We're saved!!! Diesel down 4 cents a gallon!

[JDiepstra]

Wow, with diesel prices down 4 cents a gallon that'll save me about a buck twenty on a fill-up! With all the money I'll save I'll be able to get a Coke and a smile.



Anyone else see a price drop?

 

[SHobbs]

I have seen gas go down to about 3. 12 diesel is still around 3. 90 here.

 

[JLEONARD]

Yes. . diesel also plummeted in Ct as well... . also down about 4 cents. :-laf

 

[BPowers]

Up here in the twin cities gas is between 2. 99 and 3. 10. Diesel is still up around 4. 09. I saw one station that has diesel for 3. 59 and two blocks down the road it was 3. 99. CRAZY!

 

[HBarlow]

I heard Thursday that the price of crude oil had dropped a little also.



The price declines are thanks to the TDR members who have sold, traded, or parked their Cummins-powered Dodge Rams. If a few more will panic the rest of us will be okay.

 

[MOates]

Price for a barrel of crude dropped almost $10 last week - from $111. 90 down to $101 and change. Actually dropped down to $98 and change at one point.



You can thank some of the big shots on Wall Street having to meet margin calls in other parts of the market, selling off oil futures to get hard cash and cover thier debts to keep from losing thier assets (so to speak).



Another diesel owner I know used to work for the financial section of a major bank (he doesn't want it mentioned which one) prior to retiring a couple years back. He's been watching the whole mess unfold with credit, subprime mortgages, debt derivatives, and oil prices over the past year.



He said this is a long way from being over, there's still a lot of debt out there and we haven't seen the last of the big writeoffs, ie the other shoe is still in midair and hasn't even started toward the floor yet.



As far as oil prices, he said when prices dipped below $100/barrel last week, the big boys that had went long on oil went into a panic - they were literally dumping billions of dollars into oil futures to keep the price above $100/barrel - if it had went into free fall and dropped down to the $50 to $60/barrel range (where even OPEC and the oil industry says it should be), they would have lost their shirts and thier jobs.



He said it was the most open and brazen example of market manipulation he'd ever seen.

 

[JDiepstra]

Price for a barrel of crude dropped almost $10 last week - from $111. 90 down to $101 and change. Actually dropped down to $98 and change at one point.



You can thank some of the big shots on Wall Street having to meet margin calls in other parts of the market, selling off oil futures to get hard cash and cover thier debts to keep from losing thier assets (so to speak).



Another diesel owner I know used to work for the financial section of a major bank (he doesn't want it mentioned which one) prior to retiring a couple years back. He's been watching the whole mess unfold with credit, subprime mortgages, debt derivatives, and oil prices over the past year.



He said this is a long way from being over, there's still a lot of debt out there and we haven't seen the last of the big writeoffs, ie the other shoe is still in midair and hasn't even started toward the floor yet.



As far as oil prices, he said when prices dipped below $100/barrel last week, the big boys that had went long on oil went into a panic - they were literally dumping billions of dollars into oil futures to keep the price above $100/barrel - if it had went into free fall and dropped down to the $50 to $60/barrel range (where even OPEC and the oil industry says it should be), they would have lost their shirts and thier jobs.



He said it was the most open and brazen example of market manipulation he'd ever seen.

Wouldn't/couldn't/doesn't the SEC regulate that?

 

[HBarlow]

Wouldn't/couldn't/doesn't the SEC regulate that?

Other industries engage in the same practices. I am not knowledgeable of how it works but the agricultural industry buys and sells futures for that identical purpose... ... to push up prices. Why should the SEC regulate the oil industry while the agriculture industry does the same thing?



The American economy is very big and very complex. It is made up of some 300 million of us and all of our individual, group, and business efforts. Most people know little or nothing about the economy until something they want to be cheap becomes more expensive or something they wish to be more valuable declines in value. One man's profit is the other man's loss.



If I own an oil well I want crude to be expensive. If I farm I want corn to be high at harvest time. Buyers want the opposite.

 

[TFucili]

Wouldn't/couldn't/doesn't the SEC regulate that?

To a great extent, NO! Google "Enron Loophole" and see how a great deal of the energy trading is done behind an opaque screen, with no oversight.





Here is an excerpt from an article I ran across:

"The commodity markets are the price discovery points for all energy commodities. Excessive speculation and questionable trading practices have an instant and tremendous impact on the consumer," said Craig Eerkes, chairman of the Petroleum Marketers Association, in July 12 testimony about commodities markets before the House Agriculture Committee. "American families and small businesses are at the financial whim of the energy trader and the hedge fund manager. It is time that Congress stepped in and said, `Enough is enough. '"



Eerkes was referring to electronic trading of oil contracts on what are called Exempt Commercial Markets, or ECMs. These over-the-counter, unregulated exchanges were codified in law in 2000, thanks to intense lobbying by now-bankrupt energy giant Enron during a modernization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal entity that regulates futures markets.



ECMs affect oil prices this way: Foreigners and lightly regulated hedge funds (investment pools for the ultra-wealthy) buy large oil positions on an ECM. Since these exchanges compete against the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange for investors, they affect demand for oil futures. This distorts the "price discovery" function that futures markets are supposed to provide in allowing users of oil to hedge against price changes.



Because ECMs are largely unregulated, it's difficult to tell whether, or to what degree, oil companies and wealthy oil-producing nations are driving up the price of oil by washing their profits back through futures markets to serve their own interests.



Some estimates are that 30 percent of oil futures contracts are traded on unregulated exchanges.

 

[RGardner]

Actually the commodity futures are used to push down agricultural prices.

 

[JDiepstra]

Actually the commodity futures are used to push down agricultural prices.

How have the farmers who the government pays NOT to grow things been affected by the new demand for corn? Are they actually being expected to work now to keep up with the growing demand or are we still paying them not to work and also paying higher prices?

 

[RGardner]

The new demand for corn is a result of the government pushing the ethanol folly on us. Other than the conservation reserve program, the has been no program to idle crop acres for years. There is no government set aside for grains.

 

[Dbonzi]

How have the farmers who the government pays NOT to grow things been affected by the new demand for corn? Are they actually being expected to work now to keep up with the growing demand or are we still paying them not to work and also paying higher prices?

Wow if only you had a clue:-{}

Do you actually think the farmers like the government involved in anything#@$%!

 

[JDiepstra]

Wow if only you had a clue:-{}

Do you actually think the farmers like the government involved in anything#@$%!

I don't know, that's why I ask.

 

[HBarlow]

If farmers don't like the government involved in farming I wish someone would explain to me why most farm district congressmen are democraps and why most farm state congressmen and senators are democraps?

 

[JDiepstra]

If farmers don't like the government involved in farming I wish someone would explain to me why most farm district congressmen are democraps and why most farm state congressmen and senators are democraps?

Yeah, what he said.

 

[Dbonzi]

Well maybe because there isn't enough farmers to sway the vote of the city slickers

 

[Greenleaf]

There is a large field right here by the school on St Rt 96 Ashland Ohio that is set aside.



Last year the the year it had to be cut and baled. So the guy cut it with the haybine and round baled it. He was reported to the district by a local resident and an inquiry was set into motion.



Kinda made the guy mad that he was reported as harvesting set aside land, when in fact he was suppose to.

 

[JSpencer]

Diesel Prices

Nope, here in our corner of Vermont it's still $4. 289 and holding. I've put a locking cap on the truck. There's too much of my money sitting there not to.



Jim