Oil - Im getting on my soapbox

A buddy of mine is convinced that the drastic increase in the price (notice I dont say cost) of oil is a result of supply and demand. "China" he says. My comment is that China may have something to do with it, but there is absolutely ZERO global oil supply problems. I say its all the market. we had a serious debate about it.


So I go to cnn.com today to see what is going on and I see this headline.

Biggest oil price drop in 17 years
Crude falls $6.45 a barrel - 2nd largest price drop in dollar terms - as Fed chief indicates inflation and high fuel prices will cut into U.S. demand for oil.

then I see another headline:


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush pressed lawmakers Tuesday to lift a ban on offshore oil drilling, saying "the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress."
On Monday, the president lifted an executive order that prohibited offshore drilling. A 1981 law barring the practice remains in effect, however, and Congress would have to vote to repeal the law before any drilling could occur. Congressional Democrats have opposed efforts to repeal the ban.

So you are saying that it?s a coincidence that oil drops $6.45 a barrel the same day that Bush repeals one of the offshore drilling laws?

Its all Wall Street fuckers!!, All wall street!!! Look at what has happened in the past decade..

dot coms - go through the roof and then crash
real estate - go through the roof and then crash
oil - go through the roof and.......

take a guess.

Should congress repeal the other law, and enable off shore drilling to take place, oil will drop quicker than a cheap whore.

I just hope it drops before I need to fill our oil tank at home!!!

I'm with you, Bones45. Talking about new and renewable sources of energy is great - but 99% of us are not going to be running cars on anything but gas for at least 20 years. We need to drill offshore and in Alaska now. It should have been done 10 years ago but Congress stopped it. Drilling offshore and in Alaska won't bring cheap gas tomorrow, but I'd rather have it in 5 years than never.

While we're drilling away, we can put tons of tax money into hydrocarbon, wind, whatever, but I think it's a mistake to not drill right now in the meantime. The price of everything is going up crazy fast and this inflation is hurting the lower & middle classes the most. Paradoxically, these are the people that the Democrats always claim they're watching out for by taxing the crap out of the rich. Now that the crap hits the fan, it's obvious the Demos don't care - they're either fanatical environmentalists themselves or owned by environmental lobbies. They're saying that Bush only wants to drill because he's owned by the oil companies. I think that's stupid. I think he wants to drill to help the freaking American people, something Demos are obviously not interested in.



-Bryce, Utah

Just a follow up. This article just came out on AP an hour ago. Im only posting the first couple of sentences.

Oil tumbles more than $4 as price supports fade

By ADAM SCHRECK ? 1 hour ago

NEW YORK (AP) ? Oil prices tumbled more than $4 a barrel Tuesday as Tropical Storm Dolly grew increasingly unlikely to threaten supply, knocking out one more reason traders had to prop up prices.