I am watching CNBC and I keep hearing everyone (OPEC, US and EU officials, etc) blaming speculators, weak currency, etc for high price of oil.

Oligopolistic competition.

There is no lack of supply (estimates range from 25k to 2million extra barrels of oil are produced per day).

Market trading provides a environment for implicit coercion (as opposed to explicit)

Prices will stop going up when they reach a point where people consume less and profit for retailers goes down.  When profit goes down, then they won't pay as much for barrels of oil (no matter who sells them).

If you limit profits it won't bring down prices, because it sets a new level of maximized profits and actually prevents a fall in price because even if demand does go down there is more cushion before profit goes down.

Thank you.

I think pretty much every American should be able to agree by now that BOTH parties have completely and utterly failed to address this problem. I say we vote all of them out and start fresh...whose with me?

But Sqrl, countries in Europe and other parts of the world have oil for very expensive prices as well. It's not about government, it's a problem that just can't be fixed except by the making of engines run on alternative fuels.

Ok thats my fault, I was kind of referring to the energy situation as a whole where as this is in fact an oil prices thread.

I was talking about the energy situation as a whole.  We've had roughly 30 years now that have been almost completely squandered in terms of infrastructure development.  A lot of it has to do with environmentalist policies that we now know are actually counterproductive to environmental issues.  Nuclear is by far one of the best options for powering a nation and yet rather than letting reason prevail a vocal minority has us almost 2 generations of technology out of date now.

I agree that nuclear power is a very viable option. The question being that if it were a worldwide fuel for a growing population of billions, what are we going to do with the massive amounts of toxic waste? Even if we found large areas to store it, these things can only last so long (as displayed by our current energy crisis). Now, of course, nuclear power does produce far less waste than our current fuels, but the problem really needs to be solved permanently. Viable option for a good while, but not a permanent fuel.

The world should probably go with nuclear power until we can safely move from obtaining power from the ground to the sky.

Ironically the high oil prices are the best thing that could happen to us Global Warming wise. Greenpeace and all other treehuggers who try to get all humans to repent and use hemp clothes from now on are idiots. Worldwide ENERGY consumption will grow. That's a given. A high oil price will take care of our transformation to renewable energy sources.

As it looks now not one technology will prevail though.

Nuclear will be increased in the coming decades.
Wind is becoming competitive.
Solar is too expensive but similar to computer technology it is advancing fast.
Geothermal is a good option.
Wave power is heavily researched.
Clean coal (CO2 capture) could be cool.
Biofuels WILL be part of it. That biofuel from maize is bullshit doesn't change the fact that biofuel from switchgrass and sugar cane and later from cellulose/algae will be efficient. (Its practically solar power)

So at the moment everything works out perfectly. Oil is getting more expensive and this spurs investment into alternative energy sources. That's how a market economy works.

High oil prices we in the long term adversely affect the PS3 and the X360 sales. But the Wii being cheap more people will buy it than the other two consoles on the market. Petrol prices will double within a year. Quadruple if war on Iran is declared

It's all a conspiracy to make the very wealthy, global companies and governments richer whilst the mass population struggles to get by.

I can't explain why, but it is!

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

No words

We in America love our technology and hopefully we will be able to develop a more synthetic or at least resource efficient fuel that can be easily put into circulation. Tho not to mention we do have I believe an estimated 2 trillion barrels of oil in shale in the US. (Numbers vary greatly between experts) Whether or not we use it is going to fall on the government.

Funnily enough a co-worker said the other day, "The people in this country are pissed off about the oil prices. And as history shows things get done when the people are pissed off." Who knows /shrug