On Jan 24, 2007, at 2:52 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> On 1/24/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>> Maybe, who knows? But I've been following this stuff for over 20
>> years, and I'm impressed by how someone always has a political
>> explanation for movements in oil prices (and how you can always find
>> a trader or two to tell the story you want to hear).
>
> If there were no political explanation for oil prices, wouldn't oil
> prices behave like those of other commodities? While the Saudi design
> is just one piece of the picture, it is certainly a not insignificant
> piece.
What's the proof that oil doesn't behave like other commodities? Were Chile suddenly to become politically unstable, the price of copper would undoubtedly rise. But sometimes prices move on their own accord and people make up the reasons afterwards.
Saudi Arabia's not insignificant in the oil market, but does that mean several twitches of a Saudi oil minister's eyebrow can move the price by $2 or $20?
Doug