What's Really Driving the High Price of Oil? By RALPH NADER

[Better Believe It]

May 28, 2008
In Search of a Sane Government
What's Really Driving the High Price of Oil?
By RALPH NADER

In an ironic twist, the major price determinant has moved from OPEC (having only 40% of the world production) and the oil companies to the speculators in the commodities markets. What goes on in the essentially unregulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)—without Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforced margin requirements, and, unlike your personal purchases, untaxed—is now the place that leads to your skyrocketing gasoline bills. OPEC and the Big Oil companies reap the benefits and say that it’s not their doing, but that of the speculators. Gives new meaning to “passing the buck.”

Deborah Fineman, president of Mitchell Supreme Fuel Co. in Orange, New Jersey, summed up the scene: “Energy markets have been dictated for too long by hedge funds and speculators, who artificially manipulate the numbers for their own benefit. The current market isn’t based on the sound principles of supply and demand but it is being rigged by companies and speculators who are jacking up prices for their own greed.”

Harry C. Johnson, former banker who worked for many years inside Big Oil and ran his own small oil company in Oklahoma, blames the CFTC, the Department of Energy, the Administration, and Congress, as “asleep at the switch on an issue that is probably costing U.S. consumers $1 billion per day.”

He cites “some industry experts, who profit greatly from the high price of crude, and have stated openly that the worldwide economic price of crude, absent speculators, would be around $50 to $60 per barrel.

Please read the entire article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader05282008.html

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Now before anyone thinks this is a golden opportunity to engage in another Nader bashing contest, stop foaming at the mouth, take a valium or two and take the time to actually read his comments on the oil crisis. LOL OK? What Nader wrote about the cause of the inflated oil prices and what needs to be done about it makes sense to me.

So if you must post, please try to keep your comments on subject, whether you agree with or disagree with what Nader wrote regarding oil prices.

If you just want to engage in yet one more Naderbashingfest please start a new lead post.

[Better Believe It]

1. And Check Out This Powerful Statement By Iraqi Oil Workers

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3347446

[truedelphi]

5. Thank you for posting that link. n/t

[texastoast]

2. Ralph never lied to us about Big Oil

He knew that the world was "drowning in oil" in 1973? when he testified before Congress. Turns out he was right, and as soon as the price merely doubled, the stinky black stuff started to flow again.

While his presidential aspirations turned out poorly, he is probably the best consumer advocate we've ever had and a very smart, if a bit odd, man.

[acmavm]

3. Hate to admit he's right about anything (since 2000) but I do

think he's a good source of information on this subject.

[The Stranger]

12. Weird how the canard that he somehow hurt Progressives was spread so well after the 2000 election.

I guess Hillary has taken care of that lie once and for fucking all.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. Oh yeah and Obama will be our save our progressive butts!

:rofl: The two populist/progressive candidates were run off. Those would be Kucinich and Edwards. But dream on! And Nader is unsafe at any speed

[Hubert Flottz]

4. GREED!

[Initech]

6. Absolutely. He is correct.

And all of this "oil is going to hit $200/barrel by end of summer" bullshit is more fuel (literally in this case) for the speculators and commodities traders to drive the price up even further. Someone's got to put an end to this shit. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[lildreamer316]

7. K& R.

[unblock]

8. i still want to know how hedge funds "rig" the markets for their own benefit

i work on wall street and know quite a bit about these markets. generally speaking, if they just buy more futures or other products that are "long" oil, that drives the price up, true.

but that doesn't make them money. only by convincing others (the greater fool theory) to keep buying WHEN THEY'RE FINALLY SELLING do they actually make money. if that's the case, why aren't people blaming the journalists for hyping $200/bbl oil instead of the speculators?

if everyone knew oil was really going to $200/bbl (big, big "if"), can you really blame the speculators for buying at $130?

[Pab Sungenis]

9. He's absolutely right.

The speculators are behind this, but let's have this price shock be a wake-up call instead of a nightmare. End our dependence on petroleum starting now.

[hunter]

10. Oil will sell for what people pay for it.

Are you still buying gasoline? Are you still buying stuff transported by diesel fueled trucks?

That's the problem right there. The price will come down (maybe) if demand falls. It seems less and less likely anyone has the surplus extraction capacity to make any difference on the other side of the equation -- the oil extraction machine our world economy is powered by is running at full throttle.

The energy crisis of the 'seventies was caused by peak oil in the United States. If there was any way the U.S. could have produced more domestic oil then they would have, and we would have told OPEC and other oil exporting nations to take a hike. But by then we were already dependent on foreign oil.

Nader is simply a tool, as always, whether or not he is aware of that. The profits of speculators and oil companies will continue to increase every day we fail to address the harsh realities of peak oil. If you yourself were sitting on a huge reserve of oil, and you knew you were not going to be finding any more, wouldn't you want to know where the price tops out? I suspect those who control the oil markets are walking a morbid line of maximal profit vs. demand destruction. In this oil fueled economy demand destruction means the destruction of many different markets that depend on oil, which is most markets.

If we can't face the reality of peak oil, then demand will be matched to declining production exclusively by price, and that sort of rationing will literally starve people living in poverty worldwide. Market forces will reduce demand by killing people.

Even if we regulate markets strictly as Nader suggests, making ourselves a little more comfortable today, we will only delay the ultimate reckoning. Nader's plan is oddly reflective of his "unsafe at any speed" automobile activism. Sure, cars got safer, but they are still very deadly and resource intensive. Maybe, just maybe, cars themselves were the problem, and by making them less dangerous and more palatable, they ended up killing more people in the long run. Or maybe it wasn't true that Republicans and Democrats were so similar that a vote for Nader was justified...

It's my opinion that Nader is just a bubblegum flavor masking that which is killing us.

It's quite possible that oil speculators and extractors have overshot the mark a bit, but I doubt the dollar price of oil is going to decline significantly to what it was two or three years ago unless some sort of global economic or environmental catastrophe cuts off demand at the knees. In that case the price of gasoline for our cars will be among the very least of our problems.

[The Stranger]

11. Ralph Nader was right.

He was right about the War Democrats who, once elected, passed war (crime) bill after war (crime) bill, just like Republicans.

And he is right about this.

[digidigido]

14. Too Little Too Late

Ralphie fucked up. He lied when he said there was no difference between Bush and Gore. Under the banner of Progressivism, he sent this country
back to the dark ages. He gave Bush Florida and New Hampshire. Oil is $12 a gallon is London, Peak oil is over. Fuck you Ralphie

[Better Believe It]

15. Huh?

He never said that but that's off topic.
What did you think of his article?

[Geek_Girl]

16. Nader's Right

nt