The Republicans are not the only ones being bought and sold to the highest bidder, the Democrats seem to be selling out, why not. Money seems to work for the prostitute on the street or the ones in congress, the only difference may be you get what the asked and paid for off the one on the street.

Whatever happened to the windfall profits tax? that legisslation passed in the 70’s as a result of the ‘energy crises’ and the consequent staggering profits of the oil companies. Remember waiting three hours for three gallons of gas? siphoning from one car to the other? yuck!
it is the same thing over and over-
oil companies use any excuse to jack up the prices, getting the greedy speculators in a lather and frenzy of greed. Retailers then have no choice but to jack up the price to pay for the product. the increases of course impact poor people the most, food for the kids or gas for the car. forget about taking the kids to a movie this weekend, or even out for ice cream.

it is the same crap over and over, decade after decade. Raise the prices, make insane profits, have congress shake their fists about launching an investigation, the msm wondering why gas prices are so high-
then the big pickups and suvs disappear from the roads, people start taking what little mass transit there is, others cut way back on their driving, profits start declining, the prices come down, and the cycle begins again. Each time a lot of people act like this is some kind of new event.

The repugs heavily thwarted and minimized the role of renewable energy, starting back in the 70’s (remember Carter saying the development of renewable energy technology was a priority to ‘wean us off foreign oil.’ Remember the reagan repugs gleefully kicking the Carter-installed solar panels off the White House roof.

Ground Hog Day forever.

Along with house payments, apparently the price of gas and oil is
going to be used to separate the peasants, the common population,
from the Middle Class, as it is the common population that is intended
to be placed into slavery, apparently all of the population making less
than $106,000/month.

I do not know why the richest corporation in the world, cannot buy electronic price changers? In our town gas prices are placed up on a board like at the theater by a physical person.  As gas prices kept going up at all our local gas stations, things must have been hard, because they were complaining they had to hire full time gas station price sign changers, and sometimes they ran out of nines and other less important numbers. 

From what I understand gas stations tapped into the large growing occupation of street corner advertising sign holders, the guys and gals you see flipping and tossing advertisements around on street corners. 

Some bad news for corporations are the advertisement sign people are making motions of forming a Union…. It seems the big oil companies have hired Wal Mart and Koch Brotherly personal people to find out how to dissuade the formations of unions.

In our town the prices were going up so fast at the gas stations every time I went by the stations the pricers were higher. Now as the prices of oil are going down, I wonder if the prices of gas will ever go down, but now its like watching paint dry.

All I can say is thank you GOP for making absolutely sure Big Oil gets their government subsides!

I love the trader-speculator jargon.. ‘WTI slumped to $95.00’.. oh no! we have to get that price back up!

What is the role of the commodities markets other than to inflate prices and create paper contracts for (future delivery) that can in turn be used as collateral for more loans and trading?

I admit I don’t get it.. John Stossel apparently does. Our local paper loves him and frequently uses his tirades as the centerpiece of the opinions columns. His latest? in defense of the speculators he wrote that these people are not adding to gasoline prices.. not ever! In fact according to Stossel,  the buying and hedging and holding of products like gasoline off the market waiting for the time to profit never inflates prices..

No! and further, these speculators are actually gutsy patriots!  .. the working ants from the Disney classic.. making sure all us feather-headed grasshoppers have that gas when we need it.. by buying it before it hits the retail market .. so we won’t just waste it! ..  then selling it back to us when we need it..  for a modest profit.

I am overcome with gratitude for the commodity traders and hedge fund managers!

Adios!

hello. GoldenSacks set the price. they run the
government. let’s pretend a political national
committee needs funding for a presidential campaign.
it’s 2008, and a barrel of oily sludge sells at $38.
that’s strong at a 100% profit margin. Golden Sacks
recommends to purchase heavy, as they SOMEHOW believe
the price will be hysterically inflated, into an
artificial bubble, at about $110 a barrel; in time
for the committee to sell off as much of these shares
at a huge profit, which is required to pay for their
media propaganda campaign. the committee’s investment
is practically guaranteed a windfall return, to pump
into their candidates. they have confidence the set
price ‘profit taking’ will only be a short term dip
in value, and in no way will present even a hint to
actual loss of stock value. in fact, they are certain
they will be able to hysterically inflate the price
of oil again, after profit taking. they control the
government, so phony theatrical investigations will
absolve them of market manipulations, and there
really is no risk. they own the investigators. look
at their record. fiction is sometimes more real than
reality.

It’s even greater news that as oil-by-the-barrel prices precipitously fall, gas-by-the-gallon prices remain greatly inflated. This will ensure upping the unconscionable profits the oil corporations are realizing, which, when coupled with the $Billions in taxpayer subsidies they receive, will enable their CEO’s to finally escape the effects of the recession with $multi-million ‘performance’ bonuses. And enable them to up the ante on the bribes they offer to the GOPers and TPers, to improve their status quo.