Banks Hoarding Oil for Profit...

[weshole]

Wow is all i have to say.

[SPANISH-RICE]

Good god

[Jim]

Hold up a second though.

The futures market is used just as the stock market is to diversify investments by companies...

"As I’ve said before, only companies that can actually use the oil should be able to buy contracts. Not that hoarding was a responsible practice in the first place, but it’s particularly offensive now that we’ve seen what it can do to the market."

So the guy on this blog is advocating closing the futures market? If so, I want to hear his response as to what he thinks the implications would be of CLOSING investment in to futures. Ask farmers about this, its the same concept as oil.

Also, where anywhere is there mention of bailout money / banks? I'm sure that even if they are involved in this, wouldn't it be to our benefit that the banks actually make money so they can repay the loans given to them (btw the bailout money given to those banks wasn't under this administration). If you are concerned about oil prices, then talk about OPEC, not the futures market....

[Jim]

This post is deleted!

[StangerBanger96]

Jim;278384 wrote:
Hold up a second though.

The futures market is used just as the stock market is to diversify investments by companies...

"As I’ve said before, only companies that can actually use the oil should be able to buy contracts. Not that hoarding was a responsible practice in the first place, but it’s particularly offensive now that we’ve seen what it can do to the market."

So the guy on this blog is advocating closing the futures market? If so, I want to hear his response as to what he thinks the implications would be of CLOSING investment in to futures. Ask farmers about this, its the same concept as oil.

Also, where anywhere is there mention of bailout money / banks? I'm sure that even if they are involved in this, wouldn't it be to our benefit that the banks actually make money so they can repay the loans given to them (btw the bailout money given to those banks wasn't under this administration). If you are concerned about oil prices, then talk about OPEC, not the futures market....

Sorry about the link I posted Jim I should have used the Reuters article I found about it too instead of this guys opinion blog.

Also, while I know it is largely OPEC's fault for the oil/gas prices, the futures market DOES play a decently large roll in speculating prices much higher than they truly should be. While it's obviously stupid that he thinks futures markets should be gotten rid of, I do think it's a fair thought to wonder why oil is on those markets.

[Jim]

StangerBanger96;278387 wrote:
Sorry about the link I posted Jim I should have used the Reuters article I found about it too instead of this guys opinion blog.

Also, while I know it is largely OPEC's fault for the oil/gas prices, the futures market DOES play a decently large roll in speculating prices much higher than they truly should be. While it's obviously stupid that he thinks futures markets should be gotten rid of, I do think it's a fair thought to wonder why oil is on those markets.

Oh yeah, I'll agree with you that oil speculation is a bitch... we all found that out last year with oil prices.

[ichibankilla]

Oil speculators need a damn bullet to the head. That's like selling a $5000 car for $30000 because someday it might be worth that much. It's just bullshit.
Oil is, has and always will be based on supply and demand, the oil companies supply it and then they demand a premium for it.

[thrash]

There is an awful lot of noise about oil companies and speculation and futures trading and all that.

This story might at least be Credible -- banks buying tankers with oil already in it. But banks buying oil futures in some massive speculative buy off -- and then trying to hold on to it until prices go way high -- is a non starter.

A futures contract says that on such and such future date you will take delivery of a good, for a pre-agreed upon price. If the banks (or speculators) are actually planning on taking delivery, and then planning on sitting on it, where do they plan on putting all that oil?

If you think there is some crazy conspiracy to make oil more expensive by storing it until it is real expensive, just buy stock in Fargo tank and steel. Because if all this oil exists out there doing nothing, somebody is going to need a place to put it.

Retail gasoline gets expensive every summer because people drive more. Last year [was it last year?] when we saw gas in excess of $4/gal, the US in aggregate dropped its retail gas consumption by the largest ever observed percentage. The retail price of gas dropped in half. The price of crude oil plummeted over $100/bbl. Anyone that was speculating crude oil probably lost big time.

When you hear about "record oil company profits", like ExxonMobil making blah billion dollars of profit, you need to throw the size of the numbers out and look at the percentage. XOM has less than 10% margin in their business. So if they report $10B in profit, that's on a $100B enterprise.

That makes sense though, because their business includes things like figuring out how to get rotten dinosaur ass out of under-water volcanos in the north sea where the water is so f@#king cold people die from touching it, cooking out all of the shit to leave them with gasoline, boating and trucking it all over the planet, all to sell you something that is cheaper than 1 gallon of milk.

Making a gallon of milk is easy. The cow does all the damn work. THe sun cooks the grass, the cow eats the grass, a robot sucks the milk out of the cow, and it goes into a cheap plastic container and gets shipped one or two counties to your store.

Compared to you getting a gallon of $2.50 gasoline, things not involved in getting a $3+/gal jug of milk include:

• guessing where there might be giant caves UNDER THE DAMN OCEAN
• building floating cities that need to be hurricaine proof, then staffing them full of people that expect to get paid extra for how often people in their line of work end up dying
• having enough helicopters sitting around that you can get people off and on of these floating cities when you need to
• hitting what you are aiming at with a drill bit several miles long, that bends, mounted in a drill press that floats
• requiring boats that have to bend in the middle because they are so big and heavy to move your product around
• complying with the different laws in each of the 50 states (never mind the 140+ countries of the world) regarding what can and cannot be in your retail product

Exxon probably deserves every dollar they pull down. They operate in one of the most regulated industries there is, they compete with state-owned oil companies all over the world, and the amount of technology they use and develop is staggering.

Woe be to any car enthusiast that grudges "big oil" one iota. Until you figure out how to run your hot rod on milk and unicorn giggles, I wouldn't give Exxon or Royal-Dutch-Shell any shit. If you think it is too expensive, don't buy it. When I think about how ridiculously hard it has to be to get oil out of the ground, filling up the tank for $40 or $50 every now and then seems like a no brainer.

I spend way more on fuel for humans than fuel for cars in a month. No disrespect intended towards farmers -- I love you guys -- but it seems like getting oil out of the ground and turning it into something other than cancer is way harder than doing the same thing with plants. The plants seem to be pretty well inclined to do a large part of the work on their own.

[Cobra Rob]

greed everywhere

[ichibankilla]

Cobra Rob;278491 wrote:
greed everywhere

and it seems to be an everyday business practice nowadays.
The green eyed monster isn't envy anymore it's greed. The two do kind of go hand in hand though.