Gas Pump Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics Turned Freakohnomics gone berserk? Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life? The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor is it Nature's Law nor a scientific lawFreedumb: an extremely precise & efficient self killing tool on a massive scale - as the outcomes of Global Warming and resource wars are demonstrating
The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.
The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil
Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization."
Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted
realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).
As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.
May 21, 2008
The Cassandra of Oil Prices
May 9, 2008
Oil Prices Surge Ahead Of Driving Season
By LOUISE STORY
Arjun N. Murti remembers the pain of the oil shocks of the 1970s. But he is bracing for something far worse now: He foresees a “super spike” — a price surge that will soon drive crude oil to $200 a barrel.
Mr. Murti, who has a bit of a green streak, is not bothered much by the prospect of even higher oil prices, figuring it might finally prompt America to become more energy efficient.
An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti has become the talk of the oil market by issuing one sensational forecast after another. A few years ago, rivals scoffed when he predicted oil would breach $100 a barrel. Few are laughing now. Oil shattered yet another record on Tuesday, touching $129.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas at $4 a gallon is arriving just in time for those long summer drives.
Mr. Murti, 39, argues that the world’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for oil means prices will keep rising from here and stay above $100 into 2011. Others disagree, arguing that prices could abruptly tumble if speculators in the market rush for the exits. But the grim calculus of Mr. Murti’s prediction, issued in March and reconfirmed two weeks ago, is enough to give anyone pause: in an America of $200 oil, gasoline could cost more than $6 a gallon.
That would be fine with Mr. Murti, who owns not one but two hybrid cars. “I’m actually fairly anti-oil,” says Mr. Murti, who grew up in New Jersey. “One of the biggest challenges our country faces is our addiction to oil.”
Mr. Murti is hardly alone in predicting higher oil prices. Boone Pickens, the oilman turned corporate raider, said Tuesday that crude would hit $150 this year. But many analysts are no longer so sure where oil is going, at least in the short term. Some say prices will fall as low as $70 a barrel by year-end, according to Thomson Financial.
Experts disagree over the supply of oil, the demand for it and whether recent speculation in the commodities markets has artificially raised prices. As an energy analyst at Citigroup, Tim Evans, reportedly put it, trading commodities these days is like “sticking your hand in a blender.”
Whatever the case, oil analysts like Mr. Murti have suddenly taken on the aura that enveloped technology analysts in the 1990s.
“It’s become a very fashionable area to write about,” said Kevin Norrish, a commodity analyst at Barclays Capital, which began predicting high oil prices around the same time as Goldman. “And to try to get attention from people, people are coming out with all sorts of numbers.”
This was not always the case. In the 1990s, oil research was a sleepy area at banks. Many analysts assumed oil prices would hover near $15 to $20 a barrel forever. If prices rose much above those levels, they figured, consumers would start conserving, suppliers would raise production, or both, causing prices to decline.
But around the turn of the century, oil company after oil company started missing predicted production. Mr. Murti, who covers oil companies like ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy, decided to study the oil spikes of the 1970s.
Since starting his career at Petrie Parkman & Company, a Denver-based investment firm acquired by Merrill Lynch in 2006, he had been conservative in his calls on oil. But by 2004, he concluded the world was headed for a long supply shock that would push prices through the roof. That summer, as oil traded for about $40 a barrel, Mr. Murti coined what has become his signature phrase: super spike.
The following March, he drew attention by predicting prices would soar to $105, sending shock waves through the market. Angry investors questioned whether Goldman’s own oil traders benefited from the prediction. At Goldman’s annual meeting, Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the bank’s chief executive and now Treasury secretary, found himself defending Mr. Murti.
“Our traders were as surprised as everyone else was,” Mr. Paulson reportedly said. “Our research department is totally independent. Our trading departments have no say about this.”
Over time, Mr. Murti was proved right again. Oil crossed $100 in February. Mr. Murti’s forecasts now feed into many of Goldman’s economic and corporate forecasts, affecting research of companies like Ford and Procter & Gamble. His research is distributed widely among investors.
“Even if you disagree with their views, the problem is that Goldman does carry so much credibility,” said Nauman Barakat, senior vice president for global energy futures at Macquarie Futures USA. “There are a lot of traders who are going to buy based on their reports.”
His sudden fame unsettles Mr. Murti. He rarely grants interviews, citing concerns about privacy, and he declined to be photographed for this article. He is not the bank’s only gas prognosticator: Jeffrey R. Currie predicts oil prices out of London.
Mr. Murti, for his part, discounts suggestions that his reports affect market prices. “Whenever an analyst upgrades a stock or downgrades a stock, sometimes you get a reaction that day, but beyond a day, fundamentals win out,” he said.
Mr. Murti falls into the camp of oil analysts who believe that supply is likely to remain tight because of geopolitical factors. These analysts predict higher prices because production is declining in non-OPEC countries like Britain, Norway and Mexico.
The analysts who predict lower prices say there are supplies of oil that the bullish analysts are missing. “This year will be a year in which supply will be put into the market by stealth by OPEC and by countries we call black-hole countries,” said Edward L. Morse, chief energy economist at Lehman Brothers. China is one example, he said.
