Why you pay $4/gal of gas.

[screwballl]

why is the "man" even mentioned in these comments. He is one man with enough power to veto, sign or not sign a bill. He is not the source of all this evil that is being wrongly spread these days. Look at the Senate and the House, not the single "man".
The problem is that we to clean house and start fresh with no previously serving members of ANY branch and cut all but $10,000 per year in benefits for ALL that have previously served, any branch. That is the largest portion of where the wasteful spending is going.

[PTRMAN]

Anybody have a statement of the federal budget? I'm sure Ag and Medicare/Caid get the lion's share.

[IC Diamond 7]

Originally Posted by screwballl

just a small correction: it was only under control (out of the red) for a month or two and was seriously dropping again to almost 10 trillion before the current administration took office and dropping billions by the day.

German power company, E.On, formerly Powergen, the British Gas parent Centrica and RWE npower, Britain's largest electricity supplier, also expressed interest in building nuclear stations at a likely cost of £2.8 billion apiece.

screwballl

The 10 trillion number was interesting so I looked up cost to build a nuclear power plant.


Ha! a little more I forgot it was a british pound quote but you get the idea

1,000 power plants for 2.8 trillion dollars would meet all our energy needs and we could go completely electric including cars with the added benefit of no Co2 for those that care. ( side note: I thought it was interesting that 31,000 US scientists, 9500 hundred of them PHD's signed on and released a letter this week critical of manmade global warming as a reality)


Math error - Ha! a little more, I forgot it was a British pound quote but you get the idea

[IC Diamond 7]

'Squawk Box' Guest Warns of $12-15-a-Gallon Gas

Here's another one -$12-15 for a gallon of gas......$800 to 1000 a month to power up my car? hell it'll be $2000 a month to heat my house with oil, food prices will double or triple.

I' guess I can live on pasta and economize by walking the ten miles roundtrip to work everyday which would keep my weight from all the pasta I am going to be eating.


This chart caught my eye, certainly an indicator to think about. Not sure what it all means

[PTRMAN]

Oil's perfect storm may blow over - Telegraph

Interesting article claims output boost by Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and (of all places) Iraq will eventually offset the rising demand and prices for oil. Also expected are increased supply coming from Brazil, Azerbaijan and the Sudan.

One interesting note is that global inventories are rising - see the chart of OPEC Surplus Crude Oil Production - and expected to keep rising.

Demand growth from 2004-2007: China accounted for 34%, Middle East for 25%, and emerging Asia 17%. By contrast US increase accounted only for 7%.

[IC Diamond 7]

PTRMAN

Ambrose Evans Pritchard Is one of my favorites. On the speculative side I think he's right, The market will take care supply and all bubbles pop. In large part though the bulk of the price increases we are seeing IMHO is just that the dollar is worth poop these days.

[PTRMAN]

Winter (Economic & Market) Watch Berserker Funds in Commodities

I'm seeing a lot of this tying the $ to oil prices. Not sure it is directly comparable, but this (see chart - correlation of Oil Prices to US$) looks to support (I think) that
theory. Negative correlation of 1.00 would mean that as US$ and Oil move perfectly inversely to each other - as US$ falls then oil prices rise.

[screwballl]

they can double their output, it just means that gas will go up 10 cents instead of 20 cents this week :(

[PTRMAN]

Appreciate the humor screwball, but basic supply/demand tells us that as demand rises prices will, in the short-run, rise. As prices rise there should (eventually) be more supply, not less. All existing producers will try to increase output, and new competitors will get into the game, both of which should serve to offset the demand.

Eventually it will likely take more $ per barrel to get the oil out of the ground once we use up all the easy-to-get-to oil, but that in turn will lead to new technologies.

I'm pretty convinced the run-up in gas prices is part bubble (along with all the other commodities) but also in part due to the rising deman from China/emerging Asia for fuel and "better" food. Of course the stupid Agriculture and Biofuels bills in the US certainly don't help drive down prices, either.

[IC Diamond 7]

Berserker Funds in Commodities - I love the title




The commodities hoarding was new to me and looks to me to compound the dollar/economy problem. So in effect they exaggerate or inflate bubble markets to a much higher degree than you would see in a normal market? So the bubble does finally pop but now they are to big to fail so the government now steps in and bails them out. So profit is insured by the government for these guys and losses are socialized/ paid for by the public.

I also liked the link supplied to another article



Winter (Economic & Market) Watch The Consequences of Riskloves Setting Prices

in this altered reality, the producers of goods or commodities end up in the perverse role of reading high pricing signals that are being set by speculators who have lingered on (often even hoarding) well after after the real economy has pulled back. Of course, it’s not too difficult to see why speculative inflationary psychology never seems to abate, even in the face of poor fundamentals: they expect the monetary authorities to supply them with liquidity fuel ad nauseum. Then they create fictitious capital and trade off of it.