U.S.: Speculation Not Pushing Oil Prices (???)

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into 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 (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

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." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

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.



U.S.: Speculation Not Pushing Oil Prices
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia. June 21, 2008
(CBS/AP) The U.S. energy secretary said Saturday that insufficient oil production, not financial speculation, was driving soaring crude prices. Secretary Samuel Bodman's comments on the eve of an energy summit in the Saudi port city of Jeddah set the stage for a showdown between the U.S. and conference host Saudi Arabia, which has largely blamed speculation in the oil markets for record prices. The U.S. and many other Western nations have put increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, to increase production. Saudi officials have been hesitant to do so, arguing that soaring prices have not been caused by a shortage of supply. Bodman disputed that assertion Saturday, saying oil production has not kept pace with growing demand, especially from developing countries like China and India. "Market fundamentals show us that production has not kept pace with growing demand for oil, resulting in increasing prices and increasingly volatile prices," Bodman told reporters. "There is no evidence that we can find that speculators are driving futures prices" for oil. He said commodities markets have experienced a huge influx of money from financial investors in recent years, but they have been following the market upward rather than driving the increase in the price of oil. Saudi Arabia called the unusual meeting in Jeddah between oil producing and consuming nations as a way to show that it was not deaf to international cries that high oil prices have caused social and economic turmoil. "There is likely to be a lot of finger pointing at the energy and oil summit in Jeddah this weekend," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, who was in Saudi Arabia with the U.N. Secretary General earlier this week, "but the expectation is that there will be the formal announcement of an increase in production by the Saudi government and that there is pressure on other oil producing nations to follow suit, without OPEC's endorsement." The Gulf nation has also become increasingly concerned that record oil prices could hinder growth in the U.S. and other major industrialized economies, potentially leading to a decline in oil demand and a sharp drop-off in prices. "What has become clear in the past month," said Falk, "is that speculation in the oil market does play a role, as do taxes on oil in many countries, but the first step to lowering prices at the pump is to increase supply to respond to increasing demand. "Next steps, both in the U.S. and in oil producing countries, will be to look at energy alternatives, additional oil exploration, and to possibly regulate the oil traders," Falk reports, "but what is clearly the focus of the Jeddah summit is oil production increases, and the world is watching." Many on Wall Street see an attempt to equalize the supply and demand picture - to discourage the buying impulse among speculators, who many blame for driving the price up, reports CBS News corresponent Priya David. "All of these moves are a coordinated effort to try to calm the oil markets, calm the price and to make the speculators think twice about the odds of success to try to get the price of crude to go up further in the coming weeks," said Jim Awad, chairman of W.P. Asset Management. Jim Awad But some are not convinced the meeting will have substantive results. "The odds are less than 50-50 that this meeting alone will be successful in driving the price of oil down," said Awad. While Saudi Arabia has been reluctant to drastically increase production, it has announced several small increases recently that it says were made to satisfy increased customer demand. The country has consistently said that it will produce enough oil to ensure the market is supplied. The kingdom increased oil production by 300,000 barrels a day in May, and a Saudi official confirmed Saturday that the country would add another 200,000 barrels a day in July. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi also confirmed the increase ahead of the conference. But neither announcement has done much to stem the run-up in the price of oil, which closed near US$135 on Friday. Saudi assistant oil minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, told a news conference Saturday that the delegates were "congregating to achieve results" and try to draw "a collective way forward for how to attend to this situation." "This situation as we see it today as it exists needs everybody's attention simply because it no longer is a luxury to talk about it or ... to keep bouncing back and forth blame," he added. The prince said that Saudi Arabia has been working with several international organizations to put together a background paper to focus Sunday's discussions and reiterated that the kingdom was ready to meet demand from its customers and foster stable prices. He said it would be "wrong" to judge the success of the meeting by oil prices the day after it ends. Many countries around the world have experienced social unrest by populations angry that rising fuel prices have driven significant increases in the cost of food and other basic goods. Bodman said that every 1 percent increase in the demand for oil requires a 20 percent rise in price to balance the market. Demand in China, India and the Middle East has been soaring in recent years as the countries consume more energy to fuel economic growth. Rising demand in the developing world has coincided with historically low levels of spare oil production capacity, which fell below two million barrels per day among OPEC countries in May for the first time since the third quarter of 2006, according to the International Energy Agency. Bodman made clear that the responsibility for reducing oil prices did not simply fall on the shoulders of producing nations, saying consuming countries must increase energy efficiency and invest in the development of alternative fuels. But he saved his strongest words for oil producers like Saudi Arabia, who he said must step up long-term investment in production and spare capacity. "The incentive (for investing) is simply reasonable prices so that we're not faced with having to drop everything and race to Jeddah for a meeting that was called on a week's notice," said Bodman. Saudi Arabia is completing a US$50 billion plan to increase capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day but has signaled it would not go beyond that. CNBC said Saturday that Saudi Arabia's current capacity is 11.3 million barrels per day, quoting al-Naimi's adviser, Ibrahim al-Muhanna. Previous estimates by the International Energy Agency put current Saudi capacity at about 10.7 million barrels per day. The kingdom currently produces about 9.5 million barrels per day. Associated Press Writers Sebastian Abbot and Donna Abu Nasr contributed to this report.
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