But while oil and gas prices have been rising for a while now, Americans have only just begun to reduce gasoline consumption, so their efforts to conserve have not dragged down oil prices.
“The fact that the U.S. gasoline demand can be down and that the U.S. gasoline consumer is no longer driving world oil prices is a monumental event,” Mr. Murti says. He spends most of his time talking to money managers and analysts, many of whom keep asking him if oil prices will stay high if speculators abandon the market, and says he applauds investors for driving up oil prices, since that will spur investment in alternative sources of energy.
High prices, he says, “send a message to consumers that you should try your best to buy fuel-efficient cars or otherwise conserve on energy.” Washington should create tax incentives to encourage people to buy hybrid cars and develop more nuclear energy, he said.
Of course, if lawmakers heed his advice, oil analysts like him might one day be a thing of the past. That’s fine with Mr. Murti.
“The greatest thing in the world would be if in 15 years we no longer needed oil analysts,” he says.
The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.
The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil
Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization."
Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted
realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.
May 21, 2008
The Cassandra of Oil Prices
May 9, 2008
Oil Prices Surge Ahead Of Driving Season
By LOUISE STORY
Arjun N. Murti remembers the pain of the oil shocks of the 1970s. But he is bracing for something far worse now: He foresees a “super spike” — a price surge that will soon drive crude oil to $200 a barrel.Mr. Murti, who has a bit of a green streak, is not bothered much by the prospect of even higher oil prices, figuring it might finally prompt America to become more energy efficient.
An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti has become the talk of the oil market by issuing one sensational forecast after another. A few years ago, rivals scoffed when he predicted oil would breach $100 a barrel. Few are laughing now. Oil shattered yet another record on Tuesday, touching $129.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas at $4 a gallon is arriving just in time for those long summer drives.
Mr. Murti, 39, argues that the world’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for oil means prices will keep rising from here and stay above $100 into 2011. Others disagree, arguing that prices could abruptly tumble if speculators in the market rush for the exits. But the grim calculus of Mr. Murti’s prediction, issued in March and reconfirmed two weeks ago, is enough to give anyone pause: in an America of $200 oil, gasoline could cost more than $6 a gallon.
That would be fine with Mr. Murti, who owns not one but two hybrid cars. “I’m actually fairly anti-oil,” says Mr. Murti, who grew up in New Jersey. “One of the biggest challenges our country faces is our addiction to oil.”
Mr. Murti is hardly alone in predicting higher oil prices. Boone Pickens, the oilman turned corporate raider, said Tuesday that crude would hit $150 this year. But many analysts are no longer so sure where oil is going, at least in the short term. Some say prices will fall as low as $70 a barrel by year-end, according to Thomson Financial.
Experts disagree over the supply of oil, the demand for it and whether recent speculation in the commodities markets has artificially raised prices. As an energy analyst at Citigroup, Tim Evans, reportedly put it, trading commodities these days is like “sticking your hand in a blender.”
Whatever the case, oil analysts like Mr. Murti have suddenly taken on the aura that enveloped technology analysts in the 1990s.
“It’s become a very fashionable area to write about,” said Kevin Norrish, a commodity analyst at Barclays Capital, which began predicting high oil prices around the same time as Goldman. “And to try to get attention from people, people are coming out with all sorts of numbers.”
This was not always the case. In the 1990s, oil research was a sleepy area at banks. Many analysts assumed oil prices would hover near $15 to $20 a barrel forever. If prices rose much above those levels, they figured, consumers would start conserving, suppliers would raise production, or both, causing prices to decline.
But around the turn of the century, oil company after oil company started missing predicted production. Mr. Murti, who covers oil companies like ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy, decided to study the oil spikes of the 1970s.
Since starting his career at Petrie Parkman & Company, a Denver-based investment firm acquired by Merrill Lynch in 2006, he had been conservative in his calls on oil. But by 2004, he concluded the world was headed for a long supply shock that would push prices through the roof. That summer, as oil traded for about $40 a barrel, Mr. Murti coined what has become his signature phrase: super spike.
The following March, he drew attention by predicting prices would soar to $105, sending shock waves through the market. Angry investors questioned whether Goldman’s own oil traders benefited from the prediction. At Goldman’s annual meeting, Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the bank’s chief executive and now Treasury secretary, found himself defending Mr. Murti.
“Our traders were as surprised as everyone else was,” Mr. Paulson reportedly said. “Our research department is totally independent. Our trading departments have no say about this.”
Over time, Mr. Murti was proved right again. Oil crossed $100 in February. Mr. Murti’s forecasts now feed into many of Goldman’s economic and corporate forecasts, affecting research of companies like Ford and Procter & Gamble. His research is distributed widely among investors.
“Even if you disagree with their views, the problem is that Goldman does carry so much credibility,” said Nauman Barakat, senior vice president for global energy futures at Macquarie Futures USA. “There are a lot of traders who are going to buy based on their reports.”
