Reactions to story from The Wall Street Journal

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  Oil at a Ridiculous $125

  http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2008/05/09/oil-at-a-ridiculo...
  2 days ago in MarketBeat · Authority: 473

  When a trend cannot continue, it will stop, to paraphrase economist Herb Stein. But as long as it can continue, it will, and oils trend is continuing in trading. Crude prices blasted through the $125 level this morning and show little sign of topping
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  Economists Back McCain

  http://cayankee.blogs.com/cayankee/2008/05/economists-ba-1.h...
  2 days ago in CALIFORNIA YANKEE · Authority: 158

  The Wall Street Journal's economics blog, Real Time Economics, reports Senator McCain was the clear favorite of those economists who responded to the question: "Which of the three remaining presidential candidates offers the most responsible fiscal
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  Economists Back McCain

  http://cayankee.blogs.com/cayankee/2008/05/economists-ba-1.h...
  2 days ago in CALIFORNIA YANKEE · Authority: 131

  The Wall Street Journal's economics blog, Real Time Economics, reports Senator McCain was the clear favorite of those economists who responded to the question: "Which of the three remaining presidential candidates offers the most responsible fiscal
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  Activist role for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

  http://americanus.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/activist-role-for...
  2 days ago in Americanus · Authority: 3

  There is a fascinating commentary in today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal advocating the use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a counter-cyclical tool to negate the pricing policies of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.  Lincoln Anderson, an economist with a Boston-based finance firm, argues that the 701 million barrels of oil stocked up in the SPR are excessive and could be better used by adding supply to the U.S. market.  The goal would be to shave a little off the roughly $120 price tag for a barrel of crude.  Should OPEC increase production in the face falling demand, as it has done periodically, the SPR could purchase excess oil and work as a price support for the market. The idea is that this sort of policy could lead to a little more stability in U.S. energy markets, easing the pain in times of high prices while ensuring that large price drops don’t distort the market and shift demand away from nascent sources of alternative energy.  Anderson believes a minimal reserve of no less than 120 million barrels of oil could be kept in the SPR at all times, an amount he states is greater than any one time drawn down in the SPR’s history. This argument strikes me as an interesting one…one worth thinking about, given severity of the present energy mess we find ourselves in.  At the same time, I remain skeptical of the price-setting power he attributes to OPEC.  His own article cites the fact that OPEC’s control of oil production has declined from 52% in 1973 to only 40% today.  More importantly, he doesn’t take into consideration the ever-growing demand for energy in China and India, which may have more to do with today’s high prices than the cartel’s production policies.  Thoughts, anyone?
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  Rising food & fuel costs not just economic illusion

  http://wallacegsmith.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/rising-food-fu...
  2 days ago in Thoughts En Route · Authority: 19

  I had heard analysis recently suggesting that the current trends in fuel prices (oil steaming onward to $200 a barrel) and food prices (wheat, rice, etc.) are due more to speculators than anything else. However, a recent survey of economists done by the Wall Street Journal showed that the majority of them believe that the cause is more substantial and fundamental: “constrained supply and growing demand.” That would mean that the problems are both less likely to go away any time soon and more likely to worsen. That’s not to say that some of the problem isn’t caused by an investment bubble, but it does seem that the effect of speculators is not the biggest element. Of course, you might feel, like many do, that in any group of economists a majority of them drink their bath water, but I would not be so quick to dismiss their opinion. Scarcity and famine is definitely prophesied before Christ’s return (Matthew 24:7, Revelation 6:5-6, Ezekiel 5:12, et al.), and the factors leading up to that state may involve a mixture of elements. It’s hard to imagine that environmental factors and greed will not be among those elements. Whether this is the beginning of a continuous trend or only a temporary taste of things to come isn’t clear yet. But regardless, the solution cannot simply be “policy oriented” in its nature — it will have to involve national repentance (cf. 2 Chronicles 7:13-14).

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