John, if you raise them yourself, they're cheap!
And usually better.


JohnH wrote:
On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 19:13:29 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:


"JohnH" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 11:06:18 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

"Jack Goff" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 03:40:23 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

"Jack Goff" wrote in message
om...
On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:59:45 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

"Jack Goff" wrote in message
news:9uduc2lvcrv430v7nv5u398botkna3e71h@4ax .com...

So now the US is an island, insulated from the rest of the world?
Everyone else is "irrelevant"? Really?

So the price is 25 - 35% "trading excess" (cite?), which is the
futures traders as you've said before, right? But then the oil
companies are to blame for the price, not the traders. Uh huh.

CITE: It was provided earlier in this discussion. Use your search
feature
to
find the first message containing "PBS", and read forward from there.

Nope. There was some discussion about some talking heads on PBS, but
there is no cite with solid facts on your 25-35%, because that doesn't
exist.


These were not "talking heads". These were commodities brokers who live
with
the numbers all day long. If the barrel price jumps X amount in one day,
and
they see absolutely NOTHING to cause it, other than amateurs bidding up
the
price, then what they've pointed out is quite conclusive.


OK, let's us that number. Here's the rest of my post:

However, what is curious is that you made the statement:
The oil companies, knowing
this, do whatever they want with the price. That's a crime, and should
be
dealt with.

But you also said this about them:
Other
businesses make higher margins and it doesn't bother you.

So some companies make (much) higher margins than oil companies, but
for some reason you think the oil companies are committing a crime?
Surely you realize that they have an obligation to their investors to
make money, yes?

Then you blame the price not on the oil companies, but on futures
trading by people who aren't in the business. You said:
Limit futures trading to companies which have a material interest in the
commodity being traded, in this case, oil. Eliminate speculators, who,
by
definition, are in no way involved with the production of petroleum
products. This latter group is simply playing games. Stopping this would
not
totally eliminate the fluff in the price, but it would go far in that
direction.

Understand that I agree with you on some of your points. However,
you're all over the map on this. You seem to just be ****ed about the
price, and are blaming everyone except the guy behind the register at
your local 7-11. Is it the oil companies, or the speculators? And
why does gas cost us *half* of what it cost the rest of the civilized
world? Could it be that the oil companies are indeed aware that the
US is dependant on oil, and are attempting to hold down the cost here
in some ways?

As I said, the blame could be twofold. If you want to buy a certain stock
and the price is inflated due to no fault of yours, you may go ahead and
buy
it anyway. In that sense, you're a victim since the price has been
inflated
by others. This analogy points right back to my comments about a resource
being manipulated by people who are outsiders.

It would be interesting if a few oil companies were asked (i.e.: handed
subpoenas) and had to reveal what their actual raw material cost has been
since they began using Iraq as an excuse.


Jack made the points I was trying to get to yesterday. I think you've
backed off your original statement somewhat. I think if you stopped
futures
trading for one commodity, you'd have to do it for all. Many commodities
are 'necessary', we just don't have them in our face every day.
--
******************************************
***** Have a Spectacular Day! *****
******************************************

John

John, within the past couple of years, how often have you said "What the
hell...?" when you've seen repeated price increases for products OTHER THAN
OIL? If any, name the products.


Tomatoes at Safeway. I think we should all boycott the damn stores until
the price of tomatoes gets reasonable.
--
******************************************
***** Have a Spectacular Day! *****
******************************************

John