You, sir, need a sense of irony.

I blame Thatcher. It was her idea we could just be what we wanted, do what we wanted, when the hell we wanted to do it and hang the consequences. Buy a house, own a car or three, have lavish holidays I can't afford, because it makes me feel like I am somebody. Free market economy. Capitalism rules.

That worked out really well, didn't it.

My work is 20 miles from here, a journey that takes me half an hour normally. Sure, I could use a bus and train to get there, provided I didn't mind leaving the house at five and change several buses and trains to get there on time. As it is, I do a three-day week, which is doing my personal finances a world of good.

I have a car because it gives me the personal freedoms I desire. I don't misuse it, not like I used to when I was younger and fuel was cheap. Over this Christmas break I've probably driven to the supermarket once, and to my osteopath 10 miles away. Other than that, I've been here, indoors, burning fossil fuels with the heating and lighting and gadgets.

You have the degree in economics, so what's your answer to making it fairer for everyone? (Serious question, actually.)

Getting everyone up to their eyeballs in debt meant that people had to work, and not strike.

It's also made people very selfish.

If I was to go to uni by non fossil fuel methods it would take me at least 2 hours to cycle each way... and take alternatives as I wouldn't cycle on a dual carriageway...





The price of fuel is not directly linked to the price of oil. It's relatively inelastic in comparison to fuel.

I have never disputed any of those two statements.

People here are suggesting that there is this massive conspiracy against poor people where petrol/oil prices are being kept inflated and I can't agree with that.

Not just the poor, the UK in general IMO

"Making it fairer" is as vague as it gets so I won't answer. What I would say is that in UK "things" seem pretty fair to me. If anything, I would make income tax rates more "fair". If you ask me, paying 50% rate on your income to a taxman is an extortion...

It's not a conspiracy it's price fixing/monopoly, and it isn't just poor people getting f u c ked.

I'm curious, do you think oil prices are totally at the whim of market forces, or do you accept that they are being kept artificially high.

Answer to that depends on whether we are talking short-term or long-term. Both scenarios can be seen on that chart that Saspro has provided. Going from 140 to 40 is absolutely bonkers in any commodity.

So yes, in the short term certain interest groups can manipulate prices but market will inevitably correct itself (unless we are talking about monopolies, duopolies or cartels). More liquid the good is, harder it is to manipulate its price. That is why house prices can be high for a decade. Longer the prices is being kept inflated the more violent the correction is. But correction will always come.

There is also the fact that anybody can buy anything today. You yourself can buy gold, crude oil, commercial property etc etc derivatives (e.g. futures, options, spot or Exchange traded funds) and jump on the band wagon of the "next big trend" and profit from the price rise (or fall for that matter with SHORT ETFs). So there is more money around to chase the same amount of a commodity which means that prices are more volatile. You can go in and out in matter of seconds.

We have seen it with crude oil, mining stocks, gold is incredibly high, commercial property prices were all over the place...

BTW, I can see you pointing out that OPEC is a cartel. Yes, it is but not all oil producing countries are members of it (e.g. Russian, Venezuela). Opec also has to consider impact of its decisions on the world economy so they entirely free to do what they want. Please don't react on the OPEC bit cause I don't want to start a debate about this...

1. I posted it
2. It was for 2008 only which is hardly long term given the recession

1. Apologies
2. I meant in the long term considering the characteristics of the crude oil as it is quite liquid but I know what you mean. I agree with you that it didn't take long to correct but obviously it was long enough for some people to start believing that the price is fixed.

I know for a fact that oil prices are fixed. Several important people in oil that I have spoken to openly say it (behind closed doors of course)

I concur (+1)

There is most surely a lower end of the range where it's in nobody's interests for the price of oil to go (including the consumer - those that aren't planning to die leaving no family to mourn them within the next decade any way). That's because there is a phenomenal cost involved in finding new resources, then the exploitation requires megatons of capital investment. The price of crude has to remain high enough to sustain the next bout of investment, and there will always be a need for another bout after that.

If strict supply and demand and nothing else applied to the market, there would be constant chaos. Nobody would have discovered any new reserves in years because the cost of cut throat competition would eat away the margins that fund investment. The rigs needed to explore for more would have mostly rusted away, and the rational thing for the producers to do would be to cease production for a few months, forcing the price of their remaining stock through the roof. The oil industry has certain duties that are not expressed through shareholder value or balance sheets. Keeping the juice flowing that allows us to eat every day and live in warm houses for instance. There's a limit to how much cheaper we should be wanting that to get.

Oil isn't the only industry where [LIFTED] like this happens, any market where there are other concerns beyond profit and loss is liable to distortion. Perhaps if we have any doctors around, one of them can tell us how many new antibiotics have been developed since the sixties? I believe the number is vanishingly small. No profit in it until the germs work out how to beat all the existing ones, but that means we have to worry about drug resistance a lot more than we would if we just spent govt money on developing new drugs.

Lol, do you really want us to get into a playground squabble over whose dad can beat whose dad up as well?

You do amuse me.