainers so no one can fight him off. While i’m sure SocGen had -some- idea about the knowledge that this person possessed could hurt them, their internal auditors didn’t notice what he was up to. Risk management at it’s finest.

Derivatives are fucking weird. They’re really nothing other than just a shake commitment and a hope that something occurs to make one come out ahead. Futures bets are akin to heading to Vegas and dropping $100 on theAtlanta Falcons for a 140:1 return. I actually don’t know how holders of these derivatives actually get paid, but I’m told there’s a clearing house for them.

Warren Buffett once said that they are “Weapons of mass financial destruction.”

Well, someone might wanna call the El Presidente Bush and notify him that we found a massive detonated WMD in an office block in Paris.  And my company ID photo doesn’t even look that bad.

Seriously, gun control does not work.

What works? Mentality control.

How can I say that? Easy… lets look at a few places:

New Orleans is one of the most dangerous stretches of property this world has to offer. Nearby Jefferson County/Metairie?  Has a murder rate slightly above the national average.

Philadelphia… aka Killadelphia. Gun violence is rampant, but in next-door Montgomery and Chester County, it’s virtually non-existent. What makes the situation more profound is that  gun ownership in the Philadelphia suburbs is extremely high.

Washington DC/Prince George’s Co is also one of the most dangerous areas in the country. Head over the bridge off Constitution Ave onto I-66 and you’ve suddenly entered one of the safest counties in America, where the murder rate is 1/8th compared to DC with the same population.

So those evil guns are to blame, right? No. And people who believe that are idiots.

Change people’s outlooks on problem resolution and teach kids that guns are NOT toys, and you got yourself some murder control instead of gun control.

I’m for reasonable gun control such as background checks and denials for felons, but when gun control laws come into effect, they erode the rights of the 99% who legally own and handle firearms.

And people complain about how their rights are being taken away with red light cameras and smoking in restaurants but support the gov’t right to strip the citizenry of the right to protect themselves proves that most people are about as useful as a busted condom on the floor of a Calcutta whorehouse.

Yeah, seriously, it says that.

The text is about 12 point font and the entire sign is about 1 meter by 1 meter square and it’s on the right side of the tollbooths.  I’ve seen it several times. The questions is: Why? I mean, it’s impossible to read. The text is so small, it must be picked up and taken along with you to read it.

Well, I guess when you get pulled over, the NJ Gestapo can say “Didn’t you read the traffic regulations?” I would retort with “Well, if they were in font that a human can read instead of an Eagle, I probably would have.”

So, I was looking and stumbled on the new Sprint SERO plan. This is a promo where I could get the same ATT  package I have….  for $30.

Now, i’m not a genius, but I am a thinker! And I am thinking that I’m getting raped without lube in PMITA prison for the rest of my life.

So being the smart person, I scowered the net too see how these referrals work.

Sprint has horrible CS and a bad reputation, but I got a Palm Centro for $100, and unlimited texting, data, 500 anytime min and unlimited nights/weekends for $30. Read that, $30.

Here’s how:

1. www.sprint.com/sero

2.  Go to www.consumerist.com and pick a name off their executive email list (do a search on their website for some names, maybe they get a bonus? I dunno).

3. Pick a phone, follow the prompts and sign up and you’re set.

I really am saving $50/m with this. That’s $600 a year. I can go to China with that money.

And while sprint may have better coverage than cheese on a cheesesteak (as stated by their ads running in my area), I am just happy I am saving an hour or of pay a month.

Look, I like shitty action movies as much as the next guy, but I sincerely believe that Hollywood has run out of all good, marketable ideas. Now they’re forced to remake bad movies like Rambo to indoctrinate a new group of suckers to think we’re watching some new idea of a great movie.

Most movies suck so bad these days anyways so why should we just remake crap movies that were decent when they first were filmed a generation ago? Have nothing to lose except… credibility… investors money… respect.

Somehow, it won’t shock me that Rambo, not only makes millions, but makes back the entire initial investment.

You know what, ABOUT TIME. NFL already has a slew of anti-trust immunity and the fact that the NFL network has draconian regulations and costs that push off the cable companies. There’s a lot of info on Google which goes over the NFL vs. paying TV subscribers.

But the cable companies still suck ass, so it’s a tossup. I get the NFL network, but I have to pay an extra $1.99 a month for that privlage, but I get 4 or 5 more networks I’ll never watch such as Foxsports West 59 or however many the have now. Truth is, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have TV to watch football, I would complain even more.

Lovely Comcast (or, Crapcast) which owns most anything in this metro area I call home does put their own “Versus” network on my standard TV package. Golf network too.  Gee, I wonder why… probably because they own those networks. Fuckers.

Cable Ala Carte is only but a dream kids, for we have such pieces of shit complaining about how it’ll raise prices.. for what? To remove networks I never watch? Right.

But since I pay an extra $1.99, can I have the right to remove from my bill such shitty networks like Versus, Golf Network, Soap TV and MSNBC?