Gas Pump Thievery: Who's Really Behind the Rising Prices at the Pumps?

[raccoon]

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. Posted June 25, 2009.


What's going on here is not the "magic of the marketplace," but some hocus-pocus by brand-name dealers.


Like a Fourth of July crescendo of fireworks, our gasoline prices are rising higher and higher. While this is tough on consumers, we're assured by a covey of tongue-clucking industry analysts that nothing can be done about it, for it's simply the law of supply and demand in action -- so suck it up, and pay up.

But hold your BPExxonMobilShellChevron horses right there. Supply and demand? The supply of crude oil has risen this year to its highest level in nearly two decades, even while the demand for gasoline has dropped dramatically, having fallen this month to a 10-year low. Let's see -- supply up, demand down. That's a classic market formula for cheaper prices at the pump. Yet our prices have steadily moved up, rising by two-thirds since the beginning of the year (and by 60 cents a gallon in the past two months alone).

What's going on here is not the "magic of the marketplace," but some hocus-pocus by brand-name dealers. What might surprise you, though, is that the wheeler-dealers now jacking up our pump prices don't operate under the BPExxonMobilShellChevron brands -- but the logos of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other Wall Street traders that have been placing vast, unregulated, secretive bets on the future price of oil. They're playing an electronic casino game in a global "dark market" of exotic derivatives and credit swaps.

If this sounds vaguely familiar to you, it's because this is the same game that Wall Street played with subprime mortgages, leading to the present crash of our economy. And, yes, these are the exact same banksters that you and I are presently bailing out with our trillions of tax dollars...


http://www.alternet.org/workplace/140889/gas_pump_thievery%3A_who%27s_really_behind_the_rising_prices_at_the_pumps?obref=obnetwork

[Sinti]

1. Well, you can blame the bankers and futures dealers, but...

Have a good look at the top of the Fortune 500 list for 2009 - just the top 10. Flip through the tabs, especially the Top industries: Fast growers tab. Futures aside, they charge "what the market will bear" and they don't mind selling less product for more $$ per product - that's called higher margins, and the analysts love that stuff, as do the stockholders. Would you rather sell 50 products for $1 each or 1 product for $50 (the exact same product here)?

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/full_list/

[Skink]

2. They figure oil isn't a toxic asset.

What we should do is open the strategic reserves and let the govemment supply oil at a discount for awhile and then pump the profits into healthcare.

This could probably be done by Presidential order. Or maybe just a simple signing statement.

[Captain Hilts]

3. 30 cents a gallon in two weeks. Speculators. NOT demand-based. nt

[louis-t]

4. There are times when I suspect collusion.

This is one of those times. About 90% of the stations around here have the same price. $2.69. The biggest variation I have seen in the last 3 days is $2.67. About 8 years ago, I remember driving through Pontiac, Waterford, E. Highland on M-59. About 20 miles total. Every station had the exact same price.

[phantom power]

5. I don't like these analyses, mostly because "oil" =!= "gasoline"

There are layers between crude oil supplies the pump. Which doesn't, however, prove or disprove that funny-business is going on somewhere in the system.

[nightrain]

6. yep.... less demand, less profits. Up 20+ cents/gallon in 10 days here...

[winyanstaz]

7. I don't know about the Banks in your area...

but I saw with my own eyes three banks in the WA area that I live in...doing massive construction all around the base of the banks.
They were digging up the streets..and pouring cement and welding large metal sheet layers down..and I was curious as to why as it looked like they thought someone would try to dig in from the street or bomb them or something.
My Banker said it was just to "fortify" the banks. I wondered why they would think they would need to do all that and then I just forgot about it.
This is the same time that there were so many rumers about the banks closing for a couple of weeks after a three day weekend holiday and calling all the money in and making people use plastic cards instead.
Now, after all this banking mess, I wonder if they didn't already realize how pissed people might get with their shenanigans.

[Demeter]

8. Goldman Sachs

All roads lead to Goldman

[Butch350]

9. Post deleted by owner - wrong thread. SORRY! (very)!