Topic: Oil Prices

Congressman Bernie Sanders urges regulators to use emergency powers to stop oil speculation

May 29, 2009 |

BURLINGTON, Vt. – As crude oil prices jumped to the highest level in six months, Senator Bernie Sanders urged federal regulators yesterday to stop speculators from artificially driving up prices.

Sanders said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should use its emergency powers – which include the authority to impose speculation limits, increase margin requirements, and suspend trading – in order to ensure that oil prices accurately reflect supply and demand.

“I hope you will seize this opportunity to redefine the CFTC as a strong regulator that will do everything within its power to benefit consumers,” Sanders said in a letter to Gary Gensler, the commission’s new chairman.

The price of crude oil rose to more than $65 a barrel yesterday. The price has vaulted 70 percent higher since mid-January. The run up in prices is happening despite dropping demand for gasoline, jet fuel and other oil products. According to the federal Energy Information Administration, demand for gasoline over a four-week period that ended May 22 averaged about 9.2 million barrels a day, down 0.4 percent from the same period last year. The International Energy Agency predicts global demand for oil will drop this year to its lowest level since 1981. «Read the rest of this article»

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Munday Message: No “contract” renewal

September 19, 2008 |

After the eight years that George Bush spent ignoring the U.S. economy, investment banks and mortgage companies that hold a majority of the nation’s home mortgages have either faltered or outright collapsed.

On Monday morning, news spread that 158 year-old investment bank Lehman Brothers was closing shop, following the pain that already hit Main St. when Bush came to office.

John McCain, who Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden aptly calls Bush 44, defiantly said the “fundamentals” of the U.S. economy are strong.  Workers in America have known for some time now that something is fundamentally wrong with the way the U.S. economy has been mismanaged and ignored.

Eight years of protecting inflated CEO salaries and record oil company profits without radical reinvestment in renewable energy has resulted in a Republican Party known for ignoring rising gas prices.

A losing record in football never results in a renewed contract for the head coach.

Note: Author Wade Munday is the news communication spokesperson for the Democratic Party.

Sections: News, Opinion, Politics | No Comments

Ethanol: great politics, ineffective energy

April 5, 2008 |

Corn Ethanol is becoming the Iraq war of energy policy. A policy based on lies, that initially won supporters political advantage, is highly destructive to the US, and ultimately destructive to its supporters when the costly truth becomes widely known.

In 2007, 115 US plants produced 7 billion gallons of Corn Ethanol – the energy equivalent of 132 million barrels of oil using about 15% of corn production. While this sounds large, it is tiny in the context of the US economy. This is equal to only 1.6% of the energy from from oil in 2007 used in the US. But the situation is worse than this because it takes 1 unit of fossil fuel to produce 1.3 units of corn ethanol. The net energy produced was only 0.5% of the energy from from oil – while consuming 15% of the US corn crop!

Vast sums of taxpayer and consumer dollars are funding an ineffective solution to the real problems of global warming and energy independence. While the country does not sufficiently fund what can be real solutions. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 4 Comments

Gas prices: Consumers driving the pain

By James Butler | March 26, 2008 |

As of March 24 2008 the cheapest listed price of gasoline available in Clarksville was $3.08 per gallon for regular grade unleaded (courtesy of TennesseeGasPrices.com) with the indication that, for at least the moment, prices can be expected to remain stable. With the price of oil estimated at approximately $101 per barrel at the current moment, one gallon of gasoline costs approximately $2.61 to produce (figures courtesy of Bloomberg MarketData), meaning that there is a 15.26% profit margin being split amongst the relevant parties (and here we thought they were out to get us with unfair profit margins). Unfortunately for the rest of us, prices are likely to continue to increase for the foreseeable future for a variety of reasons which producers are largely powerless to stop. «Read the rest of this article»

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Sticker shock: Regular gas hits $3.07

By Christine Anne Piesyk | February 19, 2008 |

Oil prices reached an all time high today, topping $100 a barrel. It didn’t take long for that price to impact the consumer market: by 7 p.m., a drive northbound on Wilma Rudolph Boulevard showed the price per gallon for regular unleaded hitting a high of $3.07.

Clarksville Online began checking downtown, where prices hovered below that psychological punch of $3.00 a gallon, but once a driver moved from College Street toward St. Bethlehem, the price inched upwards to $3.03, $3.05 and finally topped out at $3.07 just north of I-24. Wal-Mart always discounted gas rested at $2.99, pennies shy of their competition.

We’ve been watching the price of oil and gas for months, noting that the price (for regular) always seemed to stop shy of $3.00 a gallon. Tonight our city joins others around the country in a collective gasp of sticker shock even as executives at places like Exxon are jumping for joy over record setting profits, an announcement that dovetailed neatly with the rising cost per barrel of oil.

If you are driving a Ford Explorer SUV, it will now cost you $69.07 to fill that tank (@$3.07/ gallon). Something to think about.

Sections: Business | No Comments

Presidential nightmare comes at a cost

By Bernie Ellis | November 19, 2007 |

Seven years ago this month, Bush stole his first election with the help of his Daddy’s Supreme Court appointees. In 2004, he accomplished that same feat with the help of his friends who owned the electronic voting machine companies.

Today, though there is no longer a single state where Bush enjoys majority support and his foreign policy failures abound, Bush still claims to have created a robust economy. Let’s look at some comparisons:

• Seven years ago, you could buy a Canadian dollar for $.59 — now it costs you $1.07.
• Then, you could buy a Euro for $.97 — now it costs you $1.43.
• Then, you could pickup a gallon of milk for $2.87 — now the price has risen to around $4.18.
• Then, a gallon of regular gas cost $1.44 — now it’s over $3.00 (and rising fast). «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 2 Comments

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