Category Archives: Energy markets

Chris Cook: The Ghost of Enron Past Explains Oil Market Manipulation

By Chris Cook, former compliance and market supervision director of the International Petroleum Exchange

I outlined in my recent post my view that the oil market price has been inflated by passive investors whose attempts to ‘hedge inflation’ actually ended up causing it, and have allowed oil producers to manipulate and support the oil market price with fund money to the detriment of oil consumers.

But there has always been a missing link – precisely how has this manipulation been achieved?

9/11 Commissioner and Co-Chair of Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 Say in Sworn Declarations that Saudi Government Linked to 9/11 Attacks

Two Senators with Access to Classified Information Say Saudi Government Backed 9/11 Attack

Chris Cook: The Oil End Game

By Chris Cook, former compliance and market supervision director of the International Petroleum Exchange. Cross posted from Asia Times

The end game is about to begin. On the one hand you have the noise and rhetoric. Greedy speculators gouging gasoline prices; mad mullahs preparing to wipe Israel off the map; bunker buster bombs and fleets being positioned; huge demand for oil from the BRIC countries; China’s insatiable thirst for oil; the oil price will head for $200 a barrel and will never again fall below $130 …

On the other hand you have the reality.

Chinese Credit Growth Slows Significantly

Yves here. This is a short post, but don’t underestimate the significance. The big picture is that Chinese government has been tightening credit to try to lower inflation, with some success, and various commentators have been calling a soft landing outcome. But residential real estate sales took a tumble in November, and electricity use fell in January (although that may be in part due to the Chinese New Year). This is another sign that just as American economists were unduly confident in their ability to fine tune the economy in the 1960s, so too may analysts be overly optimistic about the ability of Chinese leadership to control its economy.

Philip Pilkington: Fear and Loathing in the Financial Markets – What Happens to the Economy When the Oil Bubble Bursts?

By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland

In 2008 profits in the US economy crashed out. But they soon bounced back. This bounce was largely due to the profits being reaped in the financial sector – which sickened many given that 2008 was in large measure caused by the financial sector. This always struck me as odd – not to mention unsustainable. If the ‘real’ economy is in the doldrums you can be sure that, in the medium to long run, the business class will go down with it.

In what follows I will draw on Chris Cook’s post on this site the other day to argue that, if he is correct (and I think he may be), judgment day is just around the corner for the profiteers.

Chris Cook: Naked Oil

By Chris Cook, former compliance and market supervision director of the International Petroleum Exchange

All is not as it appears in the global oil markets, which in my view have become entirely dysfunctional and no longer fit for its purpose. I believe that the market price is about to collapse as it did in 2008 and that this will mark the end of an era in which the market has been run by and on behalf of trading and financial intermediaries.

Doctors Call for Fracking Moratorium

Wow, this bit of news is amazing, in both a good and bad way. Just to mention one fracking contaminant, benzene is a particularly nasty carcinogen (not that this Bloomberg article mentions it, but it is the sort of thing that too often gets into water tables thanks to fracking). The fact that fracking is seen as a big enough public health risk to rally the normally apolitical medical profession (at least as far as measures ex health care reform are concerned) to call for intervention is striking.

Mark Ames: Failing Up With Joshua Foust – Meet The “Evil Genius” Massacre-Denier Who Shills For War Profiteers

Yves here. We cross posted a piece by Mark Ames on a massacre of Kazakh oil workers striking against KazMunaiGaz, a company “owned” by the son-in-law of the Kazakh president for life. Its American JV partners are led by Chevron.

The story got a surprising amount of pushback here and on Ames’ site, and some of reaction did not look organic. That led Ames to do further digging, and the resulting piece below gives a window into how big corporations go about neutralizing embarrassing news coverage. The more the public knows about the modus operandi of people like Foust, the faster they will be forced to seek more honorable lines of employment.

In this blogger’s humble opinion, this piece is a gold standard takedown of a truly deserving target.

“Validated Carbon Credits”: a Correction, a Confirmation, Questions, and No Hint of an Apology

The Gibraltar regulator confirms by email that James Richards company Baron Traders Limited is registered in Gibraltar.

Moron from Scam Companies “Validated Carbon Credits” and “Baron Traders Limited ” Threatens This Blog

By Richard Smith

I posted this a few days ago, about the screechingly obvious fake Gibraltar company Validated Carbon Credits, a trading name of Baron Traders Ltd and its lying “CEO” James Richards. Two comments to the post have caught my eye:

It´s obvious your posting is not only slanderous but based on pure conjecture without any circumstantial evidence whatsoever. Why is it you don´t have a “contact us” link? Did you even bother contacting the company / individuals to try and establish some facts?

This was purportedly by a lady called Karen Johnson, who guilelessly provides an email address, bubblybosun@gmail.com, which, a quick Google reveals, is a handle used by none other than James Richards, the aforementioned lying CEO. Rather than dwell on that, or on the fact that “she” evidently doesn’t understand the meanings of the words “circumstantial evidence” and “slanderous”, I responded as follows:

Validated Carbon Credits and Baron Traders Limited Have (Update: Briefly) Left the Building

The FT and a scammer respond to a Carbon Credits post at NC

“FTAdviser” Tricked Into Lending the Good Name of the Financial Times to Carbon Credit Scammers

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Gaddafi’s Murder And International Law

This is an informative and sobering video by Real News Network on the extrajudical Nato/US killing of Gaddafi. This interview gives some background on what the US interests were and why Gaddafi, who for the previous five years had generally been a cooperative client, became a target.

Energy Efficiency Doesn’t Work

By Cameron Murray, a professional economist with a background in property development, environmental economics research and economic regulation. Cross posted from MacroBusiness

The word efficiency carries a meaning immersed in all things positive – you never hear that being more efficient could possibly be detrimental. In fact, if you can bear the evangelical fervour, you may have read about achieving ‘Factor Four’ or ‘Factor Five’ gains in energy efficiency, as part of a ‘Natural Capital’ revolution comprising a ‘decoupling’ economic growth from a growth in the consumption of exhaustible resources – also known as ‘sustainability’. You may even have heard about the equation I=PAT or I = P x A x T, where environmental impact (I) is a function of population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T), and that becoming more efficient will enable a desired level of affluence with far less environmental cost.

Historical experience shows that these claims are untrue.

Jon Rynn: A Fracking Mess – Natural Gas is Not the Fuel of the Future

By Jon Rynn, author of the book Manufacturing Green Prosperity: The power to rebuild the American middle class. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and is a Visiting Scholar at the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems. Cross posted from New Deal 2.0.

Between questionable science, health hazards, and exorbitant costs, there’s no fracking way that drilling for natural gas will solve our long-term energy issues.