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Plain and simple if McCain camp wants to run an ad on who to blame for this mess, instead of being an idiot and liar to blame it on Obama, he should blame it on his buddy Phil Graham who pretty muched authored this mess...
Regulation is the key to fairness in price etc... Deregultion has only served the intrest of big business and left the American people holding their collective sacks in the wind while the bastards consolidate and manipulate.
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Last edited by LoyaltyisaCurse; July 22nd, 2008 at 07:48 PM.
Its not as simple as a couple of guys plotting the rise of gas prices and twirling their moustaches while we all scramble to pay $4 per gallon.
When the fed was cutting interest rates last December there were economists who warned that an effect of lower interest/higher inflation would be higher gas prices. Somebody had a comparison of how much we are paying compared to Europeans and that they had a rise in prices but it wasn't as steep because their currency is stronger.
Now I agree with you that there needs to be greater transparency and definitely some oversight in the oil futures; I don't think that there are many would disagree with that, but we should definitely cut down on the oil baron/wallstreet fatcat who dresses up as the monopoly man and sits with his cronies and drives oil prices up.
I think there are a few problems and the first thing we should recognize is that there is no simple solution. Somebody asked, "what would Kudlow say?" and I would be willing to bet that he would be for less government oversight, let the market correct itself, pump more oil, increase supply, blah, blah, blah. This would probably be appropriate if everyone was trying to buy some new pair of jeans or a new car or anything that has shown where price has actually curbed demand. The unfortunate aspect is that our country runs on oil. No matter what the cost is, it would seem that people will pay it and will continue to pay it even if they have to purchase it with credit has has been shown in an article that RugbyMuffin provided.
I don't think that there are any simple answers but I definitely feel that the longterm goal should be to find an alternative to oil and a serious effort to effectively make this transition.
Its not as simple as a couple of guys plotting the rise of gas prices and twirling their moustaches while we all scramble to pay $4 per gallon.
When the fed was cutting interest rates last December there were economists who warned that an effect of lower interest/higher inflation would be higher gas prices. Somebody had a comparison of how much we are paying compared to Europeans and that they had a rise in prices but it wasn't as steep because their currency is stronger.
Now I agree with you that there needs to be greater transparency and definitely some oversight in the oil futures; I don't think that there are many would disagree with that, but we should definitely cut down on the oil baron/wallstreet fatcat who dresses up as the monopoly man and sits with his cronies and drives oil prices up.
I think there are a few problems and the first thing we should recognize is that there is no simple solution. Somebody asked, "what would Kudlow say?" and I would be willing to bet that he would be for less government oversight, let the market correct itself, pump more oil, increase supply, blah, blah, blah. This would probably be appropriate if everyone was trying to buy some new pair of jeans or a new car or anything that has shown where price has actually curbed demand. The unfortunate aspect is that our country runs on oil. No matter what the cost is, it would seem that people will pay it and will continue to pay it even if they have to purchase it with credit has has been shown in an article that RugbyMuffin provided.
I don't think that there are any simple answers but I definitely feel that the longterm goal should be to find an alternative to oil and a serious effort to effectively make this transition.
Exactly.
We need to stop falling for this stuff if we're going to make any progress here.
I assure you oil is somewhat manipulated, all securities traded the world over are subject to some manipulation.
Over short time frames speculators can and do influence the price to a degree and sometimes it's dramatic.
Oil prices are mainly a function of your $ being destroyed, the dollar has been and will be manipulated much more than oil.
I'm all for intelligent regulations on speculation, I'm not at all oppossed to that but what I am trying to say is don't be fooled by this kind of easy pandering.
They are playing a shell game with you and are only too happy to divert your attention from the real problem which is your money being heisted out the back while you're lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks against the oil speculators/barons.
Oil demand has gone down this year for the first time in history, the response was record new prices. The oil companies said lowered demand has forced an increase in prices. Sorry but that is the fact.
I don't think that oil/gas falls under a supply/demand chart that can easily show why gas costs so much. I think my post kind of rambled on but that was what I wanted to get at.
We need to stop falling for this stuff if we're going to make any progress here.
I assure you oil is somewhat manipulated, all securities traded the world over are subject to some manipulation.
Over short time frames speculators can and do influence the price to a degree and sometimes it's dramatic.
Oil prices are mainly a function of your $ being destroyed, the dollar has been and will be manipulated much more than oil.
I'm all for intelligent regulations on speculation, I'm not at all oppossed to that but what I am trying to say is don't be fooled by this kind of easy pandering.
They are playing a shell game with you and are only too happy to divert your attention from the real problem which is your money being heisted out the back while you're lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks against the oil speculators/barons.
What would you do to battle inflation? For the past couple years or so it seems that the FED has done everything to sustain growth and has continued to cut the interest rate. The alternative to this would seem to leave interest rates where they are but this might lead to stagnant growth and depression.
