They're gonna suck our wallets dry . . .

So I get to work this morning and do the usual . . . call up the business news . . . hoping that there will be some reason to feel good about an otherwise normal Monday morning, complete with me spilling a coffee all over the console of my car.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr . . . . another topic for another day.

Anyhoooooots, one of the first few stories on the wire is this . . .

Screwed again . . .

Here's the jist of it . . .

Oil prices rose to $73 a barrel in Asia on Monday on expectations that OPEC will cut production quotas at an extraordinary meeting later this week.

Just when I figured that gas prices dropped enough that I could afford to eat something besides out of date hot dogs and el cheapo tuna from a can.

Go figure.

I'm pissed.

yeah i'm not happy about this either. My CCs are pretty much maxxed out from trying to pay for both food and gass. And of course now the heating bill is crazy too.
this is total BS
stupid opec

We've got everyone around here worried about damn near everything financial . . . people stocking up on food, buying guns, making ammo . . . economic armageddon is upon us and nobody gives a flying leap that OPEC's going to cut production which will eventually result in our fuel prices getting jacked up, and pretty much anything else with petrochemical inputs going through the roof . . .

Hmmmm . . . we've been lulled into submission to accept this as something we've just got to live with.

Damn sad.

Its pretty brilliant, use the laws of supply and demand, if demand slumps... slow the pumps down..

I read some where it costs them a few cents a gallon to pump oil from there oil wells.., then they don't even process it (refine it) they simply pump it from the ground and into a waiting oil tanker.

It would be like you charging $80 gfor 55 gallons of water that you pump from your well.. and when demand slumps, you slow the flow down to create less supply.

reply to post by GoalPoster



it was last month, September, that OPEC first announced they were going to have a meeting to cut production.


the world, and the USA, already had fair warning, the price of oil has been manipulated downward for months now...


but you know what... the oil stockpiles have not been maxed out, crude inventories are very low...
Why, because the gasoline sales are down...so the major (USA) importers ain't going to buy crude to refine.
Question... does that sound like planning ahead for building up supplies of heating oil for the winter weather season??

No. the mega-oil corps are doing the shortsighted, profit making action...
sitting on their hands until the clamor for fuel oil & maybe even gasoline picks up into a near panic ---then they can charge as they wish.


So, don't just blame the oil markets on just OPEC,
as OPEC only provides a supply of oil...
Its the refiners and marketers who are in charge of deciding the What-When-Where energy supplies are available and at what price



thanks,



don't confuse my remarks as siding with or defending the Arabs or OPEC

Great post . . . after reading this, I took a gander at a few of the oil company stocks.

Seems the market shot up yesterday on the strength of energy stocks that skyrocketed . . . Exxon was up more than ten percent.

How nice . . . we're looking at scrounging a few bucks here and there to be able to get back and forth to work, heat our houses and flick on a light switch or two and the corporate and economic elite that own these energy companies line their pockets speculating on our misery.

Somehow, we need to unite against this kind of corporate greed as it is a symptom of a much bigger ill.

Jeepers crow....how shortsighted is that?

Actually, I know the answer, it's just short (or long, depending on how you look at it) enough to see right into the profits they'll get when prices rise.

Every year people die of cold because they can't afford the cost of heating their home. I don't pretend to understand how the oil cartel works, but with everything else virtually imploding financially, I can't see how this will get any better through Winter.

reply to post by GoalPoster

The amount of money that Americans have saved on gas since July when the price of gas was at its highest in the past ten years is about $17.5 billion.



[edit on 10/21/2008 by stander]

"When people put $10 less gas in their car or $20 less gas in their car in a week, that’s disposable income that they had they can now go to a sit-down restaurant or go to a movie or come and shop at Wal-Mart [WMT 52.95 -0.72 (-1.34%) ]. The price of gas has had an extraordinary impact on our economy as well as the world. I think it really will play a determining part in how long this economic pressure lasts."

www.cnbc.com...

Thanks for a reply Mr. Scott, but if the gas prices keep steady at about the same level then, the economy would be injected with $11.7 billion a month, which is a very modest stream. Most of it would be consumed in grocery stores where the folks would be able to resume their spending habits. The food prices went up along with the price of gas, but won't go down with it -- they never have. The food companies will never give up the higher prices.

CAMDEN, N.J. - Despite the sour economy and prior thoughts of leaving the city of Camden — one of the nation's poorest — the Campbell Soup Co. is breaking ground on a new building.

The $90 million expansion includes a new employee services building with a cafe, gym and other amenities.

The company also has plans for a 100-acre office park in the city's Gateway District.

Wondering where the spending money come from?