www.StopOilSpeculationNow.com.

now Ed, the Guvment says there isn't any speculation in the market donchaknow? they must know. it musta been in that secret energy meetin at the VP's office that covered this. hard tellin since it was secret. tim

Regardless of the current pain we are all feeling, there is no easy answer for the temporary high price of oil. Yes there are speculators in the market and, yes they are partly responsible for the rampant increase in prices but free markets are.....free markets. The article referenced talks of a "bubble" in prices which makes the current situation exactly like any other bubble. Anyone remember tulip bulbs, gold in the late 70s, real estate lately and the "dot com" market of 1999? At some point every bubble bursts. Gravity does exist and supply and demand always come into balance. It's not opinion but a physical event. The upside is that when this bubble bursts we have the chance to retain our new behavior and make permanent adjustments to our demand at much lower prices, which is what we control. Limiting market participants has never and can never increase price stabilization without governmental control.

Dougout
M.A Economics 1980

as President Hoover said "The only problem with capitalism is greedy capitalists". also, it is entirely possible that the speculators in the market are not fond of the west and wish us difficulties. tim

Yes, and therein lies the problem. You can't regulate a world market. The only long term answer is energy conservation (demand reduction) and alternative sources. I am amazed at the technology I have seen lately including things as goofy sounding as algae. I just visited with Green Energy Ohio's Exec Director and both wind and solar are making huge advances. High oil prices actually accelerate the development of this stuff so I am really ambivalent. With regard to air fares, demand has slacked off a ton so the airlines really do not have that much pricing power. See CGS's note about DTW CUN flights. There is still a little too much supply in the US airline system but consolidation will solve that, giving them some ability to raise fares. Price is always the equalizer of demand and supply.

Enough Econ 102

Yup solar and wind would be great alternatives--solar is still cost prohibitive for the average homeowner to consider and unfortunately the US Gov't in the form of Fish and Wildlife have soooo many restrictions and regulations regarding wind turbines it is ridiculous. My husband is an engineer for a company that builds and develops power plants. He has built a natural gas facility in Trinidad, repowered several older plants in the NY area and converted them from diesel to natural gas and worked on 2 wind farms in West Texas. When they tried to do a wind project here in NY it was bogged down over the migratory pattern of the birds--same is true for the proposed wind farm off of Jones Beach (birds and fish this time-although his company was not bidding on that project). They are great alternative solutions to our energy problems but with so many people deciding it should be in someone else's backyard and so much red tape over birds, flora and fauna it takes lots of time and lots of money to get the approvals- then you have to build them! Guess pollution from coal fired plants aren't killing birds and people everyday. And yes--there is a power sub station less than a mile from my house-and we have no problem with it.

That was an excellent description of that side of the problem. On the leeward side of most of the great lakes, wing speeds are very conducive for turbines. The problems are just what you stated about migratory patterns. IF we could get some progress in clean coal that would also be a huge help!

I thought we already discussed air speed velocities of unlaiden swallows? Anyway....
Demand will always be there and will always grow. We can't forget that each year more and more commuters are generated by all the 16 and 17 year olds getting their drivers licenses, millions of college graduates getting their first jobs and the need to commute to and from that, immigration, etc. There will always be growth, so it's important to find energy alternatives to keep the prices down. Keep up the good job you brainiac engineers! I'm in the legal field, so completely different thought process.

TEXT dtd 7/14/2008

From: CHAD
to: DAD

Message: Hey, I got my temps....I 4got to tell U