support by the Oil Administration (part and parcel of the Bush Administration) no opposition to these detrimental runaway price hikes,,,, remember, Japan did the Pearl Harbor incident based on a short squeeze on oil and petroleum products in 1941... Geo. Bush I, Ron Reagan, James Carter, Will Clinton all made sure that their administrations took decisive and specific actions to prevent exactly the extortion being done to the American populace by these high and if one can trust GoldmanSachs projection, even higher oil prices... so, what's these guys excuse?
I think it has more to do with the fact that the ultimate arbitrator of value is what someone is willing to pay. Given the inelasticity of oil, we will not see a price correction without viable alternatives.
limitdown- You're trying to tell me that the whole runup in oil prices is because the Bush Admin. didn't stop it from happening?? And while we're at it, you mention Goldman...do you think that they may be talking their book a bit.....? http://www.oilintel.com/newshome.cfm?news_id=5915&action=showstory Take off the tinfoil hat and start using your brain. You don't like $4 gas? Neither do I. A thinking man would know that the best way to reduce the cost of oil is to use less...which is exactly what these stupid tax holidays will NOT do. Even Barak Obama sees this, and he's about as far from a free-market guy as one can get. John McCain should know better, and, in fact, this idea was brought to him by one of his pollsters, not any member of his economic team. If demand in this country goes down (the US uses about 25% of worldwide oil) then the price WILL go down also...every time. Weather speculators, or some secret cabal of Bush/Cheney loyalists are holding the market up, it wouldn't matter, because they'd be holding the bag and there'd be nothing to do with the product but dump it.
ok, just one moment (while I reach for the remote control and change the channel from CNBC, Bloomberg TV, WSJ Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News, and, oh, let me not forget, Fox Business Channel) ohh yeah, let me also rewind and retun my copy of "Enron, The smartest guys in the room" to blockbusted. incidently, the last 20 minutes of that 2 hour expose showed just how this Bush/Chenney cabal worked and made those guys part of their transition team and cooked up this same hype over reality for oil, that they did for electrix-ity.... yeah, let me take off that tin-foil hat (i.e. tv business channels) thanks for reminding me.... ((IOW -- that synopsis were not my findings but those of other reporters and such))) ((BTW -- yes, it did occur that GoldmanSachs was trying to do a top side blow off to oil and break its resolve, or as you put it, talking up their book of short trades))
Curious, but demand has been going down and stock piles have been building. Yet price has been rising regardless.
tomorrows EIA numbers will be huge if Oil hits $125.00 or not...could be the beginning of downward move...
its both. greater demand every year (although there isn't actually a shortage as some people think). there is also massive speculation among the funds. Weak dollar doesn't help either.