akapital

The Economic Impact of the G20 Ending Oil Subsidies

This is one of the most interesting articles that I have read on SA for some time. Granted it is speculative in nature (e.g. that the G8 will be ending subsidies for fossil fuels) but that is precisely what makes it so interesting. And further more, aren't we all here speculating about something or other?

I also happen to agree with most of the premises and conclusions of the author. Subsidies for fossil fuels are no longer giving us a valuable return on our investment. We need to diversify. Some might argue that it is not even a choice; we have to diversify.

I think the diversification argument holds as true for the individual investor as well as our gov't energy policy. We will see that played out in the coming years.

Energy Stocks Are Too Cheap to Ignore - Barron's

As we make the transition from oil to alt energy I believe that oil companies will do just fine. It will be a long process and there will be a demand for oil for the foreseeable future. Oil companies will benefit either way, especially if they follow BP precendent by partnering with a company like VRNM. Ideally, oil companies themselves have been diversifying to facilitate the transition to alt fuels...the profit margins there are less subject to geopolitical factors.

Oil Manipulations Exposed

If a Conspiracy Theory is by definition the paranoid positing of an over-elaborate scheme in order to explain a phenomenon or event then it is pure tautotology to say that CTs are bunk and we would by definition agree with one another and so this would all be very uninteresting. But that purely pejorative definition excludes the possibility that there could actually be an over-elaborate scheme or mechanism behind a phenomenon or event.

Therefore we must use a less exclusive pejorative use of the term which allows for the possibility that intentional actors are capable of planning an event, because we know that there are of course many such planned events. Thus, if we allow for the possibility (and experience teaches that we must) we must also admit that the principle of parsimony or Ockham’s razor is not always correct.

In the case of the markets, there are of course a plethora of intentional actors with investing plans. Some of these may have critical impact others not. Sometimes the net effect of these plans are foreseeable and predictable, other times not (at best, explanations are retrospective).

We live in an anti-speculative, homogenous culture where the mere positing of an opposing theory in popular culture generates accusations of "Conspiracy Theory." In academia and research circles such speculation is more welcome. We do not posit, we speculate….hmmm, do you think markets can relate to such a thing as speculation?

Oil Manipulations Exposed

pixeleye, the crux of your argument against conspiracy theories is basically, people wouldn't do something that stupid so they didn't do something that stupid. That's just tautology...but then that can't be your point because no one would write something that stupid...

Oil Manipulations Exposed

Hello...of course the price of oil is being manipulated. Is this news to anyone?

Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that people are concerned about this now (cute even) but many of us are just simply jaded and already driving a Prius because we gave up along time ago.

But seriously, is there anything out there that isn't manipulated? To quote everyone's favorite Adam Smith:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."

Reads more like a quote from Marx, eh. Ergo, there ain't NO invisible hand....I can clearly see the hand and it's flipping us all the bird and slapping us silly.

But it's so cute now to see more and more people enraged by the abuses of capitalism (like collussion and price manipulation). Didn't you ever really read your Adam Smith and Karl Marx? Or did you just read your Keynes and the Austrian school? That's why we should all pay heed to Kafka's advices and every now and then read something that we don't agree with....anyway...see you the next time I'm filling up my prius.