— Meaning, you know — with the market system and the filthy, evil, profit-driven nature of capitalism itself.
Because what else could it be?
I eagerly await Obama’s joining with populist buffoon Bill O’Reilly to unmask the great conspiracy Big Oil and “speculators” have together hatched to steal from “the folks” / “the working man.” Those moratoriums, high taxes, and insane regulatory requirements and/or prohibitions? Meh.
That kinda narrative doesn’t sell — nor will it set one up as a hard-boiled champion of the little guy, a “pragmatic” truth seeker who is above political allegiances and is just looking out for you.
So.
(h/t JD)
It’s not just speculators and capitalists! It’s the hoarders, too! and the wreckers! And the saboteurs! And the kulaks! And the Jews, and the Freemasons…!
I think it’s time to institute Maxine Waters’ plan.
You know when you fill up your tank when you think gas it going to go up and let it go down to a quarter tank when you think it’s going to go down?
Speculator. And, in the aggregate, in the millions, we’re doing just as little to influence the market fundamentals as the other speculators further up the supply chain. Just about nothing.
No one beats “price reflects the interaction of supply and demand” unless you actually control the overwhelming majority of supply. No one. But, with morons like O’Reilly on “our side” I’m not remotely confident that even such a simple truth will get out to the public.
Here
Link via Volokh where too many of the commenters are “rah rah tax the oil industry because they make too much money and we need GREEN energy!”
Nowhere do they ever consider that their actions, their policies forced this to happen. It is an inevitable result of their job killing energy policies, that would necessarily make energy costs skyrocket. Fuck them.
And it was just a week ago that Obama’s allies at Think Progress went all Julius-Streicher on the Koch brothers “manipulating the oil markets”.
Grid your lions, folks! I don’t see a way out of this that doesn’t involve violence.
Okay, gotta go.
Actually have a meeting with some evil speculators. I’ll ask them politely to please stop ruining America.
This is all just Obama shouting “SQUIRREL!!!” in front of the lapdog press.
Think Progress? That’s a Soros joint, right? Must be a coincidence.
I don’t think so, Darleen. The Think Progress piece ties this into their campaign against the Kochs. And yesterday you had their “pay to play” executive order that made donating to the opposition grounds for not getting/losing federal contracts, which ALSO ties into their constant railing about the “rich buying elections” and the left’s snarling hatred of the Citizen’s United decision…
I think they’re setting things in motion to destroy the Kochs, at the minimum. This panel — or a DoJ spin-off, or the Senate — will subpoena the Kochs, find some minor way something they said could be false, and then imprison them for “perjury”.
At maximum, we see the appointment of Maxine Waters to carry out her dream of nationalizing the oil industry.
Reader Poll!* Because that is the way to limit the answers to what you wish to hear apparently.
What bh said.
Meanwhile, keep on blaming “speculators” while you keep on printing monopoly money, TimBO. A barrel full of oil will always be a barrel full of oil, but a barrel full of dollars ain’t what it used to be.
Who do we blame for the world wide price rise in metals, grains, and other commodities? Oil speculators?
I think it’s all about the Administration putting on the appearance of “doing something,” coupled with the need to identify scapegoats and keep the focus away from their own disastrous policies. Piling on to the Kochs is just gravy.
It’s only been a few weeks ago that O’Reilly finally admitted to Beck that Obama Is Up To No Good.
I can’t remember the specific proposition–that Obama is trying deliberately to wreck the economy to impose a left-wing rule, perhaps?–but Beck has been on O’Reilly’s case for years, trying to get him to see that Obama’s not just a Misguided Good Man but a Leftist Revolutionary in league with the old Weather Underground types and similar fellow travelers.
O’Reilly’s starting to crack, then, but it’s discouraging that it took him this long. It’s that conceit of his that he’s The Reasonable Guy that blinds him to Horrible Facts That Happen To Be True This Time, So Sorry About Your Normalcy Bias.
Piling on to the Kochs is just gravy.
Actually, they’re just trying to mirror and/or counter Beck’s succesful
demonizationexposure of Soros as a bad guy with big money.The real problem is all these damned machines. Get rid of them we wouldn’t need no oil. All they do is take peoples jobs. Bust them all up, what I say.
One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach: all the damned vampires
People who’ve been paying attention have known that Soros is a Ernst Blofeld / Auric Goldfinger character for at least a decade. Seriously, that fucker is as close to a real, live “James Bond supervillain” as we’re ever likely to see.
