Want to know the real reason why gas prices are high?

In 2008, according to this article, 2 men and 1 trading firm caused the entire ramp up in gas prices in 2008 because they bought 84 percent of all deliverable oil. They essentially caused a shortage and bet against that shortage in the futures market.

he CFTC complaint alleges that the traders carried out the scheme in January and March 2008. By mid-January they had accumulated 4.6m barrels of physical oil, or two-thirds of oil available for delivery against the February WTI futures contract. In March they bought 6.3m barrels, equal to 84 per cent of oil available for delivery against the April contact. The regulator alleged that Parnon Energy, a US oil trader, together with its Swiss and UK affiliates Arcadia Energy (Suisse) and Arcadia Petroleum, made more than $50m from the scheme in January and March 2008 [...] The buying created the impression of a shortage and pushed up the price of WTI futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Ahead of their move in the physical market, the traders allegedly bought large amounts of futures and other financial instruments that would profit from a price rise. “They wanted to lull market participants into believing that supply would remain tight,” the CFTC said. “They knew that as long as the market believed that supply was tight and getting even tighter, there would be upward pressure on the prices of WTI for February delivery relative to March delivery, which was their goal.”

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Well, last year the Dodd Frank amendment went into effect and the CFTC is limiting the amount of physical oil that a financial speculator can own at 25%. That means the largest wall street investment banks can now only own 25% of all physically available oil to speculate with using futures.

The rule limits traders to 25 percent of deliverable supply in the month nearest to delivery. The spot-month limits apply separately to physically settled and cash-settled contracts. Deliverable supply will be determined by the CFTC in conjunction with the exchanges.

source

There you have it. Gasoline demand is at a 10 year low and the United States has a surplus of gasoline that is being sold to other nations, and we now have the highest gas prices this early in the year in history, and it's all because bought and paid for politicians allow greedy speculators to rape us all blind.

Gasoline fell as U.S. demand for the motor fuel reached a 10-year low and supplies of the motor fuel rose to the highest level in 11 months.

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Faced with sluggish sales at home, American refineries are shipping gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products abroad in record amounts, turning the country into a net exporter of fuel.

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Gasoline prices have never been higher this time of the year.

source

All of this was summarized by someone on Reddit.

Summary of oil speculation

You can bet your bottom dollar that war with Iran will be the next excuse speculators will use to rape the public of their hard earned money through high gas prices.

The American public is so apathetic and so clueless that probably 5% of the population knows about this stuff, and that's why they can get away with it.

The next time you get into an argument with someone over high gas prices and they give you the supply and demand bull #, show them this information. If the price of gasoline was a result of nothing but supply and demand, the price would be at pre-2000 levels. The United States currently has a record oversupply of refined gasoline and 10 year lows in demand, yet the price will likely set a record sometime in 2012.

Maybe that's what the Mayans were trying to tell us.

This is pretty standard practice Vitol are easily the largest Oil and Gas traders on the planet, they crash markets all the time.

See the point is, these traders did infact buy the Oil and Gas, its there, there free to do with it as they please. Anything else requires strict government interference, something America pretends it doesnt like to do because that would be communism or something.

Originally posted by Ixtab

See the point is, these traders did infact buy the Oil and Gas, its there, there free to do with it as they please.

They're free to do what they want with it because the money they make off of it is used to buy politicians and buy legislation that allows them to do what they want with it, which is to artificially raise the price and essentially steal from people!

Let's just boil this down to the most simplistic explanation: what these men do is nothing but THEFT. Plain and simple. And they know it.

The petroleum industrial complex is using the same tactics as the group known as De Beers uses to control the price of the diamond market. Not really a new practice, if you control the supply you control the price of the product.

You may be interested in this:
Artificial Leaf Will convert Sunlight into Fuel
www.abovetopsecret.com...
about 5 years away. Hopefully the working model will come sooner.

Then we can tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine lol
Forget the fuel!

Hey we can always hope!

Well the global demand seems to be there, if they can ship out the fuel and gas. What this firm did was make sure THEY were the ones to benefit from the demand. If the demand wouldnt have been there on a global scale, they would have had to either store the oil or sell it at a loss, or get rid of it.

We have a problem if for some reason this company gets their orders filled ahead of everyobody else, for no good reason.

Iran just cut off oil to Europe and will sell to China...

Now we can nuke em back to the stone age so China won't get it...

in the meantime BOYCOTT EXXON

Americans will never boycott gasoline, but buy from anyone else BUT EXXON and their partners... They are the ones that announced record ever quarter profits the first year of the Iraqi "war"

Let them feel the pinch

ExxonMobil Laps up Iraq War Profits
consumersforpeace.org...





uh oh I see oil thugs coming up the drive...

later

One can "prove" this, all one want. The fact remains, this is what the prices are, so they will tell you.
Take it or leave it.
It is you choice, and if anyone wants to do anything about it, use as little fuel as possible.

Ride a bike, take the electric train, organize a carpool, walk ....use your vehicle as little as possible.
I am filling my car once a month -- or less.

Not playing their games when I don't have to.

its all about the money

Originally posted by CB6699
One can "prove" this, all one want. The fact remains, this is what the prices are, so they will tell you.
Take it or leave it.
It is you choice, and if anyone wants to do anything about it, use as little fuel as possible.

The problem is that using less fuel should mean that they are forced bring prices down, but now they can set the prices by simply exporting more oil if we don't buy. You won't do anything about fuel prices unless the entire world boycotts oil as a fuel (except save some money personally).

Americans hit the brakes on travel in 2011, as travel on U.S. roads fell to its lowest level since 2003, government data shows. Last year, U.S. drivers logged 35.7 billion fewer miles over 2010 — down 1.2 percent — to 2.963 trillion miles, the Federal Highway Administration reported.

source

Ok. I'm scratching my head. Why again are we going to see record gas prices this year?

Oh yea, that's right: Financial corruption.

Even the Saudies know that the high price of oil is not because of supply and demand; it's from financial corruption!

WASHINGTON — When oil prices hit a record $147 a barrel in July 2008, the Bush administration leaned on Saudi Arabia to pump more crude in hopes that a flood of new crude would drive the price down. The Saudis complied, but not before warning that oil already was plentiful and that Wall Street speculation, not a shortage of oil, was driving up prices.

www.mcclatchydc.com...=cpy

I just have to say, THANK GOD FOR WIKILEAKS