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"Eisboch" wrote in message
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"Big Oil" helps set the price of the crude it buys. You think it
doesn't have "partners" sitting on the OPEC committees?


I'm sure they do. But, there are also speculators at work, in the
exact same way speculators dick with the price of stocks to the point
where their prices are completely disconnected from physical &
financial reality.

Speculative nonsense:


Think back. Although laughable when compared to current values, the
price of oil quadrupled during the oil "shortage" crisis in the early
70's on Nixon's watch. Later that decade, under Carter it doubled
again in less than 12 months.

Neither had anything to do with Wall Street, Dick Cheney or secret "Big
Oil" meetings with OPEC.

Eisboch



That was then. This is now. And (separate issue), in this discussion,
I'm not concerned with any particular politician.

In the long list of things you buy regularly, can you think of 5 or 6
whose prices are determined by speculators, causing almost daily price
swings? I'm in the grocery biz, and I handle about 500 different
products. I don't see this happening.

How about shoes, or anything else you buy?


I am on a conservation kick. I go barefoot.

Seriously, at 100 bucks or so a barrel, I don't see daily price swings of
a few dollars per barrel as being very significant.
There's something more than speculators causing prices to more than
double in two years. I admit, I don't fully understand how oil prices
are "set" despite JimH's links. Seems to me that those who control the
goods determine the price.

Eisboch


It's all the factors working together. Demand is part of it, but not all
of it. The problem is that people will gamble on absolutely anything. If
we added chick pea futures to the other available via the commodities
exchanges, people would be gambling on chick peas.

And if they are wrong, they lose their shirts.

Supply and demand eventually wins.