Oil Prices: Is there any explanation given of why these are skyrocketing?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

Print or broadcast? I read a few links off of LBN and didn't get much insight...

If this were happening under Carter, or Clinton, it'd be getting almost as much coverage as that girl in Aruba!

[cthrumatrix]

1. several possibilities...

1) Iranin war possibility ....they produce 5% of world oil

2) Iranian Oil Market trades in Euro's to open March '06 increases the possibility of #1.

3) "peak oil"...a geological argument that says world oil production is or has peaked and all oil from this point is harder to "mine" and more expensive. (tough to validate)

4) add up all 3 and you have people who love $$$$ who run our world.

[Gman]

2. Greed

is the only explanation. When we're paying 2.40+ a gallon in South Texas, 130 miles from the refineries in Corpus Christi and directly on a major gasoline pipeline, greed is the only explanation. The sad thing is that gas is the same price right there in Corpus Christi.

[yorkiemommie1]

16. 2.79

refinery 2 miles away and many more within 5 miles. SoCal.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

24. What I was going to say

:hi:

[rabbit2484]

28. Look at profits

Oil industry awash in record levels of cash

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8646744/

Record Prices Mean Record Profits for Oil Companies

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1029991

Exxon Mobil profits jump 32 percent

http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/28/news/fortune500/exxon.reut/


There's three of a handful of stories from the past month.
Google: oil company profits 2005. It's unbelievable the number of stories

[tuvor]

3. Because the oil companies can.

And still realize record profits.

[Bluebear]

4. my theory...Bandar

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4344281&mesg_id=4344281

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Nope.

In fact everytime the LameStreamMedia mentions the pumpshock it always buffers it with the comforting thought that, adjusted for inflation, there was a year (1980 or 81) when the average price was higher than it is now. (Although others have pointed out that even this is bullshit.) They also float out nonsense about how there is no supply crisis and that there really is plenty of oil and that this will all pass etc. etc.

Basically they have been given orders to keep the sheeple calm so they don't start screaming while our insane leaders drive this bus off the cliff.

I'm screaming. Then again I enjoy rollercoaster rides.

[Yupster]

6. Greatly increased world demand

especially in India and China.

What I don't know but would like to know.

I know Europe has always paid much highrer gas prices than the US, but are their prices currently going up the same as ours?

Anyone know?

[Conservativesux]

10. Most of thier higher costs are due to high taxes on oil, not oil prices.

[BelgianMadCow]

11. Here in Begium, diesel fuel is 1.12 Euro / litre.

So like around 5 USD to a gallon.
Has been going up for quite a while, not like a rocket though.

[Conservativesux]

13. At least you folks have national healthcare to help defray the cost of oil

we have no such system in place here in the US. Just HMO's that are very expensive and 45 million people who cant afford it.

[lotus]

7. Mainly fear

The actual costs of producing it haven't changed substantially. They still pump it, still ship it, still sell it at all the retail outlets. Yet, massive price increases. Its all related to the financial markets where they trade this stuff. They're all panicked that supplies will decrease soon for various reasons (Iraq/Iran war, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia instability, etc.) even though it may not. Yes, peak oil guarantees that it'll reduce sometime, but not quite yet, so they're panicking too soon. Prices go way up.

The oil companies love this though. Massive price increased for the same amount of work. So, they aren't complaining or trying to reduce the fear.

[Coastie for Truth]

8. THREE REASONS WHY OIL PRICES ARE SKY ROCKETING

1. PEAK OIL

"Peak Oil" means, at a simple level, we are burning oil faster then we are finding it. Here are some references:
1) Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein
2) Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak by Kenneth S. Deffeyes,
3) Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
DU Peak Oil Group
DU Energy and Environment Forum


We have an economy and a society that is as addicted to oil as a downand and out junkie is to crack - or as Bush is to his "Jim Beam and Coke" A pessimistic and Malthusian response is "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century" by James Howard Kunstler

PEAK OIL AND 9/11

Our "response" to Peak Oil has been a military response. One of many multiple causes of 9/11 was that we put US troops (including females) on the holy ground of Saudi Arabia to protect the oil from "terrorists" and Saddam Hussein.

Our response to Peak Oil has been ever closer relationships with the House of Saud and ceding ever more control of our Foreign Policy to "Big Oil." Another of the many multiple causes of 9/11 was that many in the region perceive that the US is exploiting (in the Karl Marx sense) the Arab proletariat by supporting Big Oil.

Again, as our our response to Peak Oil has been ever closer relationships with the House of Saud, it is only natural that another of the many multiple causes of 9/11 was that many in the region perceive that the US is backing the autocratic House of Saud.

"ANCIENT HISTORY" OF PETROLEUM POLITICS

Here are some good reads.

