星期五 [ 2010-1-15 10:48:30 | watches1013 ]   Profiteers and politicians responsible for insane OLEAN -- OK, already, stop pestering me. We'll talk about the price of gasoline. That's all I ever hear on the street or in the office or in the grocery aisles. Panerai Replica Watches "Did you see what a gallon costs today?" "Why is gasoline suddenly so costly?" "Why is gas 24 cents a gallon cheaper just across the border in Pennsylvania?" "Will I have to sell the SUV?" "Will it keep going up? Will it ever get back to just three dollars a gallon?" All good questions, but I don't know the answer to any of them, and--if you watch the evening news, read the papers and magazines, take as gospel what Big Oil execs tell you, and keep track of recent windbag congressional hearings--neither, apparently, does anyone else. There are at least a dozen bills in Congress addressing the subject, and our august representatives seem to blame speculators--the commodity traders and hedge fund hedgers who until recently have seemed to believe the price of a barrel of crude oil will go nowhere but up. Italy and Austria are pushing the European Union to impose a tax on speculation. So are many members of Congress. Saudi Arabia (and other big producing nations) point at speculators rather than supply and demand as the cause of rocketing prices. This is probably a good spot in the column to tell you: So do I. Before all you bloggers, e-mailers, IMers, and letter writers who think I'm an ignorant jerk rush for your keyboards, let me tell you why. At my advanced age, I don't believe much in coincidences anymore. Most of the futures trading in oil is done on the New York Mercantile Exchange--the NYMEX. Most of the futures trading on crude began to swell in 2004. In the four years since, the NYMEX trading volume has tripled. Even pension funds and mom-and-pop traders have gotten involved. In the four years since, the price of crude oil has tripled. The lines are parallel on the chart. I take my clues where I find them. I don't believe all this stuff about inadequate supply as global demand explodes. I suspect the planet is virtually awash in oil--petroleum held back here and there in expectation the price will just keep on rising. This has happened before with various commodities. Once one of these lemming-like investment waves begins, the avalanche of rocketing prices becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The price goes up because professional gamblers think it will go up and act accordingly. Why would someone now pay you $1,000 for a gold coin you bought three decades ago for about a tenth of that? Because the geopolitical realities have convinced the buyer the price will just keep on rising. Various sober-minded columnists, opinion writers and news reporters seek to convince me I'm full of baloney. As the usually insightful British magazine The Economist seeks to explain, buying futures are "in essence, bets on which way the oil price will move." "Neither index funds nor other speculators ever buy any physical oil," the magazine continues in its July 11 edition. "Instead, they buy futures and options which they settle with a cash payment when they (the options contracts) fall due.... Since the real currency of such contracts is cash, rather than barrels of crude, there is no limit to the number of bets that Brass Bracelet can be made. And since no oil is ever held back from the market, these bets do not affect the price of oil any more than bets on a fo Other articles: http://www.khgd.net/Blog/View/?3949 http://shenyong.skpay.net/Blog/View/?321 浏览(172) | 回复(0) |