jdl51

Oil: Supply and Demand? Hardly!

If you limited trading oil contracts to people who actually have a connection to the product and get speculators out of the arena, the price would probably drop by half, regardless of what the dollar is doing. The oil market is a manipulated market and has been for a long time, whether you're talking about the producers or the futures market. The WTO should have come down on OPEC a long time ago, but are too afraid to do so. And why the U.S. doesn't have a comprehensive energy policy that takes advantage of our huge NG reserves, promotes alternative energy and lessens our dependence and monetary support of ME regimes that are the source of terrorism shows the power of the oil lobby in this country. It should be about what benefits everyone and not just a bunch of Texas oilmen.

King Dollar Roars Back

With 10 trillion in debt and rising at the rate of $700 billion a year (don't forget those little off budget items, like Iraq) the world will be awash in U.S. debt for the foreseeable future. I expect interest rates to rise to entice the world to swallow this tsunami of debt which will force our floundering economy to grind to a halt. Then we'll see how the dollar does. Might happen even sooner if any of our friends decides to get out from under their treasury holdings, like China, Russia and Japan.