Oil plunged at the NYMEX open on big volume, down to $53.70 after a huge, surprise inventory build was (again) reported, and literally at 12:01 on the dot (the close of rational, European trading), they started to drive it back to $55.
It is beyond a joke how blatantly they manipulate this market but when the Pumper-in-Chief comes on after the inventory report (did you ever notice he always comes on a Wednesday around 10-11?) to announce he intends to purchase $41Bn worth of oil, you have to realize that there are forces at work here even more powerful than we may be able to stand up to!
Now I’m not Bush bashing here but I’ve found out why gold has gone up so much this week. Other countries think he’s a complete lunatic and they see this plan to build the SPR as a foreshadowing of a plan to attack Iran! I know that is not realistic (I hope) as it will take years to build the massive reserve Bush (and the oil companies) envision but it’s important to understand that other countries look at our leader the way we look at Chavez…
The people who are Bush bashing are the ones reviewing his "radical" (no comment!) plan to use every acre of land in the United States for ethanol production. Let’s remember that ethanol, AFTER subsidies, costs $5 per gallon so adding it to gas INCREASES the cost (before including the cost of the subsidies). So the gist of this plan is that you use more ethanol, which costs more than gasoline did at it’s peak and the price of corn (and all agricultural products) goes up like oil did causing every meal you eat to be about 20% more expensive. What a clever solution!
Ethanol is a solution, not THE solution. Americans use 385M gallons of gasoline a day! You only get 19 gallons of gas out of a barrel of oil so that’s 20M barrels a day going into your gas tank (yes I know we use the other 23 gallons to make other things). The average American car gets a pathetic 20 mpg. Rather than try to ADD 20% ethanol to replace the oil and causing a strain on the agriculture industry, we COULD SIMPLY USE LESS OIL! Increasing the mileage requirements on cars to 30 mpg over the same 10 year period would save 7M barrels a day, more oil than China consumes in total!
Forget about the fact that increasing mileage requirements and cutting the use of oil by 30% would be the single biggest step we could take to combat global warming – the problem is no one makes money by you consuming less oil!
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Farmers don’t make money.
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Oil companies get less money.
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Refiners make less money.
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US auto companies would be killed by foreign companies who make 30 mpg vehicles already (as that is considered a gas guzzler everywhere else in the world),
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Gas stations make less money.
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Credit card companies make less money.
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OPEC makes less money.
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Iran would have no spare money for nukes and terrorism which would cause defense contractors to make less money…
You get the idea; it’s never going to happen!
As the oil companies proved in California when they spent $150M to defeat proposition 87, they will do whatever it takes to keep you using oil. Remember it was T Boon Pickens and Bush Buddy, Bob Perry, who funded the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" in the last election.
So guzzle up America – you may as well enjoy it because you have no choice. You will have gasoline rammed down your throat whether you really want to consume it or not, whether it makes sense for you and the planet or not. Remember what the President said: "If you don’t go shopping, then the terrorists win!" The poorest Americans spend the same average $1,500 a year on gas as you do (since this country spends almost nothing on public transportation) and another $1,500 to heat their homes and another $1,500 to power their television (probably not plasma) and no one in the energy complex wants to see 1/3 of that money become "discretionary income."
So join the Matrix, drink the Kool-Aid, feed the machine – you can see this week what a vast, powerful, unstoppable machine we have created and it’s not going to go down without a fight. "THEY" are already employing a "scorched earth" policy or, as the conservatives like to spin it "starving the beast" to make sure you have no alternatives to carbon-based fuels.
