[FoxV]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')s the Bush administration manipulating oil prices to win elections?

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'w')hich seven weeks ago cut the weighting of unleaded gasoline by nearly 75 percent

[FoxV]

hmm, there maybe others that can explain it better because I only really got this myself recently.

Its based on "Derivatives" (a hedge fund staple) which is where one person buys a futures contract at a (hopefully) low but guaranteed price. This lower's the profit for the seller but also removes any risk. The buyer of the contract then hopes to make money when the future price rises (taking 100% of the risk of the price falling).

Sounds simple enough, but nobody makes money off of something simple

So to make things complicated hedge funds offer "Index" derivatives. This is were they hold derivatives contracts in exactly the same proportions of an index. This is so that whenever all the derivatives are lumped together, the summed value of the derivatives moves exactly like the index (because the index is based on the sum of the value changes of all its components)

Basically all this does is allow traders to work with one number (index) when determine the value of their index derivative.

So here you can see what a big deal it was that Goldman and Sach's did. By changing the Unleaded Gas portion of the index from 7.98% to 2.31% they caused everyone offering a "Goldman and Sachs Commodity Index" derivative fund to Sell 70% of their unleaded gas contracts so their Index derivative now matches the Commodity Index.

Obviously this large of a sell off will have a big impact on unleaded gasoline futures prices.

As for Amaranth's disaster, its was the 20% change (and corresponding sell off) in Natural gas that caught Brian Hunter off gaurd. He's a 32 year old Canadian from Calgary that probably had inside info on Nat Gas supplies and why they let him get so heavly invested ($10bn us) in a single commodity.

anyways, I'm sure the shake out from all of this will be over sometime after the elections and Gas prices will go back up again

[NEOPO]

Thank you very much

[KevO]

Welcome aboard the Cape Cod Times.
Cape Cod is a small country near Icannafindstan.

"So, is there an oil price conspiracy?
By Steven Mufson
THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON - In mid-May, with gasoline prices at $2.95 a gallon and rising, 15 percent of Americans listed high fuel prices as their top concern, outstripping terrorism. And much of the public seemed ready to vent its wrath on President Bush and the Republican-led Congress.

By early September, though, with the nationwide average at $2.73 a gallon and falling, only 5 percent of those polled said the price of gas was the single most important issue, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Since then, the price of gasoline has fallen even further, now down about 70 cents a gallon from its peak in August - with only a month before congressional elections"

more at
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/sois7.htm

.

[chuck6877]

Call me a conspiracy theorist. I am. My tin foil cap is on tight!

The PEAK OIL GAO Study was kept out of EVERY MAJOR MEDIA NEWS outlet except the CNBC interview.

Here is the CNBC interwiew: YOUTUBE CLIP

The CIA admitted in this document back in 1991 they can control the media:
CIA MEDIA CONTROL DOCUMENT -
CIA Memorandum Subject: Task Force Report on Greater CIA Openness- dated December 1991 (PDF)

From the CIA:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')"PAO [Public Affairs Office] now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation. This has helped us turn some intelligence failure stories into intelligence success stories, and it has contributed to the accuracy of countless others. In many instances, we have persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods."

[Jack]

Perhaps.

Let's suppose people accept Peak Oil. Then they recognize that the era of exponential growth is at an end. What happens?

1) Stock market crash. No growth equal low stock valuations.

2) Social turmoil. The pie will not grow - it will shrink. The poor will never have a chance to "get a piece". How will that play?

3) Political turmoil. Forget Social Security and all those other social programs. The system won't even be able to pay debt service. How will the voters respond?

Now - more pointedly - are you SURE you want the public to know?

[chuck6877]

Damned if we know and damned if we don't.

I get your point Jack, and I agree. I think we're past the point where awareness would have done any good.

Now we have to "Fight Global Warming" and "Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil".

Chuck

[billp]

Visibility, depending on the project, can very important.

The media exerts power as to what is visible and what is not.

Also, very important, is that media people are largely composed of liberal arts educated BS artists.

We had to create visibility for our 15 year long, so far, legal project.

John Gowan of Libertad opined. "The media doesn't report the news, it attempts to shape it."

[killJOY]

Between 2004 and 2006, I wrote three guest columns for our local Gannett-owned rag, the Portland Press Herald. All were urgent messages about peak oil. Here's two linked elsewhere:

http://www.energybulletin.net/843.html

http://news.mainetoday.com/indepth/lng/ ... ergy.shtml

I've also written three letters-to-the-editor in response to writers expressing misplaced anger about gasoline prices or the panacea effects of "alternative" electricity sources.

