I guess Congress reads this blog, as they are responding to the recent post that financial investors such as index funds are overwhelming natural hedgers in the oil markets for the higher grades of crude oil, and are unaturally driving up those prices. Financial Times also had a recent story how the spread between the prices of various grades crude is at record levels. I have no problem with pension funds investing in oil, but let them buy it in the ground or invest in finding it. The futures markets are no place for them. Congress should simply reimpose the unrelated business income tax on pension funds speculation in futures.
In addition, the position size of financial firms, hedge funds etc., need to be greatly limited and swaps and other over the counter derivatives need to be regulated. Letting these big pools of capital mess up physical markets is just wrong. Again, if they want to invest in oil, let them buy or find it in the ground.
There is no silver bullet to solve the energy problems, but doing a little bit of everything that can help will, in their cumulation, make a big difference. The long term solution is nuclear power as I wrote recently. Short and intermediate term, many smaller changes can help over the multi-decade transition.
Word of the Day
"Meliorism" - noun [$ ? - no dictionary available] - this word comes from reading the fine biography titled "Walter Lippman and the American Century"
Meliorism is a belief that things can be improved but never perfected.
Sentence: (A) Politicians need to embrace meliorism in their efforts to solve the energy problems by making many small improvements and giving it continuous attention. (B) A stock trader must accept meliorism as his credo as trying to attain perfection in trades is psychologically damaging thru quotidian failures.
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i see that Obama also wants restrictions put on oil 'speculators'
why is the Bman supporting john mccain? all these rules and regulations he wants.....that's exactly what Obama and the congressional democrats want
what a disgrace
i like to ....uh....speculate on solar stocks
" let them buy it in the ground or invest in finding it "
does the Bman want me buying solar panels instead? maybe i should buy a 1/2 ton of solar panels and put them in my basement.....if they go up in 6 months ....i'll sell 'em for a profit
pfffffffffffffffffft
PS......i also been tradin alot of ag stocks.....shud i also buy a ton of potash instead of ....uh....speculating in POT???
Jesse Livermore is rolling in his grave....
why is "speculation" suddenly a dirty word?
The Bman suggestions on meliorism in the energy markets fall under the category of 'ridiculous'.
does frosty have a post 'ops expo' strategy??
pffffffffffffffffffft
General Electric Co's (NYSE:GE - News) infrastructure unit, GE Infrastructure, said it will maintain its business growth forecast of 10-15 percent for 2008, despite rising costs.
"Demand for our products continues even as we have to raise prices due to raw material costs going up," he said, ahead of his visit to Singapore for an industry conference on Tuesday.
hmmmmmmmmm, who to believe, GE or the govt?
obama seems to be gaining all the mo, and i seriously cant figure y?
he is talking out both side of his wazoo, already. his ideas sux.
cud it be the elephants have just shredded the constitution to the point that no matter what the left throws up in nov it sticks. President, house and senate.
TAX AND SPEND BABY, that will fix all.
D'oh
Soul diva Amy Winehouse has damaged her lungs by smoking crack cocaine and cigarettes, her father said in an interview published Sunday.
RIP mr carlin
Investing or speculating in stocks are fine ... for people.
Pension funds should not be in futures.
Look ... for futures every long must have a short ... so who are the shorts that can hedge against these huge funds flows into long futures in commodities ?
I'm distinguishing between futures and derivatives and investmsnt in the tangible. Before these "reforms" the speculators would invest in drilling or in crop land or in things that would increase production ... now they just play games in futures markets. It's causing big problems and ... the common man needs protection from the shenanigans of the big money pools.
Actually speculators in solar stocks is quite good - those companies can then raise money (uh ... do secondaries ... be aware) and then expand production.
Ditto companies like POT.
so bman u believe the saudis when they say it is the speculators fault for the price?
the saudis u believe?
i thought they were the enemy?
boone pickens still saying its just more demand than supply.
and we all know the saudis cant produce more. i guess thats why it up today, again.
obama, dc, the saudis blame the speculators.
boone does not believe that.
i wonder who to trust?
wonder what you think about the head economist from WB.
he said money growth was running at 6%. inflation at 4%, economy is growing at 2%.
he said europe has money supply up like 10% with about 2% growth and 8% inflation.
went to a family gathering yesterday....everyone kept telling me how cheap C is....how they are buying and have been buying...."youre going to miss it" i was told
these are just regular common folk....
doesnt sound like a bottom to me....
