I sent this funny (Thought for the day) out on e-mail and here is what this guy David responded back with, very interesting to read. First here is the Thought for the day:
OPEC sells oil for $136.00 a barrel.
OPEC nations buy
U.S. grain at $7.00 a bushel.
Solution: Sell grain for $136.00 a bushel.
Can't buy it? Tough! Eat your oil!
Ought to go well with a nice thick grilled fillet of camel ass!!!
Here is Davids reply:
David’s Take
I have another idea. OPEC, believe it or not, are the ones that are complaining about high oil prices. The price of the barrel of oil currently has nothing to do with supply and demand. There is actually a surplus in the production capacity of OPEC. If current production levels remain the same by the year 2010 (less than a couple of years away) there is a projected daily (DAILY) production surplus of 3 to 5 million (MILLION) barrels a day (DAY). That is reality. That is fact and it has been reported by OPEC and our very own Dept. of Energy.
Crazy huh??
Want to know the real culprit? Want to know why you are paying $4.20 for a gallon of gas?? Maybe you don’t, but I do…so I checked it out. It’s easy. Google allows you to get any public information that you want. So you can check my stuff out too!
60 (sixty) percent of the current price of the barrel of oil, since 2006 is due to oil futures and trading speculation (google this). We have a regulatory body called the CTFC here in the USA . This body prior to 2006 did not allow overseas traders or for that matter, traders right here (Goldman Sachs et al) much leeway when it came to oil futures trading. The Bush administration allowed access (some people call in the Enron loophole) to European trading and oil futures speculation. It’s call ICE.
The bottom line is, many investment banks have taken a beating with the sub-prime mortgage crisis. This little change in the law has allowed them to recover from their losses and was passed in the middle of the night, whilst we were all sleeping. They have been able to make a whole bunch of money back, while we are all feeling the pain at the pump. A small group of people have made a bucket load of money and now, we have none. The Oil Companies here have made insane profits, not just at the pump, but in speculation and futures trading.
Oil should be around $60.00 a barrel if the market was simply based on the law of supply and demand. That would equate to around $2.20 bucks a gallon. There are many ways that a person could describe what the investment banks, the current administration and the Oil companies have done to the American public. Rape, theft, pillage and plunder come immediately to mind.
There is an effort underway by the current congress to investigate futures trading and the effect that it has on the price of a barrel of oil. The loudest voice of protest as you might well guess was by lobbyist working on behalf of the investment trading house. Wonder why? From a personal perspective, I never believe what CNN, Fox, NBC,CBS or ABC is reporting. They have told us it’s OPEC, the Chinese, Chavez , Russia , Iran and Bill Clinton or Al Gore. In addition, it has also been blamed on us. We are the culprits. We are addicted to oil. The problem they say are SUV’s, Ford-150’s and our propensity to drive rather than walk anywhere. We, as consumers have driven up the price of gas with our demand.
Problem is, demand has actually gone down and is projected to continue to do so. Explains the surplus too. Another important point to consider is our infrastructure. We don’t have mass transit here in the US and never will have. The last time I rode a bus was in high school. That quite frankly is our mass transit plan. Our economy and standard of living is based on the automobile and always will be. That is being used against us as an explanation of the high gas prices. Feel guilty yet?
Not me. Not when I know OPEC is telling everyone we have plenty of oil and there will be plenty of oil in the future.
In my humble opinion, I think that it is always important to gather as much factual information as possible, before I chose a target. It’s easy to find a bad guy or bad guys around the globe today. We need a bad guy. We need to blame someone. What’s terrifying is when you discover that the bad guy (guys) may well be right here on our very own shores, living it up, as we die a slow death.
Plenty of oil folks. Don’t get distracted.
For the record:
Wheat is at $20.00 a bushel (record high)
Soybean at $9.43
Corn at $3.50 (give or take) (projected to go above $5.00 this year or more due to a diversion of corn crops to ethanol production. Let’s starve people to make a fuel derivative when there is plenty of oil)
Have a great day and always look behind the curtain.
David