What would you do to battle inflation? For the past couple years or so it seems that the FED has done everything to sustain growth and has continued to cut the interest rate. The alternative to this would seem to leave interest rates where they are but this might lead to stagnant growth and depression.
Matty,
The choice is what you just described or the eventual collapse of the dollar and bond market.
You have to tighten up the money supply to fight inflation, you can't do that and save the financial system at the same time one or the other will run amok on you,.
We're past the Minsky moment here, we're going into one wall or the other, IMO they'll choose to destroy the dollar and eventually bankrupt the United States which will result in a much worse depression anyhow.
You can't repeal the business cycle but politically it became fashionable to do so and now they can't go back because the downturn will destroy too much and is politically a non-starter, the only alternative is to heap all the pain on the dollar until it collapses.
Personally I wouldn't even bother trying to fix this system, it's date with the executioner is already written down, no one knows exactly when but it's comming.
When it's gone they will try and foist a command economy on us all because we'll be crapping bricks and scared senseless and our conversion to the Soviet Union will be complete, all this made possible by the trashing of our liberties before hand in the name of safety.
Other than that I'm pretty optimitic.
Last edited by conraddobler; July 23rd, 2008 at 03:26 PM.
The choice is what you just described or the eventual collapse of the dollar and bond market.
We're past the Minsky moment here, we're going into one wall or the other, IMO they'll choose to destroy the dollar and eventually bankrupt the United States which will result in a much worse depression anyhow.
You can't repeal the business cycle but politically it became fashionable to do so and now they can't go back because the downturn will destroy too much and is politically a non-starter, the only alternative is to heap all the pain on the dollar until it collapses.
Personally I wouldn't even bother trying to fix this system, it's date with the executioner is already written down, no one knows exactly when but it's comming.
When it's gone they will try and foist a command economy on us all because we'll be crapping bricks and scared senseless and our conversion to the Soviet Union will be complete, all this made possible by the trashing of our liberties before hand in the name of safety.
Other than that I'm pretty optimitic.
Conrad, do you really believe the Fed is not about to raise rates? Not even later this year??
They will and the dollar will strengthen, oil and all other comodities will drop...
I am not at all saying all things will be right in the world (I am at the point where even I am now screaming - "UNCLE"!!!). However, with rates slightly adjusted upward, comodities falling back to more reasonable levels, a stronger dollar... All we would need is for some leadership in DC to stop the spending madness! Ain't gonna happen I know... But, truly, if we could seriously somehow stem the spending and keep tax rates low, we can then begin to take some serious bites out of the national debt...
Hey, I can still dream can't I??
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Conrad, do you really believe the Fed is not about to raise rates? Not even later this year??
They will and the dollar will strengthen, oil and all other comodities will drop...
I am not at all saying all things will be right in the world (I am at the point where even I am now screaming - "UNCLE"!!!). However, with rates slightly adjusted upward, comodities falling back to more reasonable levels, a stronger dollar... All we would need is for some leadership in DC to stop the spending madness! Ain't gonna happen I know... But, truly, if we could seriously somehow stem the spending and keep tax rates low, we can then begin to take some serious bites out of the national debt...
Hey, I can still dream can't I??
IMO the FED will do a lot of things, has done a ton of unprecedented things, so has the government.
The scope of the scrambling and save attempts should alert everyone to the danger here.
FED creates multiple new lending facilities
Engineers bailout of Bear Stearns.
BAC buys Countrywide
Congress bails out Freddie and Fannie.
All this for something that was "contained"
I've said repeatedly this will go up and down, don't be fooled by the lulls, the government is throwing the kitchen sink at the problem but they can't get past a fundamental fact.
We spend more than we make, we're in debt to our eyeballs and going MORE in debt.
That has had a predictable result since the invention of debt.
The choice is what you just described or the eventual collapse of the dollar and bond market.
You have to tighten up the money supply to fight inflation, you can't do that and save the financial system at the same time one or the other will run amok on you,.
We're past the Minsky moment here, we're going into one wall or the other, IMO they'll choose to destroy the dollar and eventually bankrupt the United States which will result in a much worse depression anyhow.
You can't repeal the business cycle but politically it became fashionable to do so and now they can't go back because the downturn will destroy too much and is politically a non-starter, the only alternative is to heap all the pain on the dollar until it collapses.
Personally I wouldn't even bother trying to fix this system, it's date with the executioner is already written down, no one knows exactly when but it's coming.
When it's gone they will try and foist a command economy on us all because we'll be crapping bricks and scared senseless and our conversion to the Soviet Union will be complete, all this made possible by the trashing of our liberties before hand in the name of safety.
Other than that I'm pretty optimistic.
The economy will recover and probably quite well if the government would stop manipulating the market at every turn and stop the spending spree.
Unfortunately, both are political non-starters.
The Federal Reserve with it's inflation and the Congress with it's spending have sewn the seeds of our own destruction. The system as we know it will come to an end one way or another. Hopefully it will a peaceful and positive transition but with the level of monotony, animosity, and gamesmanship in national politics I don't see how.
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