On Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:46:56 -0500, wrote:

On Wed, 24 Feb 2016 16:31:16 -0500,
wrote:

Several years ago when oil prices were shooting straight up, everyone
had their favorite conspiracy theory about greedy speculators, Wall
Street demons, fat cat middle eastern producers, manipulative tanker
brokers, banksters, etc. Where are those theories now? Does greed no
longer work? Does supply and demand actually work to set prices?

Here's an interesting article that I just found on Reuters news that
is written from an insider's perspective:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ce...-idUSKCN0VV0O2

The consensus is that current low prices are the result of decreased
demand, mostly from China, coupled with increased supply, mostly from
the USA. Imagine that, supply and demand actually works. :-)

The conspiracy theory is that the oil producers are flooding the
market to kill alternatives and promote the sale of gas guzzlers. The
saudis are accused of flooding the market to kill off shale and
fracking.

There are plenty of theories.

===

The Saudis are not actually flooding the market. They're pumping at
about the same rate as previous years but getting paid a lot less. The
return of gas guzzlers may happen to a certain extent but I think
that's just an incidental byproduct of the over supply situation.
There have been huge advances in fuel efficiency at all levels and
that's a good thing for a lot of different reasons.