What's the cause? Forget what you may have read about the laws of supply and demand. Oil and gas prices have almost nothing to do with economic fundamentals. According to the Energy Information Administration, the supply of oil and gasoline is higher today than it was three years ago, when the national average for a gallon of gasoline was just $1.90. Meanwhile, the demand for oil in the U.S. is at its lowest level since April of 1997.

Is Big Oil to blame? Sure. Partly. Big oil companies have been gouging consumers for years. They have made almost $1 trillion in profits over the past decade, in part thanks to ridiculous federal subsidies and tax loopholes. I have proposed legislation to end those pointless giveaways to some of the biggest and most profitable corporations in the history of the world.

But there's another reason for the wild rise in gas prices. The culprit is Wall Street. Speculators are raking in profits by gambling in the loosely regulated commodity markets for gas and oil.

But hey, why regulate those folks? No need to get government involved, why stand in the way of job creators like speculators? Oh yeah, I forgot, they AREN'T job creators, just people out to make a buck for themselves.

Now that title will mock me for days .....

Still waiting for those who blame the President for the price of gas to explain how he managed to make our gas prices in Canada soar too.....But never an answer just deflection.

I must admit you are very good at it, but then again you have had lots of practice.

I got in in the high 70s and out at 109. When/If it drops substantially, I'll repeat my trade.

According to Bernie Sanders.... One ill-informed idiot quoting other ill-informed idiots.

"Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist,[1][2] and has praised European social democracy (though he has also criticized its contemporary "Third Way" departure). He is the first person elected to the U.S. Senate to identify as a socialist."

Next you're going to be digging up Stalin and Mao?

And what is a "democratic socialist"?

Democratic socialism is contrasted with political movements that resort to authoritarian means to achieve a transition to socialism, instead advocating for the immediate creation of decentralized economic democracy from the grassroots level, undertaken by and for the working class itself.

Socialist have to make that distinction: Some like violence, some don't.

While you're looking for someone to explain how Obama can be blamed for the high gas prices in Canada and the rest of the world, I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how a bunch of bettors in a big floor in lower Manhattan, traders doing nothing more than making bets on the future price of oil, can actually affect the price of oil in Outer Mongolia.

Hay

GS: "Net speculative positions are four times as high as in June 2008″
Goldman Sachs rocked oil markets for a second day Tuesday by calling for a nearly $20 fall in Brent crude oil, saying speculators had pushed prices ahead of fundamentals. It was the second warning of a steep market reversal from the long-term commodity bull in as many days. On Monday, Goldman recommended clients close a trade heavily weighted toward U.S. crude futures.
I've never been one to say that speculators are the primary driver of oil price fluctuations. Fundamentally, we are at or near the peak in conventional oil production - and that means oil prices will inevitably see higher highs and higher lows (See Science: "Peak oil production may already be here"; HSBC Bank: Oil will be gone in 50 years). And obviously we have a unique amount of unrest across North Africa and the Middle East.
But if the world's biggest commodity trader commodity trader says speculation is playing a role, one has to listen ....

So, on the one hand, we have the CEO of Exxon and the worlds largest commodity traders - Goldman Sacs - saying that speculation is a major cause of oil price increases, going along with, oh, say, 99.999 percent of everyone in the world except Hay, I think I'll go with the majority.

You forgot about Saudi Arabia. They also are saying that the reason for high prices is because of "speculators".

Hay

Batya, Chase, all the rest of your furriners: Who gets the "blame" in your country for the high gas prices?

Do you hear daily talk about speculators? Do your politicians get the blame?

In Israel, do people acknowledge that some of the reason for the high price might have to do with the Israeli subtle hints that they might be starting a war in the Mideast with Iran?

I'm seriously curious.

Hay

First off, Israelis don't hint subtle. Against the cultural imperative or something.

I don't really know, shameful but true - but I assume, which is my first mistake, that we get oil from the same places that you do. Political foolishness raises our prices on many imports. We have much higher taxes, too, gas chief among them. There was gonna be a lot of natural gas from Egypt, but...............

The media and public here also love to play the blame game, more than even HT, if you can imagine. 7,000,000 people and it's never anyone's own fault, always somebody else's, no matter what the subject is! Sound familiar?

If'n you ask me, our reliance on gas and the way we build towns, create jobs and shop, grow food, etc is to blame. We are slaves to it and weaning ourselves will come with great distress and high social costs, no mater how badly it needs to be done. That said, I've been without a car for 15 years, and we get raises in September. My first thought was, "Oh, baby, maybe I could get a car!". Like, after 15 years of public transportation maybe it's my turn. Truly, the thought of a car rallies me.
As to your last question, only a minority here are willing to take the risk and critically examine the link between our economy with our military escapades and policies, and even fewer are willing to accept the answer that presents itself upon doing so.

Which means, I guess, that we're pretty much like you.

