Bailed Out Banks May Be Driving Up Oil Prices
Bailed Out Banks May Be Driving Up Oil Prices
Today, McClatchy took a look at current oil prices, and came to the conclusion that its “not because supplies are tight or demand is high” that prices are rising, but rather that “Wall Street speculators — some of them recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ bailout money — may be to blame“:
Big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and others are able to sidestep the regulations that limit investments in commodities such as oil, and they’re investing on behalf of pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and other big institutional investors, in part as a hedge against rising inflation.
According to McClatchy, “critics say this speculative flow of money into commodities markets is a self-fulfilling prophecy that’s distorting the usual process by which buyers and sellers set prices and is driving up the prices of oil, gasoline, grains and other essentials.” Both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have received $10 billion in TARP money.
3 Responses to “Bailed Out Banks May Be Driving Up Oil Prices”
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I approve of this. Having peak oil prices sooner rather than later instead of a series of 300% price shock cycles is a good thing for everyone, most of all those of us who want to buy plug-in hybrids designed with actual consumers in mind.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:30 pm“Who cares if I wipe out the global economy and turn America into a third-world country, as long as I make a killing in this quarter!”
That is the mindset of the CEO class that carefully and intentionally created this economic meltdown. The goal of the obscenely wealthy top 1% is to impoverish the other 99% and entirely eliminate the middle class.
Commenter ‘jps’ seems to be saying that he’s onboard with the elimination of his economic class and sounds eager to be returned to the serf caste – that is if he survives the mass starvation that results when $10/gallon fuel makes shipping food to him prohibitively expensive.
I feel that speculation (commodities exchange) on oil must be made illegal globally.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:41 pmElectric transportation is already less expensive than petroleum, based, but where are the EV cars, let alone the EV semi trucks. Nobody is going to starve in the U.S., with $10 or even $20 gas — but we might actually get some consumer and industrial EVs, finally.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:53 pm