I had that opinion long before the Saudis said it. They must read this blog ;-)
I did the math and research and it seems clear that pension fund money is overwhelming the natural short hedgers.
With aid of beefers, too.
I guess the WB economist isn't smart enough to look at the monetary base.
seems odd their r so many different opinions on the monetary base.
meet the press was funny yesterday. williams was grilling a repub from sc. got the guy to support drilling of the coast of SC. then showed him his own words from less than 2 yrs ago.
so what changed your mind? asked williams?
4 dollar at the pump changed my mind.
russert wud have been proud.
fairly obvious neither the donkeys or the elephants have a clue.
but the current president was the CEO of an oil company yrs ago.
take a look at HEC's chart in the early 90's. he clearly understand one thing....... how to run stuff into the dirt.
first it was harken
then it was texas rangers
finally the united states of america.
quite the trifecta, for an idiot.
"post ops expo"....LMAOOO...looking for the real buyers....bears coming after tech leader WDC...QCOM next.
Even before the floods, Tyson Foods was complaining that high grain prices would drive up its costs by $600 million this year. The world's largest poultry company has already raised its prices over the past year, and expects to keep raising them, CEO Dick Bond told analysts at a conference in May.
Higher feed prices will eventually filter through to the cost of milk, cheese and yogurt, too, since 65 to 75 percent of a dairy farmers' production costs are for feed, said Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation.
sure sounds like higher headline inflation just got an extra inning or 2 becuase of these floods.
MCD's running ads down here. "u have seen what has happened at your grocery store and at the gas station......................."
not only r prices not rolling over as the fed expected in mid 2007, but they r even accelerating from here.
the fed wishes they were between a rock and hard place. because right now ben has a two by four sticking out of his butt and alan didnt even spit on it before he jammed it in.
so we have tyson, GE, MCD and pimco all pretty much stating inflation is much higher than 4%.
so again we believing the same peeps who told us iraq was loaded with WMD's. or r we to believe people outside of DC, and actually need to be held accountable for their data?
did some digging. i wud agree the mother ship is currently in control of 90 to 100 trillion in deriviatives. that is definitely not a "phoney" #.
that is literally 7 times our GDP, and scary to say the least.
a lot or most of those probably offset ... the problems with over teh counter derivative is they don't expressly offset adn get cancelled.
I don't see floods as causing inflation. Floods, droughts, etc. cause hardship, not inflation. Too much money causes inflation and that's not happening.
so the 2 million acres of corn that just got destroyed wont trickle down like tyson is suggesting?
not buying that at all.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has placed Wachovia high on its radar screen for a potential acquisition, CNBC reports, citing insiders with the New York bank.
before this is over will JPM and GS be the only ones standing?
Dear Sal,
You have been such an inspiration to me during this campaign -- your commitment and your boundless enthusiasm made everything we accomplished in the last 17 months possible. So as I continue to make sure your voices are heard, I wanted to say a special thank you for all the hard work you did on my behalf.
Click here to watch my video message to you.
Thank you for everything,
Hillary
Hillary wanted money in that video message
sorry darling.......unless you withdraw your support for Obama......i ain't sendin you anymore
my money is reserved for mac
go BIG JOHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bud staring at us like the Indian(is that ok to say?)..in the liter ad..with a single tear on his chops..as he turns and sees the Hilldawg lesbo's chase the Obama bus....lol
huh????
spin takin writin lessons from frosty??
PS....has frosty coome out of the closet yet?
bud what about when you said you wud do ANYTHING for your girl about 100 times this yr?
seriously if she asked you to strap 50 sticks of dynamite to your chest, goto mizner park, run into one of those upscale plaza and yell "ALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALLALALA" and blow yourself up, you wud have done that a few weeks ago.
now u wont obey and vote for your parties elected official.
u really think obama can make this world any worse?
well i think he can, but big mac aint much better.
and most americans r so dumb, unless this economy really comes around.......... big mac is gonna get the big bush mush, come nov.
Here's Bob's (barber) take on the election:
"Obama, I'd like to ask him....he's always talking about change...what the FU%%K are you gonna change pal?"
had to up his tip after that tirade...eventhough my sideburns were slightly uneven
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Are you sure that's a Bob?...Looks like an Enzo.........
MLF59 pork chops out of balance...head listing 15 degrees to portside.
ill tell ya what.....this guy Bob gives you a shave like his name was Enzo....single blade...hot towel...beauuuutifuuul
obamas big change is getting the avg american to change from marlboros to cools.
budweiser for old e.
tax cuts for me
tax hikes for the rest of you.
