Fear??
These days the newspapers were filled again with statements like: Out of fear of possible disruptions…. or in fear of what might happen when the US would attack Iran…. in fear for social unrest….. And what always follows is that the oilprice has risen again. Whether some possible thoughts on a war that might never happen, some social unrest that may possibly disrupt some oil or a swarm of helicopters staging an attack in a oil-less corner of a country that doesn”t produce much oil anyway at the moment; “The Market” is jittery, or nervous, or apparently fearful, but always finds again a reason to increase the oilprice.
What is this “The Market”?
Often it is spoken of as something alive, as if it has an independent life of its own. Yes, there seems to be a kind
of collective intelligence, all directed to maximizing “what the market can give”. But isn”t it
actually that some, possibly in the end only a few, people find any reason, any at all it sometimes seems, to
extract, or extort, more money from the world-market, in the end the normal citizens, to feed their frenzy greed to
make as much money as possible?
What is the relation these days between supply and demand? Is there still one? Or is there a basic price, ever more increased by “war-premiums”, “terror-premiums” and whatever premiums that can be thought of to make digestible to the uninformed that we are living in a time of shortage and therefore a higher price is needed to supply the world-markets. It is just not anymore true these days. Speculators are determining the market and the huge amounts of money they earn are “re-invested” in speculations on the oilprice, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of rising oilprices.
How many times a barrel of oil is sold these days before it is refined or used?
It is time we start looking for “regime-change” to find a system that is based on different principles than the principle of excessive greed that these days is almost determining the market.
Alexander
As always: responses are welcome at Alexander@gas-oil-power.com
