Chris Butler_

China Pays Too Much for Oil in Iraq at $16 a Barrel

Did you forget that by the word "freedom" we mean free to be zombies? Free to make bad, costly financial mistakes? Free to be greedy?

Say what you want but I'll take freedom and all the errors and social malaise that comes with it ahead of any alternative. Many free people are intelligent, tuned in, and aware. Many made money off of the mistakes of other free people because they saw the consequences of these mistakes coming. After all, I'm free to short the S&P 500.

As far as oil is concerned, had we *more* freedom, we'd be drilling oil on our own land and we'd not be talking about how the Chinese are kicking butt with their acquisitions.


On Jun 26 04:34 AM fairguy wrote:

>
> Wrong. The chinese have been practicing capitalism for decades already.
> Hong Kong is quite free. China doesn't hate US, they afraid of what
> freedom can do to their people. It can turn them into vegetables.
>
>
> US is too occuppied with OJ Simpson, Britney Spears, American Idols,
> America's Got Talent (lol), Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Lindsay Lohan,
> Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Brad Pitt, Justin
> Timberlake and now Michael Jackson's death and Mark Sanford's sex
> scandal. It's not hard to out maneuver them when the whole population
> is only half awake. Look at what freedom had done to your nation's
> financial health.
>
> On Jun 26 01:48 AM User 357705 wrote:

With Backwardation, Higher Gas Prices This Summer

Excellent analysis. Thank you for the post.

Goldman's Wonky Oil Predictions: What Gives?

Mr. Banks-

Your comment "An interesting question here is what would have happened to oil prices if there had NOT been a macroeconomic meltdown. Well, I dont see why they wouldn't have reached $200/b" makes the author's point.

There WAS a macroeconomic meltdown and anyone making economic forecasts should account for that probability in their models. Because economists have never been able to forecast these meltdowns consistently, the problem is with (a) the models they use, or (b) the whole enterprise of econometric forecasting.

Given that these wonderfully intelligent folks employed to do this kind of work make premium incomes for their labor, I'd discount possibility (a). These people know how to build models using state-of-the-art techniques.

Perhaps Buffet is correct on this one. The answer is (b). Complex social systems like global financial markets should be even more difficult to predict than complex physical systems, like the weather. And we all know how hard the weather is to predict even over a one-week time frame.