Is Oil going up - or are the speculators doing it?

In case you didn't hear about it, crude oil just went up to $10 a barrel on Friday.


I personally think that's kind of ridiculous and I'm seriously beginning to wonder where this comes from. Apparently the speculators can simply 'guess' or speculate on how much gas should be and shortly after that, we end up with higher gas prices.

The funny things is people are driving less so demand is down. The speculation puzzles me.

White house pledges to veto oil company tax hike

God, again, I'm just the messenger but, if this doesn't make you want to get upset about high gas prices and high oil industry profits - I'm not sure what will:

Bush to veto bill rolling back tax breaks for oil

Honestly, I don't care who replaces the man in the White house today - any of the remaining candidates would be a great fit for the position but, Jeez - who in the world voted the incumbent into office and then re-elected him too?

Not place to ask I guess. I'm not looking forward to the $4 oil that will surely come though.

$100 oil...

Or at least, $100 a barrel oil.

Man what can I say, we need to switch power sources and or at least power-dependency.

Today's headline:

Oil prices hit record in New York


On BBC brings up an unfortunate precedent - the realization of $100 a barrel oil.

Hopefully they make solar powered cars that can go 100 mph real soon.

Article/News bit of the week

The Article/News clip of the week this week goes to this article : Oil prices hit all time-high
on CNNMoney.com.

I don't think that this article is particularly great other than the fact that it brings up the fact that we are a little too dependent on one slowly shrinking resource for our well-being.

The two portions of the article that bother me the most are the 1st and 3rd paragraphs:

1)"NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices rose to a new record settlement price Tuesday as traders turned their attention to Wednesday's government inventory report expected to show tight supplies and shrugged off OPEC's decision to boost output."

and...

3)"Even factoring in OPEC's decision to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels per day starting Nov. 1, "supplies are tight," said Addison Armstrong, an analyst at TFS Energy Futures LLC."

Even as I struggle to optimistic but, it's disheartening when OPEC - (an organization that controls 2/3rds of the world's oil and 40% of the world's oil production) - tells the world that they plan to increase production - an act that generally causes gas prices to decrease.

And those running the show 'so-to-speak' over here in the U.S. decide we need to increase the price anyway!

here's another great quote about the increased 1.4 million barrels per day overall:

"This is a big number," Evans said, adding that it would take futures traders a while to digest its significance. "This is not something that the market's going to adjust to in a few minutes."

In other words, "Just because prices are going down for us big oil refining companies/oil investors doesn't mean we can figure out how the price should go down for the end user" - i.e., 'you' & 'me'. "We have to studies and run tests and (sigh) wait for the price to go back up again. so we can charge the end user more"

OK Reggie, Think positive thoughts - 'gas will soon be free' , 'oil companies will begin to care about their customers and the environment', 'they will finally free the scientist who claimed he could run a city for a day off one glass of water, from the cell they hid him in the early 90's"....ah much better.