In a society built on ‘cheap and abundant’ energy it is difficult to determine if the latest price hike is speculative or a concession to producers who can no longer increase their output.
While there have been recent reports of the discovery of new oil fields, most have only added ‘days’ to the amount of time we have before we exhaust this non-renewable resource. What’s a billion barrels to a world that burns a couple of hundred million barrels every day?
Understand good citizen, they would LIKE to club us over the head with ‘whatever the market will bear’ price hikes but doing that will result in the near immediate ‘evaporation’ of ‘civil order’.
Civilization will literally ‘stop in its tracks’.
Which is to ask what $50 per gallon gasoline means to you? (That’s an ‘out of a hat’ number…$20 a gallon would achieve the same net result.)
Most would pooh-pooh such a question but believe me what I tell ya, if you’re not one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, you will live to see this happen! (Understand, it won’t be (directly) due to our ‘running out’ of fossil fuels, these astronomical prices will be ‘gouged’ out of you because supplies will be…more or less ‘unavailable’ to the general public. Fill in your own convenient lie as for why…)
Time for more ‘whacko’, off the reservation, thinking.
Most of you understand the idea of ‘class war’ (even though three-quarters of the potential ‘combatants’ mis-identify themselves as being members of [rather than the lackeys of] the ‘rich class’.)
Well, who do you think is going to fight in the ‘resource wars’? Most of you believe this battle will be slugged out between the oil exporting nations and the oil importing nations, which conveniently mis-directs out attention to the ‘brown people’ who tend to occupy oil rich portios of the planet.
Um, no. Resource wars will be fought along the exact same lines as the ‘class war’ is being fought…with the same ideological positions being defended, principally, the question of ‘worthiness’.
Maybe I’m prejudice but I think the thieves who have screwed us out of everything they could, every chance they got, are the ‘least’ deserving…but that’s just me.
Odd how most people equate wealthy with deserving…this is especially prevalent among the wealthy!
So, the question facing us in tonight’s offering is whether or not the much anticipated ‘resource wars’ are about to begin?
Oil and Gasoline Prices Begin to Creep Up
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: March 8, 2010
HOUSTON — Crude oil and gasoline prices are inching up again.
Optimism about the economy, new tensions in oil-producing Nigeria and reports that China intends to build up its strategic reserves lifted crude prices to around $82 on Monday, about a $10 increase in the last month.
Prices at the pump are rising, too, with the average national price for a gallon of gasoline jumping 5 cents in the last week, to just above $2.75.
“That’s a drag on the economy,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, who estimated that consumers were paying just over $1 billion a day at the pump, about $250 million more than this time a year ago.
Mr. Kloza predicted that gasoline prices would top $3 a gallon between April and June as warm weather encouraged more driving, before dropping to as low as $2.50 after the summer driving season. “We’re in the fourth or fifth inning of the typical end-of-winter, early spring rise in gasoline prices,” he added.
The energy markets have been relatively stable since early October, with crude prices moving within a narrow range of $70 to $83. That followed years of erratic prices, with oil trading above $147 a barrel in July 2008 and falling below $33 only five months later.
Oil prices recovered steadily through most of last year, and peaked in early January at just under $84 a barrel. Some energy analysts say it is possible the price will break that level in the next several days, but there are few reasons to expect the price to rise to anywhere near the 2008 highs.
Global crude oil inventories have been slowly declining. But domestic inventories have been climbing and remain well above the five-year average for this time of year.
Gasoline supplies also remain ample, but prices at the pump have been rising along with oil prices. The average gallon of regular gas rose nearly a penny, to $2.75 on Monday, up from just over $2.70 a week ago and $2.66 a month ago, according to a report compiled by AAA, the motorists’ group.
Gasoline prices typically go up in the spring as refiners retool and switch to more expensive summer blends of gasoline. Demand and prices were particularly low this winter because of cold and stormy weather, and experts say they believe many drivers will be keen to take to the highway as spring blooms.
Still, high unemployment is keeping many commuters off the road, and putting a cap on discretionary driving.
In early morning trading on Monday, oil prices surged above $82 a barrel, but retreated later to settle at $81.87 a barrel, the highest closing price since Jan. 11.
