Been going back and forth via e-mail with a conservative correspondent who wanted to argue about last week’s piece re: the big bad oil companies, and the money they make.
While the screed might have seemed anticapitalist, it wasn’t intended that way. But then, big oil, like ExxonMobil, has sort of perverted the whole notion of capitalism, […]

[Read more →]

Oil down again today, briefly in the neighborhood of $117 per barrel, now just up over $118.
This, despite the fact that several refineries either remain shut down or have been operating at reduced rates due to Tropical Storm Eduoard; this, despite the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked.
A month ago, these […]

[Read more →]

As illustrated, today, in the Wall Street Journal by Holmes W. Jenkins Jr., who rips into T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan.
Some of the points are valid: Pickens’ claim that we should power cars with natural gas, however great that might sound, fails to mention that we lack a “practical theory of how to get there” - meaning the […]

[Read more →]

Time Magazine:
But who’s really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated […]

[Read more →]

John McCain advocates offshore drilling, John McCain gets “surge” of donations from oil companies.
And don’t miss the bit about the Hess office manager who, with her Amtrak foreman husband, each gave $28,500 to McCain and the Republican National Committee.

[Read more →]

Brad at Sadly! No outlines how it all works:
The concept is simple: the McCain campaign knows that it will never get the GOP base excited about their candidate because they hate him. Thus, the only way to inspire Winger Nation to flock to the polls in November is to conduct a Three-Month Hate against Obama […]

[Read more →]

Up by nearly $3 per barrel so far today. Could reverse by the end of the day, of course, but the up-and-down nature of the market this week generates its own set of questions. Does a decline from the high of $147 per barrel to roughly $20 less constitute the bursting of a bubble? Or […]

[Read more →]

This is just completely typical, isn’t it?
While the U.S. oil industry want access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.
A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four […]

[Read more →]

Daniel Larison, posting over at Sullivan’s place (but more and more becoming a daily read in his own right, at Eunomia), riffs on a recent Limbaugh comment endorsing Chinese fuel subsidies - and what that says about this particular type of “conservatism”:
Limbaugh offers here the absurd spectacle of “conservatism” as the embrace of endless consumption […]

[Read more →]

Wow. Numbers significantly worse than expected; and now the company will retool and refocus on smaller vehicles:
Ford also announced that it will bring six European small car models to North America by the end of 2012 as it deals with a market shift from trucks to cars brought on by high gasoline prices.
When I drive […]

[Read more →]

More signs that the oil bubble is bursting: Oil down $4 per barrel already today on news that Tropical Storm Dolly probably won’t cause supply disruptions.

[Read more →]

Odd that the oil price fall isn’t the major item being featured at Yahoo News or Drudge; Drudge, in fact, more or less ignored the continued decline yesterday, focusing instead on Barack Obama’s workout routine.
Oil is the biggest story of the past week, isn’t it?
Been a strange week. So far oil up by 36 cents […]

[Read more →]

While we ponder the continuing oil sell-off (as noted in the update below, down another $4 plus change today, briefly dipped below $130 per barrel), it’s worth wondering what has triggered this.
Right-wingers are attributing it to Bush’s “drill, drill, drill” comment the other day. But we might point to something else: the fact that the […]

[Read more →]

Oil was up today by more than $1.30, but has since trended downward, 98 cents as of this writing.
If I was heavily invested in oil (if only), I would probably have sold, or sold some, over the course of the past few days. Particularly with demand dampening, you’ve got to take your profits. At the […]

[Read more →]

…over at the Washington Post, where in an editorial we learn that Barack Obama is wrong in saying the war in Iraq takes our eye off the terrorist ball because:
That’s an irrational and ahistorical way to view a country at the strategic center of the Middle East, with some of the world’s largest oil reserves. […]

[Read more →]

Hard to know what to make of the markets today. Oil down again, to $133.64; stocks have jumped though back from early-day highs; meanwhile there’s a report that inflation surged 1.1 percent in June, much worse than expected and the second-highest monthly increase over the past 26 years.
Is the oil bubble bursting? This is maybe what it […]

[Read more →]

Drudge touting a piece appearing on the National Review Online in which Larry Kudlow notes that the day President Bush said “drill, drill, drill” - oil dropped $9.
Well, oil didn’t actually drop $9, of course; it was actually down a little over $6, and has continued to decline today. But Kudlow’s point:
So I repeat: Drill, […]

[Read more →]

Oil plunging today, down to $139.03 as of this writing, though this AP story is completely out of whack - Oil down $10!!!! Uh, no, Oil has been as high as $146.73 today, as low as $135.92.
We’re desperate for the good news, of course. Have noticed a trend in the wire reporting on this topic; […]

[Read more →]

So all week the story is: Oil’s falling. Down by $10 per barrel at one point over a two-day period mid-week; held steady other days.
Today, 8:51 a.m. as I type this: Oil has already hit $146.90 today.
Once again, “continued tensions in the Middle East” are cited, along with violence in Nigeria. I have a conspiracy […]

[Read more →]

You want lower oil prices? CNBC blogger sez: Vote Obama:
If Barack Obama wins the presidency, the price of oil could fall by $40 per barrel. …
<snip>
1) As was the case during the Clinton administration, Obama might be more inclined to intervene in the foreign exchange market to support the value of the dollar. … Intervention or […]

[Read more →]