;-)
remember DONT TRUST WHITEY.
Also from Bob:
"They keep showing clips of Obama playing basketball....pfffttt...gimmie a break....he is whiter than I am....plus he has no game"
lmaooooo the guy is classic....
btw, I am still in SE Ohio hometown.
Bunky...still holding the towel...I ain't no bum Mick, I ain't no bum...cut me Mick.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- First the SUV, now the big-screen TV.
America's supersized consumer appetite is shrinking. With the increased costs of food and fuel, rising unemployment, falling home prices, tighter credit and general gloom it's hardly a surprise that people aren't bulking up on big ticket purchases like they used to.
But big screen TV sales have held up well. Until now. Analysts say the next consumer luxury to feel the pinch of the slowing economy will be the Humvee of TVs- the 46-inch-and-above, $3,000-plus flat-screen high-definition set.
The number of "shipments are tracking in line but people are spending less on TVs," says Tayyib Shah, an analyst with Longbow Research. "People are buying smaller sizes and concentrating their spending on lower-priced models."
i do not remember this happening during the last mid cycle slow down in 1994.
the reverend has about 20 of those tv's in his mansion....just like a best buy
the tv i use is thanks to dear ole aunt charlotte....she passed on, i took her tv....
we have 7 tvs.
1 big screen, 1 hi def.
thinking about getting rid of big screen and getting a 64 incher for the living room in hi def.
Home slump harder to reverse than usual: Harvard
Record foreclosures and limited access to credit will make it harder than usual for the U.S. housing market to rebound from this slump, the worst at least since World War Two, according to a Harvard University study on Monday.
...aunt Charlotte had a 60 in flatty...lol
LMAOOOOOOO spin
Many people look at spiking food prices and skyrocketing energy prices and think the link may be the cost of trucking, barging, and flying all that food around the world. Guess again. According to a story on Wired.com, the sheer act of fertilizing some 40% of the world's food eats up so much natural gas, it consumes some 2% of the world's total energy.
"skyrocketing"?
doesnt the author know that core and the PCE look gud?
can you believe mern gets paid?..lol..Goood forrrr youuu Jaaaack!!
i am multi tasking.
"theres your poker face. what you got georgey, a pair of bullets?......... full house?......u r holding a royal flush?!?!?"
im up 4% ytd in my act. and i get paychecks this yr.
life is gud!
saved another 6 grand this yr. 3500 on homeowners. 600 on auto insurance.
boy my CPI is down probably close to 10% yoy.
even let my tc2000 software lapse.
one thing that really chaps my ass if not loading up on CHK after watching aubrey buy every share in sight for over 5 yrs.
i wonder if he still buys? lets see.
he was still buying until 60.
that dude is rich and gonna get richer.
happy for ya mern........
going to visit some relatives. cya
thx spin.
i wud still love to know what the deal with burpgate is/was?
other than that, im gud.
aubrey still buying at 60.
"there is a ton of cash on the sidelines"
why oh why do the monkeys on tv insist on spewing that crap?
mern whatever happened with the lawsuit against Dwight Schrute who ratted you out for burping?
it was sorta like when alan schwartz asked congress to look into the march 30 puts.
a few people were asked, no one ratted on each other. i was told to shut up and know my role.
as i said most here have known each like 10 yrs.
clearly a double standard here.
seems like if you have been here less than 5 yrs, u r still a frosh and get hazed, constantly. and if u try to dish it back, u catch hell.
im pretty sure i know who did it. and in hindsight it was probably a joke, that i freaked on, so everyone shut up.
if on the other hand, it was one of these cackling birds to my left that discuss so much crap that is totally inapproriate for even me, well then i still have a big problem.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A bottom to the housing slump is nowhere in sight and, if history is any guide, a recession is mostly likely lurking around the corner, an academic study showed Monday.
Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies painted a bleak picture of the current housing downturn, pegging it as possibly being "the worst in a generation" in its "The State of the Nation's Housing 2008" report.
Harvard sees the hard rain falling.
GM to raise prices on 2009 models, cut production.
if this is not stagflation, then nothing is!
"im pretty sure i know who did it. and in hindsight it was probably a joke, that i freaked on, so everyone shut up."
LMAOOOOOOOOOO.....after all..you were there 6 days wtf?
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