What factors are causing the zooming price of crude oil, gasoline and heating products? What is going to be done about it?

Don’t rely on the White House—with Bush and Cheney marinated in oil—or the Congress—which has hearings that grill oil executives who know that nothing is going to happen on Capitol Hill either.

Last week the price of crude oil reached about $130 a barrel after spiking to $140 briefly. The immediate cause? Guesses by oil man T. Boone Pickens and Goldman Sachs that the price could go to $150 and $200 a barrel respectivly in the near future. They were referring to what can be called the hoopla pricing party on the New York Mercantile Exchange. (NYMEX)

Meanwhile, consumers, workers and small businesses are suffering with the price of gasoline at $4 a gallon and diesel at $4.50 a gallon. Suffering but not protesting, except for a few demonstrations by independent truckers.

A consumer and small business revolt could be politically powerful. But what would they revolt to achieve? Their government is paralyzed and is unable to indicate any action if oil goes up to $200 or $400 a barrel. Washington, D.C. is leaving people defenseless and drawing no marker for when it will take action.

Oil was at $50 a barrel in January 2007, then $75 a barrel in August 2007. Now at $130 or so a barrel, it is clear that oil pricing is speculative activity, having very little to do with physical supply and demand. An essential product—petroleum—is set by speculators operating on rumor, greed, and fear of wild predictions.

Historically, oil has been afflicted with the control of monopolists. From the late nineteenth century days of John D. Rockefeller, and his Standard Oil monopoly, to the emergence of the “Seven Sisters” oligopoly, made up of Standard Oil, Shell, BP, Texaco, Mobil, Gulf and Socal, to the rise of OPEC representing the major producing countries, the “free market” price of oil has been a mirage. Despite the breakup of the Standard Oil company by the government’s trustbusters about 100 years ago, selling cartels and buying oligopolies kept reasserting themselves.

In an ironic twist, the major price determinant has moved from OPEC (having only 40% of the world production) and the oil companies to the speculators in the commodities markets. What goes on in the essentially unregulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)—without Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforced margin requirements, and, unlike your personal purchases, untaxed—is now the place that leads to your skyrocketing gasoline bills. OPEC and the Big Oil companies reap the benefits and say that it’s not their doing, but that of the speculators. Gives new meaning to “passing the buck.”

Harry C. Johnson, former banker who worked for many years inside Big Oil and ran his own small oil company in Oklahoma, blames the CFTC, the Department of Energy, the Administration, and Congress, as “asleep at the switch on an issue that is probably costing U.S. consumers $1 billion per day.”

He cites “some industry experts, who profit greatly from the high price of crude, and have stated openly that the worldwide economic price of crude, absent speculators, would be around $50 to $60 per barrel.

Imagine, our government is letting your price for gasoline and home heating oil be determined by a gambling casino on Wall Street called NYMEX. The people need regulatory protection from speculators and an excess profits tax on Big Oil.

A sane government would drop all subsidies and tax loopholes for Big Oil’s huge profits and other fossil fuels and promote a national mission to solarize our economy to achieve major savings from energy conservation technology, retrofitting buildings, and upgrading efficiency standards for motor vehicles, home appliances, industrial engines and electric generating plants.

Those are the permanent ways to achieve energy independence, reduce our trade deficit, create good jobs that can’t be exported and protect the environmental health of people and nature.

Those are the reforms and advances that a muscular consumer, worker and small business revolt can focus on in the coming weeks.

What say you, America?

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader05282008.html



Pelosi & Reid will save us, RIGHT?
http://www.youtube.com/v/MrWPVPihyCY
http://www.youtube.com/v/hDy6n7bRKiE
http://www.youtube.com/v/3ZL8-XQsgiA
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?d...631199028588216

Pelosi_did_not_object_to_waterboarding http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Pelosi_did_n...rding_1209.html
Blank_check_seen_headed_Bushs_way http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Blank_check_...s_way_1105.html
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=237751
house-dems-upset-over-split-on-war http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-...2007-08-02.html

GOP_troublemakers_save_impeachment_measure http://rawstory.com/news/2007/GOP_troublem...asure_1107.html
Pelosi_Impeachment_off_table http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pelosi_I...table_1023.html
Conyers_Impeachment_not_off_my_table http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Conyers_Imp...table_0829.html
hillary___no_appetite__for_bush_impeachment http://www.populistamerica.com/hillary___n...ush_impeachment
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1100316
obama-impeachment http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...nt_N.htm?csp=34
sheehan-impeachment http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wi...world-headlines
pelosi_meet_new_boss_same_as_old_boss http://infowars.com/articles/us/pelosi_mee...as_old_boss.htm

Pay no attention to the Vader behind the curtain while bloviating about who's gonna be BHO's VP ..


Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Strike
In the scenario concocted by Cheney’s strategists, Washington’s first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran’s uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran.

This information was leaked by an official close to the vice president. Cheney himself hasn’t denied engaging in such war games. For years, in fact, he’s been open about his opinion that an attack on Iran, a member of US President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil,” is inevitable.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/...,513572,00.html

Pentagon Chief Calls Iran Planning Routine
OVER THE NORTH SEA (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday characterized U.S. military planning for a strike on Iran as “routine”.

“I would characterize it as routine,” Gates told reporters on a flight en route to Washington, when asked about any U.S. planning for military action against Iran.

The Pentagon plans for hundreds of potential scenarios that could involve military force in a variety of roles ranging from offensive operations to disaster response.
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNew...513103020071025

Lieberman-Kyl Amendment Is ‘Dangerous,’ ‘Puts Us On Record’ In Support Of Iran War

Reid voted Aye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What does that mean? Does that mean we are supporting the invasion of Iran? That we are supporting military tactics against Iran? Shouldn’t we be extra careful in the language of these resolutions when we find that the authorization for force for Iraq has dragged us into a war now in its fifth year, a war longer than World War II with bloody and deadly consequences for the United States and innocent Iraqis.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/durbin-lieb-kyl-amdt/

The following senators voted against the amendment HR-1585 Amd 3017:
S.Amdt. 3017: To express the sense of the Senate regarding Iran. to H.R. 1585: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. ... Senate Vote #349 --- Sep 26, 2007
Result: Amendment Agreed to
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?v...9&sort=vote