Fake Oil Shortage Continued

A commenter raises questions about the article suggesting that the high price of oil is not justified by supply and demand fundamentals, noting that even decades ago, US oil companies said refineries were a low-profit industry. The refineries still claim that refining is a low profit industry, but a lot of people seem to be threatening to call bull on that one. If they are so unprofitable, why are the Saudis building more and more?

As noted in the piece, gas is worth $1.85- $2 a gallon, or about 50% of its price here in the US. That is what the price ought to be if supply and demand only were manipulating prices and not being distorted by speculation.

I don't buy all this Peak Oil BS at all, and I'm not sure if it even matters anyway. Production and supply capacity are what counts, mostly supply, and if that is fine, what is the big worry, the future? You mean to tell me that businessmen actually do a thing called worry about the future? GMAB.

Chavez and Ahmadinejad are lying when they say that price of oil is still too low, but it's also a threat not to attack their countries, and you would too if you sat on gigantic pools of something the whole world wants and needs. We've already attacked Venezuela once with a US-inspired coup and some US-engineered mass employer lockout strikes designed to shut down the industry.

Right now, Venezuela is dealing with a US-manipulated capitalist suppliers strike in which essentials like milk are being deliberately withheld from the market by the capitalist bastards that produce it, to create fake shortages to get rid of Chavez.

And it may well work, who knows. Nixon made the Chilean economy scream in the early 70's, and Allende fell. The attack on Venezuela is modeled on the Get Allende US attack on Chile from that period.

Commenter notes that both the Saudis and Russians have said that they are not going to expand production, but they may not be able to, for one thing, and second, neither do they need to with prices this high. That's like trying to drive the price of oil down, and why should they do that. There is plenty of supply on hand to meet whatever demand there is, which is not often really high either.

Commenter also notes that while oil has quadrupled in dollars, it has only doubled in Euros. I do not know what to make of the dollars to Euros thing, as I am not good at Economics.

US oil companies are not manipulating the price of oil all that much. If you read the article closely with your freemarketeer brain turned off, you would have picked up on that. All oil is sold on two bourses, or markets, in the whole world. There is one in London and another in New York. This is an ongoing aspect of Anglo Imperialism that is rarely discussed.

You gotta believe we better go off oil. If you do not think that this $4 a gallon gas stuff has some serious implications for the US economy, you are mistaken. That effects of that rise yet remain to be seen in full.

The US economy is in worse shape than its fans say, but it is not in as bad of shape as its detractors insist - there is more here than think. The doom and gloom is not warranted, but there are going to be some consequences, all right.

The price of US housing tripled in only a few years in the US. All that value could become lost without going into science fiction, but that does mean US housing loses ⅔ of its value. That's twice as big as the biggest prior drop in US housing value of 50% and it could happen indeed.

Deflation is not really good for anyone, ask the Japanese. It's not the end of the world, but it's not fun either. It's like going to a movie where nothing ever happens and you have to sit through it anyway and can't leave.

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