What I hear most often as the reason is ridiculous profits by the oil companies followed by speculation in the markets and high world market prices as a result of instability on the Middle East. Depends on what is going on in the world which one takes the lead.

I never hear the government blamed for anything other than the amount of tax we pay on our gas.......and before you go off on that tangent......it is our high tax rate that makes us pay more for gas than you pay in the States but our base costs are the same. No discount for having it in your back yard.

Other Canadians may have a different opinion.

I think the USA has something like 700 million barrels of oil stored away in the oil reserve. Speculators.

And did you stock up on wood to burn for your fireplace last summer? Speculators.

No end to the evil in the world.

Hay

/has nothing to do with the Feds starting a probe on market manipulation.

Nothing will sway you, will it?

It's called religion.

Prices fluctuate. It's a fact of life.

"Many of the savvy speculators have taken their profits and will wait for the next whoop-de-doo moment of opportunity to get back in."

For every person winning a bet, there's someone on the other side losing a bet. One's savvy, one's not so savvy. Tomorrow they trade places.

Prices fluctuate. It's a fact of life.

You think you're so savvy? How much money did you make? (Please don't tell me you have no interest in making any more money. Especially since you're so savvy and make it sound like it's so easy. You could be the one to cure Aids with all the money you could make.)

Race track scam:

Ten horses running in a race. You run around, telling ten different people to bet on one of the horses to be a winner. You tell each person a different one of the ten horses. Of course, one wins. You forget about the nine losers. You go back to the one winner and say, "See how smart I am? Pay me a little bit of money and I'll tell you the next time I get an inside track on a winner."

I think that's how fortune tellers operate. "I see that you got married young, had three kids, got a divorce and...." For nine out of ten people they'll say, "no way, I'm happily married...." But, one out of ten people will say, "Wow, you got it exactly right! I want to give you a lot of money to tell me even more about my future, you savvy person."

If prices hadn't come down, we'd never heard back from Vgkg.

Hay

Wrong once again Hay. I take my lumps here when wrong, as when Obama didn't pick Hillary for veep in 2008. Why do you call me savvy? I was not referring to myself, you twist and turn like hay in a cyclone. Unlike you I'm not a gambler and don't make bets to make money. There are much more important things in life than money, sorry for your obsession with it.

You and your comrades keep bringing it up.

Hay

Just wondering. Is there a site somewhere with lists of "savvy speculators (who) have taken their profits and will wait for the next whoop-de-doo moment of opportunity to get back in."When I google the phrase, I just get this thread.

I know you get all huffy if I suggest you're not being 100% honest, so, could you maybe tell me if you've got some link, other than to your biased brain, that I can read to give me some more information about these savvy investors? Can you name names?

Surely you didn't just make it all up!!!

Your comrade,

Hay

Thanks.

Hay

"Oh boy, we're reaching the next crest of the roller coaster sucker punch....again. Speculators will sell when the time is right...again.
But if Iran is attacked...never mind..."

Vgkg later in the thread:

"Well after all the whoop-de-doo about never ending gas price hikes I see that my prediction is coming true (so far). Israel's Feb-Jun saber rattling attack towards Iran has eased, the pipeline panic has subsided, and Europe's up and down economic seesaw rolls along. And now my recent local gas price has dropped from a high of $3.90/gal down to about $3.40 and falling. Many of the savvy speculators have taken their profits and will wait for the next whoop-de-doo moment of opportunity to get back in."

I'm curious. You seem to have a lot of knowledge about these "savvy speculators".

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say, but it sounds like you think there are some "savvy speculators" out there doing something. What it is, I'm not sure. Are they doing something bad?

Tell me more. Please.

Who took the other side of these savvy speculator bets? "Unsavvy speculators?" I guess the "savvy speculators" bet that the price would go up and bet accordingly when the price was lower. Is that right? Who was on the other side of those bets?

And who was on the other side of the bets when they, according to you, got out of these bets, again, according to you, presumably at the top?

Are savvy speculators only able to be identified after the fact?

Please, I'd like to become a "savvy speculator".

Hay

Since you like to quote me so much I'll do the same for you.

"If prices hadn't come down, we'd never heard back from Vgkg."

Translation: Vgkg was right but I have a need to harass him for the fun of it.

It was a nice ride, I'll be sure to let you know when to get back on. Until then feel free to chat away with yourself.

"Yeah."

"These people around here talk a mean streak, but when you get right down to the nitty gritty, you and me are never going to get to go to Vegas, are we?"

"I know. I didn't really expect that we would."

"Yeah, but it was fun dreaming about it, huh?"

"Yeah, back to work I guess."

"Yeah."

"Hay.."

"Yeah?"

"Let's go dancing."

"Sure, why not? Gas seems to be getting cheaper every day."

"Good point. If we run across a well placed short term savvy speculator, remember to thank him."

"Yeah. No problem."

Hay