Add to that list T. Boone Pickens and American Solutions (thus Grover Norquist). The high oil prices and the high gasoline prices were the direct result of Market Manipulation by commodity speculaters. It did not amount to the “single largest transfer of wealth overseas”, as Pickens claims. Almost all of those speculaters were right here in the good old US of A. They took billions of $$$ from poor and middle class people pockets. Those that could least afford it as their capitalist schemes brought the financial markets down.
Oil is now below 80$$ per barrel and gas is below 3$$ per gallon. Not a single new well has been drilled. No appreciable amount of oil has been added to the system. In other words, no new “supply” was added to the “market” and yet prices are falling. Hmmm so when are people going to go to jail?
But bigger questions remains. Now that the market has been destabilized by speculators how low can the price of oil go? The Saudi’s estimate that it costs them 40$$ to put a barrel of oil on the deck of a ship, and ironically another 10$$ to ship it. Can the price of oil drop below 50$$ a barrel? And what happens then?
The Big Oil Companies worst fears have arrived. As millions of Americans (yours truely included) shed billions of miles of driving reducing demand for gasoline in unprecidented fashion, what will the outcome be for the automobile industry and what is left of America’s manufaturing base.
Oh did I mention – When are people going go to jail for this “harmless little prank”?