1) A Century Of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order by F. William Eng dahl

2) Sowing the Wind: The Seeds of Conflict in the Middle East by John Kay

with a description of the "Sykes-Picot Agreement" (check it out on Wikipedia)

2. WE ARE NOW COMPETING WITH CHINA AND INDIA FOR A SHRINKING SUPPLY OF OIL

3. EVER BIGGER AND HUNGRIER GAS GUZZLERS AND SUVS AND PICK UPS.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. Yeah but I was thinking more in terms of 'why this WEEK?'

[Strelnikov_]

22. Because The Market Signal That Peak Is Upon Us Had To Happen

sometime. Specifically,

- The (often) promised increases in production by the world's last swing producer, Saudi Arabia, are not occurring.

- Demand is not being reduced by higher prices (that is why they call it price inelastic, after all).

So, the traders are coming to the conclusion that the tight market (demand ~ peak supply) over the last year may be a chronic condition. Now, couple with that with geopolitics. That is, developing crises in:

- Iran
- Venezuela
- Nigeria
- Insurgency in Saudi Arabia

And mother nature:

- Susceptibility to hurricanes of a significant part of US domestic production.

You have all the ingredients for an oil shock. Remember, the 73 oil shock was a 10% shortfall that resulted in a quadrupling of oil prices.

Considering that just one of the above would result in a 10% or larger shortfall (a couple are Armageddon level events), due to the current market imbalance I think the probability of a massive oil shock in the next year is about 100%.

[Strelnikov_]

25. I Second This. Demand Meeting Peak Rate Of Supply

Those thinking conspiracy should be wondering why our leaders have ignored for years the storm that has now broken upon us.

All one had to do was look at the following graph to know a problem was approaching:

[fortyfeetunder]

12. This same crap happened during Desert Storm

I can't quite remember the price, but I remember the price peaking during Operation Desert Storm when Bush I was in office. So I wonder if Bush II is trying to top his daddy's record on the highest.gasprices.ever?

[agincourt]

14. Peak oil but,

I've often wondered if middle east oil producers have cut production because of Bush-freeper war mongering, flushed Korans, and happy Gitmo T-shirts. Do we really know if their pumping at full capacity or are they making up figures?

[Strelnikov_]

17. Per Simmons, Campbell, Others, No We Don't

Transparency in reserves held by nationalized oil companies, such as SA, is about non-existent.

The thing is, the findings in Simmons recent book could indicate, if anything, that the Saudi's have been hiding how badly they have damaged their fields and overestimated reserves.

[Gabi Hayes]

15. Ring of Fire (AAR) repeats these stats, approximately

avg MPG of cars has actually gone DOWN since 1976, to about 20 mpg today, from 22 a few years ago

if mileage was incresed by 7 mpg, we'd be able to eliminate ALL OPEC oil

!!!!!!

can't BELIEVE the dems caved on that Energy Bill giveaway

ANY dem who voted for that POS should be excoriated for it

that thing is unbelievably bad, worse than the Medicare Bill, just not as costly, a total giveaway to energy companies, and does NOTHING to develop alternate energy or conservation

criminally irresponsible

[Pepperbelly]

18. Growing Chinese demand + erratic supplies due to war ... nt

[welshTerrier2]

19. could it be ............... SATAN ???

actually, and this gets a little technical, the reason oil prices are rising is because of ........ greed ...

keep an eye on the highest profits in history for all of the big oil companies ... what else do you need to know ??

the longer the political and military instability in the Middle East continues, the higher the prices of a barrel of oil go ... and the higher the prices of a barrel of oil go, the more profits big oil makes ...

[newswolf56]

20. Today's skyrocketing oil prices are historically unique in that...

they are not associated with shortages. The conventional "wisdom" is that the prices are a fear-response by investors to the possibility that supply might be curtailed by finite resources ("Peak Oil") or international instability: Iraq, the probability of the U.S. starting a covert-action war to overthrow the Marxist government of Venezuela, the likelihood of war with Iran, etc.

However, an objective analysis would more rationally conclude that the prices are the result of oligarchic greed driven to extremes by the fearful need to prepare for the impending total collapse of the petroleum-based economy: the maximizing of profit to facilitate maximum concentration of the world's (finite) wealth. This is precisely the same process that set in when the Roman Empire collapsed. The oligarchy moved to preserve its power (and -- by the consolidation of wealth {at that time mostly land and precious metal} -- established the foundations of the manorial economy and feudal "nobility" that ruled Europe for the next thousand years).

I also believe the Bush Administrating is tolerating (and thereby tacitly encouraging) the price increases in the hope the fury of the ever-more-burdened U.S. worker can be (mis)directed against the nation's enemies -- whether external or internal. Theoretically this would distract America's attention from the ever-more-vital class-warfare issues associated with oil prices, outsourcing, the collapsing dollar, the worsening divide between the oligarchy and the rest of us, etc. (Which once again makes absolutely clear and therefore totally relevant the basic Marxist analysis: that class warfare is the ultimate determinant of history.)

