Duude

The Real Rationale Behind Current Supply and Demand for Oil and Other Commodities

While the world economy was running on all twelve cylinders, ready and available oil was just about, or even a little under world demand. This made for an environment where any news about disruption of supply such as rebels attacking a pipeline in Nigeria, or an oil terminal fire in Saudi Arabia would cause a shock in prices at the commodity exchange. This all had a very bullish bias in pricing. Oil speculation had the effect of pushing prices up to what I would call a reasonably worse case scenario in supply. That means only a minor cutoff in supply where demand is already quite high can result in incredibly inflated prices. We are now experiencing the reversal. With world demand considerably lower and full tankers playing storage, we're awash in oil. OPEC will not see $75 anytime soon. They don't have the ability to cut as much as they need. Only a few countries can afford to cut---Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, perhaps UAE. The remaining countries will promise to cut but will not. This is their history. They're are liars and cheats and nothing will change. The world economy is the only thing between them and $75 oil.

Irate Icahn - Fast Money Recap (9/19/08)

I find it interesting that Corporate executives are so roundly, and deservedly criticized while politicians who arguably are most at blame for creating an environment where the GSEs have no oversight at all. We've had more than one reform bill before Congressional committees which were blocked by those who received over $180 million in lobbying over the last decade. Check the record.
If the GSEs had a due diligence plan they wouldn't have provided a dumping ground for trash, and its quite likely we wouldn't have seen it come out of the mortgage companies in the first place. The investment banks are also guilty of no due diligence and instead depending upon the rubber stamp AAA ratings the ratings agencies applied to everything.