So as the price of oil crosses that big fat red triple-digit line in the sand, we take a look at how the media is reporting it.
Oil prices, after taking an initial dip on a weekly government report on inventory levels, crossed the $100 threshold Thursday and continued a six-year, five-fold spike driven by surging demand and limited supply.
Wait, what? Surging demand and limited supply? Are you kidding me? Has anyone in the media noticed the major world events in the Middle East that just might have something to do with the price of oil? You’re seriously telling us it’s supply and demand?
The inventory report is just the latest mover in a market that is hyper-sensitive to news. Oil prices have surged five-fold in the last six years, going from under $20 a barrel in early 2002. In 2007 alone, crude jumped nearly 60 percent.
Most analyst blame the runup on rising demand – mostly from developing countries and the U.S. – that eats up any new gains made in oil production.
Yep. It’s your damn fault. You and various brown, ethnic people living in crappy countries. Five-fold price in oil of course means that you’re driving five times more than you were in 2002, right?
Now that’s a simplistic view of the complex dance that is the legalized oil racket, but it’s the story itself that distills this down to “surging demand and limited supply”. Peak oil or not, oil just isn’t that simple, and it certainly isn’t solely the fault of the American driver that oil rocketed up 400% in six years.
Oil companies have posted record profits for the last few years. While their budgets for finding new oil have increased, most of the windfall has been returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks.
The companies – and oil industry analysts – say vastly increasing spending on oil and gas exploration won’t do any good, as there’s only a limited amount of equipment and manpower available for the task. Plus, many analysts say new, big oil fields are getting harder to find, especially in countries friendly to Western oil firms.
Oh, well here’s part of it. Somebody want to explain to me another industry that’s making record profits in the history of American business and yet says investing in more of their product will do no good?
And of course the whole “friendly to Western oil firms” is a nice little aside. Perhaps we should be going out into the world and making them friendly to us. It’s worked so well in Iraq.
Here’s my favorite quote from the article:
Retail gasoline prices have not risen as fast as oil prices over the last few months, largely due to weak demand.
Except of course it’s surging demand that has raised oil prices. Funny how that works.
The lies are as thick as…well…crude oil.
Oil is traded in dollars so as the US dollar plummets, you are going to get a dramatic increase in the price of oil because oil is basically like an international currency on top of being a commodity. What’s happening beyond peak oil, supply/demand has much to do with the US economy/budget deficits and the crashing dollar.
Lord help the US if the US dollar is no longer a reserve currency.
As it is foreign nations no longer want US debt, they are buying up it’s assets instead.
Bush has gotten off very easy on the oil prices. His war, massive deficits and artificially low interest rates have weakened the dollar. Through it all never a word about conserving fuel or paying our bills. Its easy to wreck an economy when you have the Federal Reserve and the press in your pocket. Peak oil and demand are part of the problem but not the reason for 100 dollar a barrel today.
Its always bothered me that this idiot’s policies have received zero blame. Thanks for this diary Zandar1.
We can expect the price of oil to continue to increase given the loading of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
If the market does not do it quickly enough, hope the governments have enough sense to tax petroleum mightily (while there’s still demand).
Its a pity the oil trusts benefit so much from the necessary price increases.
Just a few more hurricane/cyclone disasters and maybe we’ll catch on to Global Warming before it’s too late.
Likely not, nobody in charge has picked up the hint yet.
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Will be the slogan this fall for Election 2008 as:
in other words: recession lures after 8 years Republican rule and plundering the middle class, favoring the wealthy with trillion dollar tax breaks and spending a trillion dollar on an Enduring War for oil in the ME.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."