One of my exchanges with an editor included links to reputable sources like Matt Simmons.

My writing is the ONLY writing I've seen in that rag about peak oil.

I've not written anything since.

Fuck em all.

[NEOPO]

They have total control and anyone who doesnt believe so is full of it.
OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD
JFK Speech on Secret Societies and Freedom of the Press

There are "ways" and anyone who choses to not see them is choosing to remain ignorant.
The failings of doomer mentality prevent many from seeing this as they are void of hope.
I will coin this the "Savinar effect".

The pollution of hope.
You either pick up the trash or make more a mess.

I sometimes think that the power of denial and rationalization lead people to believe that all is lost JUST NOT YET and ultimately this ill mentality will only lead to a more fantastic train wreck and that is what I believe some people here truly desire.
Yes let us pick up speed!
No dont tell them!
Shhhh!

How many times have we mulled the idea of what would happen if it all went down tomorrow yet the sheeple were never told the truth?
How many times have we thought along the lines/tracks that this is a slow motion train wreck and the sooner it crashes the better?
How many times?
believe

[Twilight]

I doubt it was kept out of the news, I think it died a natural death through a lack of fresh contributions to the discussion.

The essence was that a number of parties give peak dates from the immediate to 2040 (which we already knew), a global energy crisis would be bad (which we already knew), there is great uncertainty about the future (which we already knew), all backed up by assessments of energy technologies (the subject of ongoing media discussion) and a wealth of figures available from the likes of EIA and IEA for years (public domain and some of it the sort of thing you find in the National Geographic or a quality atlas).

The Peak Oil GAO study offered nothing new, any editor who flicked through it would have found nothing he hadn't seen in print before. The only shock revelation is that a major government had uttered the phrase in the first place, but that cultural observation is lost on most people.

Senior Iranian economic officials speaking on the record at a major economic forum about OPEC reserve figures being a 20-year-old fraud and rattling off a few true ballpark numbers, that would be newsworthy. That would be a true test of these mythical media management organs. When there's news, we'll hear it.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'P')erhaps.

Let's suppose people accept Peak Oil. Then they recognize that the era of exponential growth is at an end. What happens?

1) Stock market crash. No growth equal low stock valuations.

...

Now - more pointedly - are you SURE you want the public to know?

[JMB]

chuck6877

Take off your tin-foil hat. Looks like you have a good reason for thinking as you do. A toast to "freedom of the press".

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/

[bart]

The GAO report was covered in articles from Associate Press and UPI. About 12 publications (including Business Week, Forbes and MSN) ran the AP story.
http://energybulletin.net/28016.html

I would have expected more newspapers to have picked up the AP story. I think that editors really don't know what to make of it -- only a small fraction of editors and journalists (perhaps 50 in the US) really understand peak oil and can see the significance of the GAO report.

There has been major coverage in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Chicago Tribune, plus one local TV station. Some of the alternative papers have run occasional articles. Warren Brown, auto columnist for the Washington Post, should get a gold medal for the columns he's been writing about peak oil.
http://energybulletin.net/27611.html

Actually the amount of peak oil awareness is surprising, considering that no group is actively lobbying and doing PR for it. If you were a newspaper reporter, where would you go to get Position Papers and interview subjects? Sure, you can dig 'em up, but a successful lobbying effort makes it EASY for reporters.

I suspect that more is coming on the GAO report, as people have a chance to digest and research it. It was a remarkable coup, to get official recognition. It is one thing to read about peak oil on a discussion forum; it's another to be able to cite the GAO.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

[bart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here has been major coverage in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Chicago Tribune, plus one local TV station. Some of the alternative papers have run occasional articles. Warren Brown, auto columnist for the Washington Post, should get a gold medal for the columns he's been writing about peak oil.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('chuck6877', 'C')all me a conspiracy theorist. I am. My tin foil cap is on tight!Chuck

[dukey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the National auto determination practiced in past centuries"--David Rockefeller in an address to a Trilateral Commission meeting
in June of 1991

[greenworm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')oes anyone else believe that Peak Oil is intentionally being kept out of the media?

[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'P')erhaps.

Let's suppose people accept Peak Oil. Then they recognize that the era of exponential growth is at an end. What happens?

1) Stock market crash. No growth equal low stock valuations.

2) Social turmoil. The pie will not grow - it will shrink. The poor will never have a chance to "get a piece". How will that play?

3) Political turmoil. Forget Social Security and all those other social programs. The system won't even be able to pay debt service. How will the voters respond?

Now - more pointedly - are you SURE you want the public to know?