Monday, June 23, 2008

Politicians Cannot Count

Are Oil prices being driven by speculators?

Not according to data from the U.S. Government's Commodities & Futures Tradding Commission.

As of 7/31/07: (Right off of the CFTC website):


NON-COMMERCIAL (CONTRACTS OF 1,000 BARRELS)

Long - 264,395 Short - 136,904

One year later 6/17/08 (Again, right off the CFTC website):

NON-COMMERCIAL (CONTRACTS OF 1,000 BARRELS)

Long - 203,806 Short - 191,094

There it is, complete with links.

Ok, you say... There is WHAT?

Non-Commercials are the "Speculators" you hear tell about, and in a year they have lowered their net long positions from 130,000 barrels or so to 12,000 barrels or so. (Just subtract short from long to get your net).

During this time that the "Speculators" were deleveraging by 90%!!!!! The Price of OIL DOUBLED!!!!!

HEY, U.S. CONGRESS: ANY OTHER DUMB F---ING QUESTIONS? With these guys leading us, WE ARE DOOMED.


Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com

P.S. If Congress is going to disregard the CFTC's data, why are we paying for it?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"If Congress is going to disregard the CFTC's data, why are we paying for it?"

Maybe there will be a FauxLite version that only reports the 'core' CFTC report.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

LOLLOLLOLLOL!!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link and information. That's all I've heard is that speculators are driving prices.

Unknown said...

Just curious , but if all the other government figures such as inflation, cpi, unemployment are totally false. How can we believe these numbers.