Beck calling him “Spooky Dude” seemed (to me) to minimize the actual financial damage he’s done over the years.
There are only two classes of people who can affect the price of a product/service in a free economy: Those who sell that commodity, and those who buy it. Producers are net sellers; consumers are net buyers. Speculators are net zero: The amount they buy and sell is precisely equal; only the timing of the buying and selling is different.
A speculator can buy something today, hoping the price will go up and he can sell it later for a profit (or buy call option contracts that allow him to make a bigger profit on the same price swing). Or he can short-sell that thing by borrowing it from someone who owns it, hoping to buy it back later at a lower price, so that after repaying the loaned commodity, he has a profit.
Either way, he’s betting that the market will move far enough in the right direction for him to win. But as speculators buying/selling drive the price up/down, it makes it less likely that further buying/selling at the higher/lower price will be profitable. At some point, the speculator has to reverse his prior transaction, leaving the long-term affect on supply and demand as zero.
Speculators can make short term prices rise or fall in ways that don’t make sense to people who think only in the range of the moment, but generally, the people who are willing to put their money at risk this way are doing so because they have rationally concluded that the market will make the right move. If they guess wrong too many times, they don’t have any money left to play with.
Right now, speculators observe that:
1. QEx threatens to make the US dollar a repeat of the Weimar Mark: Oil prices denominated in a depreciating currency are rising not so much because of anything to do with the oil as with the currency.
2. The permitorium is shutting down the domestic oil business. Gulf oil rigs are leaving for places where drilling is still allowed, like Brazil, who Obama gave $2B for oil production. Apparently Gaia only cries when US companies drill.
3. Oil producing countries are not awfully stable politically, especially in the Muslim world.
But speculation cuts two ways. If Sarah Palin were elected POTUS with a majority of the House and filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, they’d drive the price of oil into the ground on Wednesday after the election. Heck, if the polls showed this scenario were a lock, they’d do it before the election.
Monster. That’s why I invested in gold and silver stocks.
I made a rational assumption that this administration would never make a sensable economic decision.
I have been proved correct.
I don’t have the cahones to play the futures market, but I should have. I’m told my brother in March of 2010 that silver would hit $20.00 an ounce by January of 2011. It went a little higher.
But what this administration doesnt understand is that speculators don’t drive the prices. Speculation is a response to uncertainty. It is always market forces that drive prices. It always will be.
Tha marxist in chief has to create a boogieman.Speculators are the new boogieman.
How Stalinist.
I invested in uranium recently, for the longterm. I got some in stock, and some in futures. As I discussed with a really wise financial genius, I do not suspect it has hit it’s low absolute low yet, but in the medium to long term, energy sources seem like a safe bet. It ain’t gonna get any cheaper.
I meant it ain’t gonna get any cheaper as long as these people occupy la Casa blanca.
“Energy prices will necessarilly soar”
But it ain’t my fuckin’ fault, says the Big O. Therefore, I am appointing the most radical and indefensibly stupid idiot in my administration to investigate – even though I already told you it’s my fault, and that I whole-heartedly approve of the prison that MY energy policiy is putting you in.
But, thanks to public education and my historically unmatched contempt for the truth (Bill Clinton, hang your head in shame while I make you look like a piker), you are too stupid to remember that I WARNED YOU!
I HATE guns, but as of a few days ago, you don’t want to come to my house with any intent other than to visit a friend. When the economy collapses, sooner rather than later, you can ask me to share, but don’t think I won’t protect me and mine against Obama’s zombies who think my efforts belong to them.
Asshat zombies, each and every one of them.
You should really go to the range and such and get over the hate lest you make things worse for yourself at some later date. One must not hate the tool one is holding.
JD.
When I found out China was cutting off supply of rare earth elements to the west I found a company in the U.S. that mines the stuff and bought some stock.
One small problem–with silver stocks, at least–Mueller. Seems there might be people selling “paper silver” without the real goods to back it up. Wary of that, we’ve been buying real silver for a couple of years now.
One call on the market, and things could get ugly.
Jim. I found out long ago when it comes to precious metal stocks go for quality.
As of the close of market on Friday a U.S. pre1964 silver dime is worth $3.32.
Most of what I have was purchased at under $10.00 an oz.
“Mueller posted on 4/23 @ 7:12 pm
JD.
When I found out China was cutting off supply of rare earth elements to the west I found a company in the U.S. that mines the stuff and bought some stock.”
LOOTER! I DENOUNCE YOU!