[deMolay]

If you look at the stats globally we are in a Deflationary Depression. If Central bankers can pump enough toxic goo to partially restart the consumer economy. Oil inflation will kick in again. I still think that 147 dollar oil broke the piggy bank and brought on the crisis.

[no_wuckin_ferries_mate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', 'I')f Central bankers can pump enough toxic goo to partially restart the consumer economy. Oil inflation will kick in again.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', '
')I still think that 147 dollar oil broke the piggy bank and brought on the crisis.

[patience]

I think the excessive use of credit, mortgage and finance fiasco has been the real problem behind our economic woes. $4+ gasoline, I think tipped the psychology of the the US consumer toward cutting spending in many areas, since they had to start cutting when gas went up. And they are still not spending, mostly because they are broke flat as hell. I don't expect that to change for a long time.

[shady28]

More hype about inflation?

Deflation is still the name of the game folks. Factories are not going unused because they can't buy raw materials, they're going unused because no one will buy their finished product. Oil and gas consumption is not down because it is scarce, it is down because people do not have the money to buy it.

People are so wrapped up in the amount cash out there, which they assume will cause inflation, they never realize that there was never very much cash out there in the first place. Most of it (the apparent cash out there) was credit and assets that were greatly inflated. With the collapse of those assets and credit this is nothing less than full bore deflation. Amazing how a couple months of respite in the markets brings the oil / gold bugs out in such force. Take note that the markets, which have risen in tandem for a few weeks (stocks, gold, oil, commodities) are now declining in tandem once again. All this hope you see in the media, every market bug out there thinks their market hit its bottom now, it's all about to be washed away.

CASH IS KING

[mefistofeles]

Oil seems to be having a superb run. So is oil demand really increasing or is simply a sign of the Fed's inflationary policy?

If we really are experiencing "bankers gone wild" why are gold prices trading at such low levels?

[patience]

The gold market is subject to so many factors (and I think, manipulation) that I gave up on trying to understand it. Maybe a gold trader can help with that.

I think the falling supplies of oil from Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia, North Sea, etc., is having an effect on futures prices, along with reduced pumping to match supply with demand. There's a thread here somewhere about wells being shut in due to lack of demand.

[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mefistofeles', 'O')il seems to be having a superb run. So is oil demand really increasing or is simply a sign of the Fed's inflationary policy?

If we really are experiencing "bankers gone wild" why are gold prices trading at such low levels?

[heroineworshipper]

Let's put it this way. Oil should be $10 but dollars have lost 83% of their value in 6 months.

[threadbear]

Anticipating weaker dollar. If govt would quit monkeying around with gold, it would help hold price of essentials down. A flight into commodities, much like last summer, though not as extreme, could happen again.

[Schmuto]

Very hard to know.

Time has tempered me.

Could be first pinches of supply shortage.

Very well could be rising tide raises all boats.

Oil has been tracking the Stock Market recently, which seems to suggest that the same irrational impetus on the Dow is affecting oil.

[mefistofeles]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')il has been tracking the Stock Market recently, which seems to suggest that the same irrational impetus on the Dow is affecting oil.

[yesplease]

It's just tracking w/ the dollar index.

[kmann]

Oil was oversold at $35, it's correcting to a more reasonable price. Just like $145 was unjustified given the fundamentals, $35 was too low. Likewise the dow was too high at 14,000 back in '07 and too low at 6500 and had to correct. The run from 6500 was just a correction from an oversold condition.
The way I see it, $50 to $60 seems like a reasonable price given the current fundamentals.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ay 19 (Bloomberg) -- What the U.S. economy may need is a dose of good old-fashioned inflation.

So say economists including Gregory Mankiw, former White House adviser, and Kenneth Rogoff, who was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. They argue that a looser rein on inflation would make it easier for debt-strapped consumers and governments to meet their obligations. It might also help the economy by encouraging Americans to spend now rather than later when prices go up.

“I’m advocating 6 percent inflation for at least a couple of years,” says Rogoff, 56, who’s now a professor at Harvard University. “It would ameliorate the debt bomb and help us work through the deleveraging process.”

Such a strategy would be risky. An outlook for higher prices could spook foreign investors and send the dollar careening lower. The challenge would be to prevent inflation from returning to the above-10-percent levels that prevailed in the 1970s and took almost a decade and a recession to cure

[Roy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��I’m advocating 6 percent inflation for at least a couple of years,” says Rogoff, 56, who’s now a professor at Harvard University. “It would ameliorate the debt bomb and help us work through the deleveraging process.”

[TheDude]

Whatever happens, it won't be fun.

Volatility in WTI:



This graph is really fascinating to me. That was a really staggering amount of money being thrown around last fall.

[hironegro]

I'm still waiting for the atm's to stop working guys.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hironegro', 'I')'m still waiting for the atm's to stop working guys.

[hironegro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hironegro', 'I')'m still waiting for the atm's to stop working guys.