As gas prices soar, 70 lawmakers push for curbs on speculation

[Auburn85 434]

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-gas-price-speculation-20120305,0,147284.story

Reporting from Washington—

With gas prices continuing to soar, 70 members of Congress on Monday pushed federal regulators to stop excessive oil speculation.

The House and Senate lawmakers -- all Democrats -- wrote to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to urge the agency to immediately put in place limits on traders in crude oil markets and take whatever steps necessary to rein in prices at the pump.

"It is one of your primary duties -- indeed, perhaps your most important -- to ensure that the prices Americans pay for gasoline and heating oil are fair, and that the markets in which prices are discovered operate free from fraud, abuse, and manipulation," the lawmakers wrote in a letter organized by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), who has bee outspoken that speculators are driving up the price of gasoline.

The 2010 financial reform law mandated that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission put position limits on contracts for crude oil, heating oil and numerous other commodities. The agency approved restrictions in October, but these have not gone into effect yet and the lawmakers accused commissioners of dragging their feet.

"Although the CFTC has adopted initial position limits, they are not strong enough and not yet in force owing to industry opposition, delays in swaps oversight and data collection. This is simply unacceptable and must change," the letter said. "We have a responsibility to ensure that the price of oil is no longer allowed to be driven up by the same Wall Street speculators who caused the devastating recession that working families are now experiencing."

The lawmakers said it is clear that "excessive oil speculation significantly increases oil and gas prices." But some analysts have said the issue is not so clear and speculation might not have much of an effect.

[AFTiger 282]

The Democrat solution to everything, blame someone but never face up to their own mistakes. Blame Wall Street, blame speculators, blame evil banks. Don;t blame Fannie or Freddie, they were feeding us cash.

Increase the supply of US oil and watch prices go down. I'll bet those 70 never thought of that.

[Justin5 20]

Quite frankly, there is no real way to get the prices down permanently. Not speculators, not drill baby drill, not taxing the oil companies. There is no silver bullet. The sooner we realize this the better.

So sure, drill all you want, but all it does is create jobs in the drilling industry in the short term.

U.S. production is roughly 8 million barrels a day, it accounts for less than 9 percent of a world-wide market that is close to 90 million barrels a day. Even if U.S. production could be increased by a third (an almost impossible increase) it would only increase world supply by 3 percent. This would lower the price of oil by 7-8 percent. This is not trivial, but it is not the difference between $2 a gallon gas and $4 a gallon gas. In other words, there is nothing that the United States can do in terms of its domestic production that would bring gas prices down to the levels that would make many American car owners happy.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/gas-in-the-us-elections?utm_source=CEPR+feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cepr+%28CEPR%29

I'm fine with using all of our resources, but we need to quit fooling ourselves into thinking the gas prices are going anywhere but up. Yes, oil is still cheap relatively speaking (adjusted for inflation, historically) - but the clock is ticking now on when it wont be, and we need to recognize that and choose to do something about it.

[Auburn85 434]

Quite frankly, there is no real way to get the prices down permanently. Not speculators, not drill baby drill, not taxing the oil companies. There is no silver bullet. The sooner we realize this the better.

So sure, drill all you want, but all it does is create jobs in the drilling industry in the short term.

U.S. production is roughly 8 million barrels a day, it accounts for less than 9 percent of a world-wide market that is close to 90 million barrels a day. Even if U.S. production could be increased by a third (an almost impossible increase) it would only increase world supply by 3 percent. This would lower the price of oil by 7-8 percent. This is not trivial, but it is not the difference between $2 a gallon gas and $4 a gallon gas. In other words, there is nothing that the United States can do in terms of its domestic production that would bring gas prices down to the levels that would make many American car owners happy.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/gas-in-the-us-elections?utm_source=CEPR+feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cepr+%28CEPR%29

Isn't this a lot of what Obama's stimulus was? Outside of the tax cuts sure, but the money used for actual projects. A lot of temp jobs came from the spending.

How much would the government have to borrow to spend for these temp. jobs?

As one guy in the Obama admin. said... they are more worried about weaning us off foreign oil than the crushing prices to the middle class America they claim to care about so much.

ALL energy should be pursued. Not one over the other with the government interference.

[Justin5 20]

The dependence on the foreign oil is WHY we are going to be paying so much.

[Justin5 20]

And $5 today isnt that high historically.

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

[Auburn85 434]

It is when we have such high employment.

What was the unemployment rate when gas was this high 4 years ago? It wasn't as high as it is now.

Gas prices are high.

[Auburn85 434]

And $5 today isnt that high historically.

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

You should encourage the use of this chart to Obama and other Democrats in the video I posted where they were blaming Bush and using props on the house floor. Would be interesting to see the response they get from the people getting crushed by these historically not so high gas prices.

