Cenk explains oil speculation simply.

[RGacky3]

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Good explanation of how banks screw people through commodities speculation.

[Drosophila]

Surprising. Usually Cenk is an idiot.

[RGacky3]

ehh, don't think he is, he seams a little loud and obnoxious, but his points are generally spot on.

[jake williams]

ehh, don't think he is, he seams a little loud and obnoxious, but his points are generally spot on.
He's sort of a populist liberal, maybe a right wing social democrat on good days. Hits and misses.

[Drosophila]

He's been indoctrinated by the two party duopoly in the USA. It's quite sad to see almost all well-known activists endorsing only the Democratic Party.

[Sir Comradical]

Too bad he can't take the next step and ask why it's impossible to turn billions worth of surplus value into billions more. Why there appears to be a limit on accumulation which then forces capitalists to speculate on assets like housing and oil.

[RGacky3]

He's absoutely a liberal/progressive, not even a social democrat, even so he does a great job of explaining corruption and corporate control of the economy and speculation.



Too bad he can't take the next step and ask why it's impossible to turn billions worth of surplus value into billions more. Why there appears to be a limit on accumulation which then forces capitalists to speculate on assets like housing and oil.


I don't think that needs explanation, its just simply that markets are not big enough to hold the type of growth that capitalism requires.

[tradeunionsupporter]

Cenk is correct.

[Baseball]

Mr. Young Turk spends the first 90 seconds agreeing that the oil price spikes is the due to increased demand in China, India ect. as well as due to the recent political instability. He then spends the remaining eight and a half minutes concluding that the speculators are the true arch-villiains in the story. Get rid of the speculators, he muses, and gas prices will drop 80 cents per gallon.

The problem is of course that the speculators are not the problem. They are responding to the problem. They have been doing in the financial world what others have been doing in the political world: S-p-e-c-u-l-a-t-i-ng. What does the Libyan Civil war mean for the supply of oil? How about unrest in Saudi Arabia? Somebody then has to assume the risk for that volatility. Without the speculators betting that the price of oil will go up (or down) such risk is then dropped directly on the oil companies themselves, and ultimately the consumers. Does 80 cents a gallon cover that risk for the oil companies? Ha! Gas prices would explode without the speculators.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I agree completely, reform clearly cannot fix the situation that exists.

Deeper change is very obviously needed.

[RGacky3]

he problem is of course that the speculators are not the problem. They are responding to the problem. They have been doing in the financial world what others have been doing in the political world: S-p-e-c-u-l-a-t-i-ng. What does the Libyan Civil war mean for the supply of oil? How about unrest in Saudi Arabia? Somebody then has to assume the risk for that volatility. Without the speculators betting that the price of oil will go up (or down) such risk is then dropped directly on the oil companies themselves, and ultimately the consumers. Does 80 cents a gallon cover that risk for the oil companies? Ha! Gas prices would explode without the speculators.

Almost all economists, except for Fox Buisiness, blaims speculators for rising commodity prices and not simple supply and demand, speculators artificially raise the price by creating a non consumption market.

Gas prices would explode? Really? Well they did'nt before speculators. Speculataors put even MORE risk, because they create bubbles.