http://www.marketwatch.com/news/sto...x?guid={3A082516-E932-4106-9566-A60BBC14842D} Rising oil and gas prices will definetely affect the economy in a negative way. In the long run, there are no benefits to the general population from the sudden, manipulated rise in crude oil prices.
everybody eats and drives. whoever makes a quick buck daytrading wheat will also be facing a higher food and gas bill and he has the right to make money on those markets to offset that
Boone was on cnbc this morning, I guess thats why oil is up $2.00, amazing. This can only stretch so far.
a pipeline blew up in nigeria. you need to keep up with this stuff for your trend fighting paper trades.
If these same speculators were jumping on a BEAR RUN in oil, driving prices down, harming the "big bad oil companies" and OPEC, nobody would say a word. You either believe that speculation is good and should be dealt with in a free market, or you believe that whenever we get into a bit of trouble, the govt. should jump in to the rescue. Nobody thought speculators were bad while they were driving up NASDAQ stocks to impossible multiples. No, people were thrilled that they were able to make $50/day on Arriba/ICGE/CMGI/YHOO/AMZN. It was only when the market collapsed that people said, "speculators did this to us."
so refineries are the only companies that hedge or purchase oil for delivery? not plastics? airliners? goverments? any company where oil is a major expense? nah oil isn't used very widely in the world. your argument sounds more bitter than anything else. you act like guys in the market never lose money by "speculating" and they are magically collecting bonuses on their purchases in the oil market. no one ever got hurt by wreckless buying in the CDO market. nah...those guys aren't losing their jobs left and right due to "speculation" in that market. no companies ever went out of business due to speculation.
Speculators are necessary IMO in order to "test the waters" for new price levels. At some point - according to economic theory - demand will drop off, hurting speculators. This process goes both ways, i.e. when prices are declining speculators can drive them down much farther than normal market activity would, thus eventually helping find a point that supports demand and economic growth due to low raw material input costs.
really? lessening our dependence on oil isn't positive? innovation isn't positive? and are you going to complain about the rising cost of fertilizer as well or just oil? maybe we should regulate that market too.