[Justin5 20]

I would be all for it. I dont blame Bush. I dont blame Obama. Gas prices are going up regardless of what we do. We are lucky enough to know this today, while we still have time to prepare ourselves for it.

[Auburn85 434]

And basically the graph is trying to say that gas prices compared to today are flat compared to...1979...the high inflation times.

A lot of the gas prices today have to do with inflation too.

Isn't a Paul Volcker around though this time to raise interest rates to bite into inflation.

[Auburn85 434]

I would be all for it. I dont blame Bush. I dont blame Obama. Gas prices are going regardless of what we do. We are lucky enough to know this today, while we still have time to prepare ourselves for it.

So should we dare say that the dems blaming Bush,the oil hearings of the past, and this content of this article are nothing more than politcal fodder and theatre?

[Justin5 20]

I would be all for it. I dont blame Bush. I dont blame Obama. Gas prices are going regardless of what we do. We are lucky enough to know this today, while we still have time to prepare ourselves for it.

So should we dare say that the dems blaming Bush,the oil hearings of the past, and this content of this article are nothing more than politcal fodder and theatre?

In my opinion -just like any of the upcoming attacks on Obama, yes.

Then again, I do believe that some Dems legitimately think speculators are a problem. I dont subscribe to that theory though.

[Justin5 20]

And $5 today isnt that high historically.

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

You should encourage the use of this chart to Obama and other Democrats in the video I posted where they were blaming Bush and using props on the house floor. Would be interesting to see the response they get from the people getting crushed by these historically not so high gas prices.

Oh, and another thing - I dont doubt that people are struggling, but that is far more a product of wages falling. Not gas prices.

[Auburn85 434]

And $5 today isnt that high historically.

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

You should encourage the use of this chart to Obama and other Democrats in the video I posted where they were blaming Bush and using props on the house floor. Would be interesting to see the response they get from the people getting crushed by these historically not so high gas prices.

Oh, and another thing - I dont doubt that people are struggling, but that is far more a product of wages falling. Not gas prices.

Yeah, purchasing power has decreased over the years.

I would argue that the $5.15 minimum wage under Bill Clinton had more purchasing power that the minimum wage under Bush or Obama's administration.

[CCTAU 3,369]

Quite frankly, there is no real way to get the prices down permanently. Not speculators, not drill baby drill, not taxing the oil companies. There is no silver bullet. The sooner we realize this the better.

So sure, drill all you want, but all it does is create jobs in the drilling industry in the short term.

U.S. production is roughly 8 million barrels a day, it accounts for less than 9 percent of a world-wide market that is close to 90 million barrels a day. Even if U.S. production could be increased by a third (an almost impossible increase) it would only increase world supply by 3 percent. This would lower the price of oil by 7-8 percent. This is not trivial, but it is not the difference between $2 a gallon gas and $4 a gallon gas. In other words, there is nothing that the United States can do in terms of its domestic production that would bring gas prices down to the levels that would make many American car owners happy.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/gas-in-the-us-elections?utm_source=CEPR+feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cepr+%28CEPR%29

Isn't this a lot of what Obama's stimulus was? Outside of the tax cuts sure, but the money used for actual projects. A lot of temp jobs came from the spending.

How much would the government have to borrow to spend for these temp. jobs?

As one guy in the Obama admin. said... they are more worried about weaning us off foreign oil than the crushing prices to the middle class America they claim to care about so much.

ALL energy should be pursued. Not one over the other with the government interference.

Of course it was. But why let the market create jobs when the government can piss away billions and take credit for a few jobs.

Those who think opening up our land to increased petroleum production will NOT affect prices, are FOOLS. With just a stroke of the pen and NO GOVERNMENT money, jobs will become available. From pipeline building to exploration to drilling to shale oil production. And really? These are short term jobs? What the hell are they calling short term? For most people in the service industry and construction industry, a 2 to 3 year gig is LONG term. We have too many high class educated people in this country thinking that a career in an office building is the only viable way to be employed. (Either that or on the gubment teet)

We have (by many, many, many non librul sources) enough oil in our ground to sustain the US for over 50 years (conservatively).

Open up to drilling and pass a mandate that if the oil comes out of our ground, it stays in our country (including refined gas) unless there is a glut. It would be very simple to set limits that when reached the excess oil could be sold on the world market. The price of obtaining that oil would be very sustainable here in the US as long as the oil companies know that their market will be stable without the threat of government undermining their investments. American pride will return to a part of the industry that has been bastardized by foreign invasion such as Chavez. If we as a nation sever ourselves form OPEC by doing this, you will see the world market for oil plummet. Everyone crying to be independent, get off your ass and let the great messiah up in DC know that we want it back. If he really cares, we will see progress. But I sincerely doubt it. He has done nothing for this country so far that has not had its roots based in Marxism.