His sudden fame unsettles Mr. Murti. He rarely grants interviews, citing concerns about privacy, and he declined to be photographed for this article. He is not the bank’s only gas prognosticator: Jeffrey R. Currie predicts oil prices out of London.
Mr. Murti, for his part, discounts suggestions that his reports affect market prices. “Whenever an analyst upgrades a stock or downgrades a stock, sometimes you get a reaction that day, but beyond a day, fundamentals win out,” he said.
Mr. Murti falls into the camp of oil analysts who believe that supply is likely to remain tight because of geopolitical factors. These analysts predict higher prices because production is declining in non-OPEC countries like Britain, Norway and Mexico.
The analysts who predict lower prices say there are supplies of oil that the bullish analysts are missing. “This year will be a year in which supply will be put into the market by stealth by OPEC and by countries we call black-hole countries,” said Edward L. Morse, chief energy economist at Lehman Brothers. China is one example, he said.
But while oil and gas prices have been rising for a while now, Americans have only just begun to reduce gasoline consumption, so their efforts to conserve have not dragged down oil prices.
“The fact that the U.S. gasoline demand can be down and that the U.S. gasoline consumer is no longer driving world oil prices is a monumental event,” Mr. Murti says. He spends most of his time talking to money managers and analysts, many of whom keep asking him if oil prices will stay high if speculators abandon the market, and says he applauds investors for driving up oil prices, since that will spur investment in alternative sources of energy.
High prices, he says, “send a message to consumers that you should try your best to buy fuel-efficient cars or otherwise conserve on energy.” Washington should create tax incentives to encourage people to buy hybrid cars and develop more nuclear energy, he said.
Of course, if lawmakers heed his advice, oil analysts like him might one day be a thing of the past. That’s fine with Mr. Murti.
“The greatest thing in the world would be if in 15 years we no longer needed oil analysts,” he says.
Oil Prices Surge Ahead Of Driving Season
May 9, 2008
(CBS/AP) Oil rose above $126 a barrel for the first time Friday, bringing its advance this week to nearly $10, as investors questioned whether a possible confrontation between the U.S. and Venezuela could cut exports from the OPEC member. Meanwhile, on the eve of the U.S. driving season, gas prices rose above an average $3.67 a gallon at the pump, following oil's recent path higher. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published a report that suggested closer ties between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and rebels attempting to overthrow Colombia's government. Chavez has been linked to Colombian rebels previously, but the paper reported it had reviewed computer files indicating concrete offers by Venezuela's leader to arm guerillas. That appears to heighten the chances that the U.S. could impose sanctions on one of its biggest oil suppliers. "If we put on sanctions, I'm sure Chavez would threaten to cut off our oil supply," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. "Obviously that would have a major impact on oil prices." Light, sweet crude for June delivery vaulted to a new record of $126.20 in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before retreating to trade up $1.09 at $124.78 a barrel. Even if Chavez cut oil shipments to the U.S., Venezuelan oil would still make its way to the U.S. via middle men, who would buy it from Venezuela and resell it to the U.S., Flynn said. But that new layer in the supply chain would bump up costs. Oil prices also were boosted Friday by the dollar, which declined against the euro. The European Central Bank said it was unlikely to consider interest rate cuts to cool the strong euro against the slumping dollar. Investors often buy commodities such as oil as a hedge against inflation when the greenback falls. A weaker dollar also makes oil less expensive to overseas investors. Many analysts believe the doubling in oil prices since this time last year has much to do with the dollar's protracted decline. Another school of thought thinks tight global supplies of oil, driven by growing demand in countries such as China, Brazil and India, is the primary factor driving oil higher. A prediction by analysts at Goldman Sachs seeing oil rising as high as $150 to $200 a barrel within two years also has boosted prices. Oil's surge is pushing retail gas prices higher. The national average price of a gallon of regular gas jumped 2.6 cents overnight to a record $3.671 a gallon according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. The Energy Department expects prices to peak at a monthly average of $3.73 in June, though many analysts say national average prices could rise as high as $4. Consumers in many regions, including parts of California and Hawaii, are already paying that much. Meanwhile, big oil has launched a nationwide campaign to show it isn't "the bad guy" when it comes to high gas prices (listen), reports CBS Radio News correspondent Steve Kathan. Demand for diesel fuel is also growing worldwide, but supplies of distillates, which include diesel and heating oil, fell unexpectedly last week, the Energy Department said Wednesday. That's pushing U.S. diesel prices to record highs and inflating heating oil prices in the futures market; heating oil futures are often viewed as a proxy for diesel. Heating oil for June delivery rose 7 cents to $3.5798 on the Nymex after earlier setting a trading record of $3.6125. At truck stops, retail diesel prices rose 1.8 cents overnight to a record national average of $4.269 a gallon, Diesel is used to move most of the world's food, consumer and industrial goods via truck, ship and rail. Skyrocketing diesel prices are part of the reason food and consumer goods prices are so high. In other Nymex trading Friday, June gasoline futures rose 3.72 cents to $3.175 a gallon, and June natural gas futures rose 13.2 cents to $11.395 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, June Brent crude futures rose $1.79 to $124.63 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange
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