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21518 messages, Last post on Dec 05, 2009 at 10:07 AM
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Replying to: cyclone4 (Jul 02, 2009 3:47 pm) Charlie, You know my position on oil.Take away a bunch of hedge funds (and CNBC cronies that support them) trying and failing to make oil a currency (which results in all of us paying artificially high prices) and oil wuld be lucky if it was at $45 a barrel right now. I'll bet you we don't consume as much oil as we did last year until 2015 or so, if then. With so many businesses switching to natural gas and more and more hybrids and efficient cars that are coming we are going to need serious economic improvement to get back to last years consumption levels. We are certainly going to need a better economy than the over-leveraged one we had in the years leading up to 2008 and with business shrinkage and the nations savings rate growing, it's going to be many years before we get there. Meanwhile hedge funds fears of inflation keep getting in the way of that with them driving us to artificially high commodity and food prices thanks to a lot of senseless speculation. The only way to get commodity prices to levels those funds want, and to keep them there is by having support from natural business fundamentals. There's been a huge draw on hedge funds already and if Obama throws some regulations there, we'll see a lot more drawing of money from the funds. That and fixing the leverage allowed in many of these small commodity markets will go a long way to correcting prices so that they are more in sync with real demand fundamentals.
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Replying to: ljflx (Jul 05, 2009 7:49 pm) Len, don't get me started on those "CNBC cronies". They are digusting. Instead of doing their job and report the business news, they constantly editorialize so that the common folks are forced to get their biased (and much of the time) wrong views. They really tick me off. Having said this, FOX News is even worse.
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Replying to: cyclone4 (Jul 05, 2009 8:04 pm) Agree. Fox news originally started out in the right direction, IMO, with good intentions... but then took a very wrong turn, and is clearly misguided. BTW, nice review of your recent 30-minute dirve. Very impressive. Oh... Regarding oil and gasoline prices, regardless of what analysis we use and blame we place, or trying to determine what the price of oil and gas should be... when it's all said and done, the bottom line is ultimately the actual real-life price itself. TM
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Replying to: cyclone4 (Jul 05, 2009 7:48 pm) No, in fact I've been so bored with Lexus as of late that it's been quite awhile since I've driven any of them. When we get closer to turning in our X3, I'll take one out and let you know. The Q5 still remains at the top of the list, but if my wife doesn't like it, I suppose another RX could be a possibility. Still, I have to wonder if the $5700 premium for the 450 over the 350 when both are equipped with the premium/NAV package could ever be made up in a reasonable amount of time and mileage. I think both versions look like a block of cheese, so I'm not particularly interested in the grille treatment. My biggest concern with the RX is on-center feel. I don't expect it to load in to corners or provide the feedback of an Audi setup. The RX300's steering was so incredibly over-boosted and so full of Aunt Jemima that you had to constantly seesaw the wheel just to keep it in a straight line. The amount of on-center slop was just atrocious. The most recent Toyota product I drove was a new Camry SE, and the steering was basically identical to our old RX300. Hopefully the new RX is a bit better than that. |
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Replying to: tagman (Jul 05, 2009 10:32 pm) You honestly believe the natural price of oil would have been in the $70's last week, $64 and change now in a natural market which showed no signs of oil consumption required to bring prices up from the high $30's and low $40's. Do you really think $147 was a natural price a year ago at this time? Just look at the timing of the Goldman report (which BTW was released a week earlier than it was supposed to be in order to offset a horrendous inventory report that would have crushed prices). These commodity markets are all small and easily manipulated thanks to 20:1 leverage ratios allowed in them vs 2:1 in the much much larger stock and bonds markets. The Goldman report was released early in order to catch a lot of shorts who bet on a bad inventory report and it came in even worse than the shorts hoped for. I have a hard time even thinking of oil as a "real" market. This market dropped 78% last year in less than 6 months. This year s/b a lot better though as the fall from the high should be a mere 40-45%. You want to make money. Just buy oil as soon as Nicaragua starts getting mentioned and note how it's never mentioned during declines. Get out of it ASAP when the ink dries up on Nicaragua terrorist news though.
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Replying to: cyclone4 (Jul 05, 2009 8:04 pm) Ha, don't even get me started. Mark Sanford (D). They do that every time. |
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Replying to: ljflx (Jul 06, 2009 6:43 am) NO! Never said so. But, one thing I do see as natural among many investors is greed. Another thing I see is that old "irrational exuberance". These things twist the fundamentals, sometimes for extended periods. Ultimately, reality often comes in the form of a rude awakening... but in the meantime we can end up with things like protracted high energy prices. Hope that is clearer. TM
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Replying to: tagman (Jul 06, 2009 8:42 am)
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