Same tired shit, new fucking year.

Seriously. The equity traders must be sharing some of what they’re smoking with the oil traders. I work in the debt markets and they’re still broken – not sluggish or tepid or down – they’re effectively broken. I don’t know why anybody would buy into equities when so many companies are unable to roll debt right now and for the same reason I don’t know why anyone would buy into commodities.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Fed does to try to pump the price of long term Treasurys or if they do anything at all. Until the debt markets are sorted out I can’t see any sort of recovery happening.

As I trudge down the freeway at 60 mph, people whiz by me like I'm standing still.

Why do I trudge? For the same reason I over-inflate my tires. Because I'm trying to wring a few extra miles out of each gallon of gas.

Seems like not that long ago I had plenty of company in the slower lanes. Not any more.

So who's to blame? As Pogo once said, "I have seen the enemy and he is us".

If I were U.S. Emperor of Energy, the first thing I'd do would be to bring back AND ENFORCE the 55 mph speed limit. The second would be to tax the Hades out of fuel rather than let all our money starts pouring into the coffers of Big Oil once again.

Ah, well. I can dream, can't I?

Bottom line: If you don't like pouring your hard earned cash into the Big Oil's pockets, then the least you can do is pump up your tires and SLOW DOWN.

The answer is easy - tax fuel at European (or at least Canadian) levels. It is fair, it is a great source of funding to offset plummeting income tax returns, and it will drive a more efficient US fleet far more quickly than any CAFE.

But hey, Bammy promised that no one with <$250k/yr income (and smokers, apparently) would have to foot any of the bill for his crazy promises, so you know: no can do.

to get into a few choice oil stocks. I'm not telling which, though :]. Best thou hurry.

So, if oil moves up to $68 a barrel it's driven by speculation, but at $148 it was a steal??

The fundamentals of demand were never there to support prices over $95 a barrel, even at the peak of economic growth, let alone what we now know was a growing recession of epic proportions. This is what happens when:(a) dealers and traders are allowed to participate in a market; (b) there is no oversight of the market (c) people keep believing they can make a fast buck for nothing.

Seriously: how can West Texas Intermediate be trading ahead of Brent Light Sweet Crude when by every scrap of evidence there is much more WTI available than BLSC? Where has the 10-15% price differential of supply & demand gone??

Final point: two things in common between May 2008 and 2009: a declining Dollar. Go compare the Dollar's value against the Euro for 2008 & 2009 vs. crude prices. This is money running for the exits.

Well I'm just delighted that so much oil is being stored offshore on tankers. That's a terrific idea. Large amounts of a hugely valuable commodity in easily damaged/destroyed boats right off the coast.

Good thing tankers never spill, or sink. Might make a mess on the beach. Good thing no one's ever thought to attack an oil-tanker. Whew. Wise thinking on the part of the investors, for sure.

And anyway, why would Americans worry about oil prices right now? The recovery is right around the corner. Q4 this year everyone is going to start getting highly paid jobs and start buying GM automobiles, and we'll all start getting dividend checks from GM because of our publicly-owned 60-72% stake.

Well that's the conventional wisdom amongst all the respected economisses, and who are we to question them? They're experts.

It'll be paradise.

/s

on the subject of Chinese demand: does anyone know what proportion of China's oil imports are actually for consumption and what percentage goes into their Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

Since Dubya and Co. taught China that even when your domestic industry is closed for inclement weather (Hurricane Katrina), you still keep filling the SPR, one has to wonder how much of that oil heading East is really going to fuel those record breaking auto-sales?

We're now in the new, corporate economy, corporate where individual initiative is being replaced with collective ventures. ( Do you believe that the new technologies are the result of individual efforts, or corporate investments?)

Oil is a tangible resource, which is used to create electricity, which is an abstract resource. Abstact resources can be leveraged, ergo the price of the tangible resource only partly reflects its real value, and it is fungible as well. Does anyone notice that the leveraging of electricity, arose about the same time as the leveraging of finance? Should you decide to exchange those bytes on a computer hard drive at your bank, for tangible cash, you create a problem, because you cannot deleverage abstract resources without destroying the system. (imagine your mind as a computer, which works in reverse, you plug it in and electricty comes out the other end?)

Which leads us to economic productivity, the lever which lifts the world. Oil is the body which now works a lot less harder, and gets more work done than ever before. So as the price of oil tracks the S&P, you have to think, money, electricty, leverage. Speculators leverage up the tangible resource, but their efforts do little to affect that leverage (or value) one way or the other. The problem is when you deleverage. If oil prices start down, then worry.

If there is any doubt about whether Obama is for WALL STREET or MAIN STREET, licking KING COAL'S boots & granting dozens of MOUNTAINTOPPING permits to destroy lives, properties, priceless irreplaceable natural treasures, water supplies & more, should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was bought & paid for by WALL STREET.

When the price of a barrel of oil got down to about $35, the news broke about banks not lending bailout money & that offshore oil tankers were stockpiling the oil in anticipation of a rise in prices.

This is a FASCIST'S dream, to use the taxpayers money to destroy AMERICA. Not only does this divert funds that could have been used to save people homes & really stimulate the economy,but this sharp rise in pump prices is taking $billions out of our economy & driving prices of everything else higher.