From: Gene McAloon 

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 23:14:50 -0400, "Mark"  wrote:

>
>"Gene McAloon"  wrote: ...
Many OPEC countries are
>already producing
>at capacity and have been doing so for a long time, in contravention of
>their
>OPEC agreements. And as long as the speculators among the commodity traders
>keep
>> the price artificially high, they will continue to do so.
>
>Since the commodity traders determine the price, it can't by definition, be
>artificially high.
>
That is a very strange thing to say. The commodity traders do not determine
the price. They are trading futures, in affect what they think the price
will be down the line, not today's price. The base price is in the long
term contracts under which the producing nations sell the oil. That price
doesn't change regardless of what the traders are betting.

Why then the increases in the pump price? Because the oil companies are
using the artificially high futures price as an excuse to raise the pump
price. That explains why their profits are up. We have seen this kind of
thing in the past. On occasion it has lead to special tax increases on the
oil companies to strip them of the "excess profits."

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5