89 comments on Are We in a Speculative Bubble with Regard to Oil Prices?
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
89 comments on Are We in a Speculative Bubble with Regard to Oil Prices?
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Support The Oil Drum
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Campfire
TOD:Europe
- Carbon Capture and Storage
- Oilwatch Monthly November 2009
- Some predictions on the forthcoming Russian-Ukrainian gas 'crisis'
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
TOD:Australia/NZ
- International Energy Agency calls 'Peak' on OECD Oil Demand
- Australian Senate: Peak Oil motion defeated 31:6
- The Bullroarer - Friday 20th November 2009
TOD:Net Energy
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- Early Warning
- The Energy Blog
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- Health After Oil
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Calculated Risk
- The Crash Course
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
Peak Oil Primers
Beware email scams!
Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.
“A third of humanity doesn't want to ride bikes anymore; that has profound geopolitical implications.”
—Anne Korin, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (May 1, 2005)
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Nate Hagens, Gail the Actuary, Prof. Goose
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Heading Out, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Sam Foucher, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Campfire: Glenn, Jason Bradford
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Emeritus: Stuart Staniford
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.










GAIA Host Collective
It seems to me the situation is like this: big players are getting rid of the US dollar, because of the low interest rates, so there is lot of $$$ around, so the dollar is falling down, so those who have them are trying to do something with them, to buy some oil for example, so there is an increased demand, so the price of oil goes up, so the exporters fear they gonna end up with too much worthless dollars in the hands, so they are thinking of switching to the Euro and other currencies, which additionally motivates every one to get rid of the dollars, so they buy oil, and so on and so forth.. Something like that I believe.. It's accelerating.
To rehash your argument, as I understand it, the Fed's lowering of interest rates increases the incentive to borrow from the Fed. This 'borrowed' money is not so much borrowed, as it is conjured out of the ether, which increases the supply of dollars. This increase in the supply of dollars devalues existing dollar assets, which gives the holders of these assets an incentive to exchange them for oil, in order to insulate themselves from dollar inflation.
The primary flaw I see in this argument is that it implies the purchase of excess oil, which will need to be stored somewhere. This is problematic because the buffer capacity for excess crude is fairly small compared to the rate of consumption. National reserves are typically measured in days or weeks, so there is not enough buffer capacity to hoard an appreciable quantity of oil. The excess capacity would be filled within a matter of weeks or months, after which the hording would no longer be a significant market force.
Secondarily, any concern over the risk associated with holding dollar assets for future oil purchases could easily be mitigated by purchasing 'long' oil futures contracts, which would guarantee a fixed price for the oil. This would effectively insulate the holder of dollar assets from helicopter Bernake's policies and concurrently solve the storage problem.
There is no doubt that the increasing supply of dollars is affecting their purchasing power, which is likely reflected in oil prices as well as the value of the dollar relative to other currencies. If the objective is to shield the value of assets from inflation, it would be much more straightforward to dump the dollar for the Euro, which also can be used to purchase oil.
If this were to occur on a large enough scale, the relinquished dollars would measurably increase the supply in circulation, further devaluing the dollar. This in turn would prompt other dollar holders to exchange them for something else. Once this positive feedback cycle begins, it is likely to result in a complete dollar meltdown. The big institutional holders of dollar assets know this and are looking for some way to quietly dump their dollars without triggering a panic.
1) Oil is priced in dollars NOT necessarily traded in dollars.
2) Big players can get rid of dollars just as easily by selling them elsewhere. The idea that they can dump them on oil producers depends on the assumption that oil producers put a different value on the dollar.
3) The basket of currerncies idea only refers to the oil price, not to the currency it is traded in - it makes no difference.
I tried to explain this here:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/10/basket-of-insanity-at...
Mish does a better job here:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/10/basket-of-insanity-at...