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60 Minutes: Oil Prices Manipulated

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Boom_70, Jan 11, 2009.

  1. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    and now they have no money left.
     
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    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  3. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    Whoever said they couldn't be manipulated?
     
  4. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    America's economy did not sink because of $140 oil. It sank because of $900,000 condos on Miami Beach.
     
  5. harbinger

    harbinger Member

    You don't see that it's all interconnected? That high oil costs led to high gas prices led to layoffs that led to the tipping point in the housing bubble?

    It took quite an effort to take down this economy. It wasn't one thing. It was everything. Bad loans, ill equipped borrowers, deregulation, greed, layoffs, outsourcing, credit default swaps, OIL.
     
  6. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Some factors stand out above others, though.
     
  7. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    In a lot of ways it is. When oil started tanking the hedge funds who subscribe to Ragu news letter were all long , expecting oil to go to $200 a barrel. At same time credit market dried up and these hedge funds no longer had funds to continue propping up their positions and had to close them out.
     
  8. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    No. We had $2.50 gas when the housing bubble was cresting in 2006 and still about the same when credit began to crunch in summer 2007.
    If $4 gas was a huge part of the problem, the fact it hit $1.50 a month or two ago would have meant we were all back to glory. That's hardly the case.
     
  9. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    Damage has been done. $1.60 gas at this point is a relative blessing for the Great American Middle (one of the few) . . . but at any sign of a sustained economic recovey (which figures to be a good ways away), the price'll take off like Secretariat in the Belmont.
     
  10. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Agree. It's ridiculous to suggest that a recent (and likely very temporary) drop in gasoline prices would even begin to make everything better again. The middle class is tapped out at this point. Their retirement accounts have been cut in half and they're wondering if they can hang on to sufficient equity to keep their homes, even those who put appropriate down payments down for 30-year fixed mortgages on homes in which they actually live.
     
  11. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    That's more than an overstatement.
    If you say the middle-class American is worried about keeping his job, yeah.
    But if you've got a job and a reasonable mortgage, you're not in any danger of losing your house. It doesn't matter that your IRA or 401K went down. It sucks, but it's not a factor for you for another 20 years. If gas prices were "breaking" you 6 months ago, you've gotten more than a 50 percent cut. I'm not saying gas prices going down should make everything better; I'm saying it was not a fundamental cause of the current economic crisis, and the fact things aren't remotely better now proves it.
     
  12. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    First, I'm not talking about me. I'm financially fine with a safe, well-paying job and a house in Westchester that I bought well before the housing bubble.

    I'm talking about real middle class people in communities most affected by the housing bubble who bought their homes near the peak of bubble and lost a ton of equity when it burst. There are a lot of people in that situation who did absolutely nothing wrong besides buy into an inflated market.

    I don't think anyone said oil prices were a primary or fundamental cause of the economic crisis, just a contributing cause and one that happens to be highly illustrative of how deregulated markets were exploited by corrupt politicians and their wealthy benefactors.
     
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