“It remains to be seen whether we can hold $80, since we’ve failed to hold it five times in the past five months,” said Addison A. Armstrong, senior director for market research at Tradition Energy, an energy broker in Stamford, Conn. “Given the low level of demand, gasoline inventories certainly aren’t tightening.” [Unlike many other ‘products’, when it comes to energy you’re sort of fucked. You pay what they ask because doing without is usually ‘unacceptable’…personally as well as socially. Just ask a homeless person living out doors how much they like living without energy? Which only proves there are some things you never get used to…]
Several international factors, however, are pushing oil prices higher. A Nigerian rebel group recently called off a three-month cease-fire, and attacks on oil production operations have resumed. In recent weeks, oil production in Nigeria has fallen by 85,000 barrels a day, more than 4 percent of normal output. [Um, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t this the exact same ‘litany of woe’ that has turned out to be a smoke screen for ‘speculators’ during the last two run ups of oil prices? Are you going to be ‘fooled’ again? More succinctly, do you have a choice? You already know your elected representative isn’t going to do anything about you’re being gouged…if you don’t (somehow) make it personal.]
Meanwhile, China is building storage plants to amass emergency reserves while prices remain relatively low, raising expectations that China may import as much as 15 percent more oil this year. [If you’re familiar with the term ‘shot across the bow’, there are seldom more obvious ‘signals’ than the message conveyed here.]
There is little expectation that OPEC, the producers’ cartel, will alter supplies at its meeting later this month. The oil minister for Ecuador, Germanico A. Pinto, who is the current president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has said there is no need for members to cut shipments. [Whew, that’s a relief! Or is it? It will be interesting to see what happens when governments start ‘asking’ oil-producing nations to ‘step up production.’ We already know (if you’ve been paying attention) that they can’t!]
“If you look at the narrow supply and demand fundamentals, markets would seem to be a little bit ahead of themselves,” said Lawrence J. Goldstein, a director of the Energy Policy Research Foundation. “But if you look at the futures markets out six to 10 months, they are not pricing in exogenous events that are likely to occur, like a hurricane or a crisis involving Iran.” [Actually, we’re stuck right where we’ve always been, with the assholes sticking it to us while they pretend to be ‘helpless’, all the while taunting us with the familiar refrain of ‘what are YOU gonna do about it, huh?]
For the oil industry, higher prices are naturally good news. Industry executives said they would encourage investment in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, and offset the impact of low natural gas prices. [Um, why don’t these MSM assholes ever flip that one over and point out what a disaster this is for ‘social stability’ (which is really ‘job one’ for every government ever established…not that they’ve ever been any good at it. but that has nothing to do with ‘competence’.]
“It certainly helps the cash flow,” said Rodney L. Waller, a senior vice president of Range Resources, an oil and gas company in Fort Worth. “It certainly helps you take the added cash, reinvest and grow your company.”
How many of you want to give ‘Rodney’ the ol’ ‘one finger salute’? “You and the horse you rode in on, buddy!”
Yeah, doomers like myself can’t help but imagine Baltar in the original BSG issuing the command ‘Let the attack begin’.
As hard as it is for you to wrap your head around the idea, you must face reality and accept that some group, lead by a single individual, is plotting to. (I want to say ‘decimate’ but that’s a bit dramatic…although it fits) overthrow what used to pass for social order ON THIS PLANET.
Not all ‘megalomaniacs’ seek notoriety…in fact we may finally be confronted with one, er, ‘wise’ enough to have learned the lessons of history.
Whoever this ‘destroyer of worlds’ is, he/she has been smart enough not to attract undue attention to him/her self. Oh, there are those who ‘know’ this individual’s identity as well as his/her plans…but they can’t ‘prove it’…or if they can, they don’t dare!
Worse, the people who are aware of this ‘attack on humanity’ have been assured they are on the ‘winning’ side and that their ‘loyalty’ will be rewarded…just as any ‘treachery’ will be severely dealt with…
How do you fight something that doesn’t exist?
Short answer, you don’t…and ol’ ‘I’m not here’ wins by default!
Sorry for closing this piece on such a grim note, but that’s why you read me…isn’t it.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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