Could someone PLEASE tell me why in the h**l crude oil prices soar every day????

Question

Could someone PLEASE tell me why in the h**l crude oil prices soar every day????

Answer 1

Well once they blamed on the War in Iraq, but who knows I give up listening to the News anymore cause theres never any good on there...

Answer 2

From what I can tell, it seems that the declining value of the dollar, plus the lag time required for demand for oil to lower significantly based on price (inelasticity basically), plus the lack of viable substitutes, plus the ability of speculators to buy on favorable margins, plus the lack of clarity in terms of the bottoming of the economy, all contribute.  No doubt I have left out a number of things.

When I think you will see oil drop will be when the American people demonstrate some semblence of common sense in terms of who they elect to public office, and on what criteria they hold them accountable.   The drunken sailor approach to the current occupants foreign policy spending has devalued the dollar to an alarming degree.   People the world over have witnessed the American public re-elect a man who clearly does not care how much damage he does to our economy in the pursuit of an ill advised war.  And he isn't even talking about having the so called "liberation of Iraq" paid for by the presumably "grateful" Iraqi's with the oil that will soon be pumped from their oil fields at huge profits for private firms allowed to contract for the work.  Perhaps that is just, as I don't recall any recognized body in Iraq asking us to come over there and invade on the condition that our costs are repaid by oil revenue paid to our national treasury.

So, if you would like to improve your life, vote for elected officials that understand economics and global citizenship.  Insist on a strong and well funded military, but use it sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.   We don't have to invade Iraq every 10 years.  They already know we can beat their armies.  Heck, we can probably still beat anyone's army, even now, if we really have to.  the trick is to position ourselves so that we don't have to fight very often, and when we do, that we know what to do once the "mission is accomplished".

What can you do personally?  Vote in your own personal best interests, unless you are wealthy, and then vote in the best interests of the nation.   It ought to be easy to ask citizens to vote in their own best interests, but the trick is you have to become informed and actually think a bit more carefully than picking your president based on what he says he is going to do, vs what his policies suggest would happen to you  And stop voting for Ralph Nader unless you want 4 more years of what you are experiencing today!  :)

And be careful out there!

This concludes the current segment of my ongoing rant.