Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Big Oil cabal controls oil prices? Complete bunk...

I am sincerely convinced that, contrary to Bill O'Reilly's BIG OIL CONSPIRACY stuff he trots out every time the price of gas gets high, oil prices are absolutely and totally market driven.

And NO: Obama is not twisting OPEC arms and bribing the Saudis to lower oil prices. He doesn't have that kind of mojo, although he thinks he does.

China and India's huge unsustainable growth rates have cooled, and their demand for oil has been curbed. Ditto here in the US, as Obama has ensured that lots of Americans have been fired, so unemployed folk have less money to put in their gas tanks, and demand is down here as well.

Supply and demand: there's a glut of oil available in the world (and this will be the case for the next 300 years or more), but fewer drivers demanding the stuff.

Duh. Prices come down, it's inarguable.

And Bill O'Reilly: how come you are screaming about speculators and oil cartels setting prices when oil is high, but when oil comes down, we only hear crickets chirping from you?

Do you really think that if these guys were able to set prices arbitrarily, that they would get together and decide to lower prices and forego billions and billions in profits, what, just for PR purposes?  What would a fly on the wall of Big Oil cabal hear during their discussions of how to LOWER the price of oil, since they have all of this power to control prices:

Sheik Abdullah: ' The Americans, especially this O'Reilly guy, are screaming bloody murder about us gouging them on the price of oil.  We need to lower the prices, now that everyone's angry.

Prince Omar: ' Yes, I agree.  We all need to lower prices per barrel of oil from $107 to $80 per barrel, and in this way, they world will love us.  In doing so, we will only forego $1 TRILLION dollars in revenue, but it's worth it to us to be seen as the good guys.

Prince Abdullah: 'I agree also, let's give the consumers their money back.  We need to improve our tarnished image, and a TRILLION dollars is certainly a fair price to achieve the love we need.'

Yeah, right.  This is not the way things work in the world.  Not a chance, Bill. If these guys could do it, oil prices would NEVER come down, not ever. But they do come down due to market forces, and there goes your conspiracy theory down the tubes.

How else would you explain away this fall in prices, if you say that speculators and oil cartels have everything under their control? 

You can't, Bill O'Reilly.  Market forces determine this globally available commodity, and nothing more.  You are profoundly wrong about your Big Oil conspiracy, and it's demonstrable.

7 comments:

Silverfiddle said...

I thought oil prices were controlled by a dial under the president's desk?

That's what they told us when Bush was president. Remember how he would jack it up to please his big oil cronies? Then dial it down just in time for the elections?

;)

Kid said...

Fredd, Oil prices are in US Dollars and are driven by the value of the US dollar.

You can chart that. Dollar up, oil down, dollar down, oil up because the long hair and a beard types require more dollars for the same barrel of oil when the dollar isn't worth as much.

Gasoline is different of course. Gas Will be cheaper over the election period regardless anything else.

And oil is only 40% the price of gas. The rest is taxes and profit for those involved in getting it to us.

Kid said...

PS, And you're right about what you say. The 'base' prices has to start somewhere and it is supply and demand and the greed of OPEC.

We have enough oil under the US to last us totally without any imports, long enough and until we figure out how to run cars on unicorn poops. No question.

Ducky's here said...

Breaks down as a short term analysis.

Because prices are "sticky" coming down a spike in futures or a refinery problem can hike prices for several months.

Z said...

SF...remember how much money the left said we'd gone into Iraq for? Where did that money go, anyway? :-)

Fredd, I have no idea how the oil prices work but I'd be more prone to buy your, Kid and SF's input than O'Reilly's, that's for sure.

Ducky's here said...

No z, we fought the war on the cheap.

Ammunition, infrastructure, a multi billion dollar embassy, machinery ... it's all free

Z said...

No comments from anybody on "we fought the war on the cheap" considering how much we have lost financially (millions a DAY), how many lives are lost......

and we never got that oil Ducky and his friends accused us of going into Iraq for?

wow!