Gas Rant

Ok. Am I the ONLY one in the world that sees there is NO justification for oil prices (and thus, gas prices) to be anywhere NEAR what they are right now? About 3 months ago, there was a big worry that oil stocks were very low, and demand was going to be very high, particularly in the upcoming winter. So the people that REALLY control the oil prices (traders and investors) decided it would be a great time to run up the price of oil. All the way to FIFTY dollars a barrel, which at the time was a record. Approximately 2 months later, the oil and financial gurus met and wrote reports stating not only was supply MUCH higher than anticipated, but the predicted demand in China (which was the big scare point) was only up 4 percent, as opposed to the prediction of 19 percent. For those that aren't following me, supply was up, demand was less, so therefore, oil was overvalued and the prices were bogus. It probably should have been more like 40 dollars a barrel. AND, OPEC decided to RAISE PRODUCTION by 500,000 barrels a day. It was also noted that there should be more than enough supply to last through the winter and still have a nice surplus, even without the production boost. So a month has gone by, and we now find ourselves with SIXTY dollars a barrel, as of today. Why the high prices? The justification given by the investors (read: greedy ignorant bastards) is that they don't think the supply would hold up in the event of a major stoppage in production or distribution. Well, no SHIT. That's like saying "I think our electric will go out if the power plant gets bombed." These people are artificially inflating, and by a LONGSHOT, the price of oil to make some big money. So for the short term (or potentially a bit longer), we're going to be stuck paying prices that are nowhere near reasonable for gas, heating oil, electric, airline tickets, and just about everything else you can think of, because people are going to start adding even greater surcharges to all products to cover the elevated costs of shipping.

Take a look at the gas prices today, because oil just went up 11 percent over the past week. Yes the past WEEK. So assume most of that will be passed on to gas prices. Figure adding 20-25 cents onto today's price for about 3-5 days from now. Nice. All because of some ignorant Wall Street bastards.

The one good point in all this is eventually, even those hardheaded bastards are going to realize there is a huge surplus in oil in the world, and the precious commodity will become much less valuable. People are going to lose everything if they don't get out in time. And prices of gas and oil should eventually drop to levels we haven't seen in years. For the meantime, though, it really just sucks.

s42