Stephen Metzger

The Economic Impact of the G20 Ending Oil Subsidies

This is a one-sided and very disappointing article. Hidden energy subsidies? Could you be more explicit and name them, please? $1 trillion in costs annually associated with fossil fuels? That I find very hard to believe and certainly does not pertain the United States. Green energy jobs? Non-existent without subsidies!! Mr. Rickman has, seemingly, taken the current administration's energy policy and simply regurgitated it. Energy independence? When you close off offshore drilling and ANWR, how can you seriously be interested in energy independence? Skating on the thin ice of subsidized greenery is not only precarious but downright dangerous. There is only one rational objective in this travesty and that is to bring down America. All aspects of this pathetic and dangerous administration point to this purpose.

Oil Manipulations Exposed

There is nothing, I repeat, nothing wrong with speculation. Somehow the word, like the phrase, "weak dollar" automatically connotes something negative, if not downright evil. Speculation is simply the attempt to guess the effect of future events on a given market. Every investor does it! Can speculation feed upon itself? Of course, but much like a derivative, when circumstances in the underlying market change, the bubble, large or small, deflates rapidly. What could change the oil commodity market and cause such a deflation in the speculative bubble? Two things:
1. Beef up the dollar--Nothing inherently wrong with a weak dollar, but now it's costing us more than it's helping;
2. Most importantly, as noted by other commentators, open up ANWR and offshore drilling. This will have an immediate effect on the speculative bubble before one drop of oil comes out of these reservoirs. Reason? Future supplies are likely to be significantly affected and speculators will see the writing on the wall (unlike politicians).
I do object to this writer's political agenda, which is all too clear. When politics become more important than economics, the King Canutes of the world lead us all (willingly or unwillingly) into a drowning pool.