May 28, 2008
In Search of a Sane Government
What's Really Driving the High Price of Oil?
By RALPH NADER
In an ironic twist, the major price determinant has moved from OPEC (having only 40% of the world production) and the oil companies to the speculators in the commodities markets. What goes on in the essentially unregulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)—without Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforced margin requirements, and, unlike your personal purchases, untaxed—is now the place that leads to your skyrocketing gasoline bills. OPEC and the Big Oil companies reap the benefits and say that it’s not their doing, but that of the speculators. Gives new meaning to “passing the buck.”
Deborah Fineman, president of Mitchell Supreme Fuel Co. in Orange, New Jersey, summed up the scene: “Energy markets have been dictated for too long by hedge funds and speculators, who artificially manipulate the numbers for their own benefit. The current market isn’t based on the sound principles of supply and demand but it is being rigged by companies and speculators who are jacking up prices for their own greed.”
Harry C. Johnson, former banker who worked for many years inside Big Oil and ran his own small oil company in Oklahoma, blames the CFTC, the Department of Energy, the Administration, and Congress, as “asleep at the switch on an issue that is probably costing U.S. consumers $1 billion per day.”
He cites “some industry experts, who profit greatly from the high price of crude, and have stated openly that the worldwide economic price of crude, absent speculators, would be around $50 to $60 per barrel.
Please read the entire article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader05282008.html----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now before anyone thinks this is a golden opportunity to engage in another Nader bashing contest, stop foaming at the mouth, take a valium or two and take the time to actually read his comments on the oil crisis. LOL OK? What Nader wrote about the cause of the inflated oil prices and what needs to be done about it makes sense to me.
So if you must post, please try to keep your comments on subject, whether you agree with or disagree with what Nader wrote regarding oil prices.
If you just want to engage in yet one more Naderbashingfest please start a new lead post.