Moreover the fact the Bush Administration has no plans to cope with the economic ruination inflicted by oil prices is the most alarming aspect of the entire situation. But the probable deeper significance of this infuriating display of plutocratic "let-them-eat-cake" indifference is generally overlooked, even by the administration's more articulate critics. (Despite their opposition to the administration, these critics are nevertheless bound to parrot the oligarchic lie that soaring oil prices are but a temporary inconvenience -- that ultimately the economy is healthy. To say otherwise -- that is, to report the truth -- would surely result in their immediate censorship.)

Despite the false reassurances of the propagandists, objective analysis makes it clear these oil-price hikes are in fact permanent. Which makes the Bush Administration's indifference not just another symptom of plutocratic haughtiness but rather an important proof of the kind of future that is being deliberately inflicted on the working families of America. In truth, Bush's indifference to the suffering inflicted by fuel prices appears identical to his indifference to the victims of outsourcing. As part of the oligarchy, Bush knows the vampire of global capitalism has begun its final attack on the American workforce -- that this time the attack will not stop until all that remains is a drained, shrunken, shriveled corpse, which will then be cast off and abandoned even as the plutocrats celebrate the revenge they have taken on America for the New Deal and its all-too-brief decades of collective prosperity.

In other words, Bush doesn't give a damn about the tomorrow of America's workers because he already knows what that dread tomorrow will look like: a new Third World, with a tiny but all-powerful and obscenely wealthy oligarchy tyrannizing a huge, terrified, utterly degraded, hopelessly impoverished (and therefore easily exploited) workforce, with the ever-present prospects of starvation, homelessness and untreated disease merely acting as whips, goads and cattle-prods to further oppress the few workers lucky enough (and submissive enough) to be granted jobs.

The question is not so much whether this horror can be averted -- I believe it is already far too late for that -- but whether a bold new American Dream paradigm will arise from the nightmare: not just the restoration of political liberty, but -- at long last -- the achievement of economic democracy as well.

[Strelnikov_]

23. So, In Other Words, Out Of Control Capitalism

Take what you can now, file for bankruptcy, and move to Aruba.

The crises we are facing is a direct result of our worship of the market system as the answer to all ills. Once the market signals a problem for an essential commodity like oil, it is too late. Also, the market system implements an economic Darwinism. Witness the shortages now occurring in Indonesian, the Philippines and China.

[newswolf56]

31. Excellent summation! Picture the entire capitalist world...

as as a futuristic variation of Dark Ages Europe: the "nobility" in its citadels (with computers and mercenaries instead of scribes and knights), the rest of us living from hand to mouth in hovels. (This too is the reason for the upsurge in Yehvehistic fundamentalism: whether Christofascist or Islamofascist, the oligarchy believes religion will once again opiate the masses.) But there are wild cards in the global deck. One is China, still Marxist -- and apparently employing an old Cheka/OGPU strategy (supposedly proposed by Trotsky but vetoed by Stalin) to use capitalism against itself. Another wild card is the growing liklihood of another Communist revolution in Russia, which the Europeans I have met recently all say becomes ever more likely as economic reality worsens -- a story apparently wholly suppressed by the U.S. media monopoly.

[moondust]

21. Not sure but

if it is attributable only to increased world demand, mainly from China and India, then why is Exxon reporting the largest profits in the history of the planet?

[Disturbed]

26. When the price reaches $5 per gallon ...

Amerikans will whine loudly. There will be an upsurge in bike sales and that stock will rise.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

27. I heard some assinine talking head say it was because of the problems

with Iraq's oil. That must have been the dumbest thing I've ever heard. We weren't getting oil from Iraq in the first place.

[ToeBot]

29. Prices are going to raise until the economy shows obvious signs of stress

The kind of stress that administration's stooges, like Greenspan, can't cover up, dismiss or just ignore. Notions of supply and demand? Those are taught to Economics 101 students so Marketing 700 graduates can fool event the educated masses.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

30. The few get rich while millions get fleeced, the ugly side of capitalism.

[Stil]

32. Another reason

Less mentioned. Profit margins on the products from that barrel of oil. The barrel is split to make gas, diesel, plastic, rubber, etc. What profit margins can be pulled out of each product help move the barrel that direction. Right now the profit margins on rubber is high. So more of the barrel going to that. It used to be plastics. So it all amounts to greed for the cynical minded.

[wli]

33. Bushler's Enronizing Big Oil n/t

[Demonaut]

34. thousands of years ago, when the dinosaurs missed getting on the ark

they laid down in predetermined "dinosaur graveyards" died and decayed to leave us this greasy substance called "oil". no more worldwide floods no more oil.