 | A Vision Splendid or Selective Myopia: Exploiting the Australia 2020 Summit | The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: February 8, 2008 |  |
39 comments on Winchester Lets Brown Have Both Barrels
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
39 comments on Winchester Lets Brown Have Both Barrels
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Personnel
Editors
Contributors
Peak Oil Primers
Archives
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Vital Trivia
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
I do not believe the speculators angle at all. Speculators are selling as much oil as they are buying - the net impact on the market is zero. It is the people who buy and do NOT sell who are driving prices up; and it is these people who are buying oil to supply refineries.
Are you saying we buy oil and then destroy it? Surely not. No economy could survive that;-)
When we use oil for a fantasy flight all we have left is the memory of the flight of fantasy we enjoyed - perhaps in Las Vegas or Bangkok.
Here is a March 2007 study from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies that specifically looked at the question of whether speculators cause high energy prices: http://www.oxfordenergy.org/pdfs/WPM32.pdf
Their conclusion is that there is no correlation whatsoever between speculator activity and higher energy prices.
There is a great chart on p. 36 of the report that tracks net long speculative positions against oil prices. As you will see if you look at the chart, there is no correlation between net spec long positions and prices. Speculators are as likely to be net short when prices are rising as they are to be net long. They are as likely to be "improperly" holding back energy prices as "improperly" pushing them up.
The entire issue is a canard that was brought back from the dead most recently by Alan Greenspan in, I believe, 2005, when he sought to evade responsibility for his inflationary fed policies by blaming higher energy costs on speculators.