4 to 5 bucks for gas coming!?

[kenny blankenship]

49. Sooner or later YES prices like that are coming.

If the global economy ever does pick itself up, yes the price of oil is going back up to the stratosphere. We're in a "banana" as Chairman Greenspan would say and even so it's at $100 a barrel. You will certainly live to see the ATH price of $147/bbl smashed. And you will see 4 - 5 dollar gasoline appearing in the US before it does. This is a long term problem that will just get worse and worse. How many energy/petroleum experts have to tell us that the global oil supply is being outstripped by demand before we finally accept what that means for us?

The idea that this "all about Obama" is silly at best. If, like most Obama's True Believers, you think that there is an economic recovery underway, then you should EXPECT to see rising oil and gas prices. Petroleum really is the most important commodity in the world (by far) and it really is in FINITE supply. We just aren't finding enough new reserves to avoid the market dynamic of constrained supply driving prices up. If I believe that oil will be more expensive in the future then I want to buy oil futures contracts today, which in turn helps raise the price of oil right now. This is the "invisible hand" raising the price of oil, even in absence of a visible rise in demand, but it has nothing necessarily to do with wanting to see this or that politician blamed for the rising price of gas. The people who do this do it for their financial positions (billions and billions). They couldn't give a shit who is president of the US and even if they disliked Obama, they aren't about to TRADE on their political prejudices putting hundreds of billions of institutional capital and millions of their own loot at risk. Barack Obama as President isn't COSTING them anything (sad to say) and he doesn't threaten to either. To the extent that commodities traders are anticipating increased demand for oil by their bidding up contracts on oil futures, you should applaud them for agreeing with the True Believer faith that the Great Obama Recovery is just around the corner.

Actually, Oil moved today on two pieces of news: the main item was that Iran announced it will cut off oil sales to Europe in retaliation for Europe's pre-announced embargo of Iran. (Contracting supply) This isn't just talk anymore. The announcement was that Iran HAS officially cut off sales to six EU countries who regularly buy its oil. The other news was that China announced its willingness to help Europe out with its financial difficulties (expanding demand). Neither of these have any connection to Republican leaning US elites wanting to throw the election to whatever clown the GOP eventually nominates - that is paranoid CT worthy of the TPers. Hell, if you must have someone to blame, blame Obama himself for continuing Bushler's aggression in the Mideast. The irony of your wailing about oil prices as though they were some kind of dagger thrown at Obama is that if Mr. Obama wasn't trying to topple Iran right now, Europe wouldn't be asked to join in our embargo against Iran, and Iran wouldn't be cutting off their oil sales to Europe as of today, nor would Iran be warning that they would respond to threatened US/Israeli/Western campaigns of air warfare against them with cutting off shipping in the Straits of Hormuz.