Is it over yet? Oil prices drop like a rock
There's been a lot of head-scratching about the exact cause of the meteoric rise in price for a barrel of oil. Are speculators driving it to turn a quick buck? Is it the weakening value of the U.S. dollar? How about increaded worldwide demand? Chances are, all those forces are playing a part in the rise of fuel prices, and no single solution is likely to fix the problem.
Just as it was starting to look like prices would rise on a daily basis for the rest of eternity, the price of a barrel of oil dropped by $16 from Tuesday to Thursday. Economists point to the dismal economic and inflation news as a main factor for the drop. All we know is that ever since gas got more expensive, everything else started to follow suit. That leads us to spend less on things that we don't absolutely need, which probably isn't good for the economy.
With news of the large drop in the price of a barrel of crude, Wall Street got all excited and responded with a couple days of very positive gains in the stock market. Good news, right? Well, oil jumped by over $2 on Friday morning alone, so we'll have to see. Is the $4 per gallon nightmare almost over? Probably not, but we can hope.
[Source: Yahoo, Photo: Getty/Justin Sullivan]
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Declan Moran 2:52PM (7/19/2008)
It doesn't look good for gasoline or oil based transportation, but people gotta move and theres energy all around us.
We can figure this out and at the end of the day we'd be future proof.
Rajat 2:48PM (7/19/2008)
Oil prices are bound to fluctuate and together everyone need to look for a sustainable solution. State cannot sit back and watch peaks & lows of oil prices and affecting life of public at large. State need to take step, just like the Government of India is working to benefit and inform public about truth's behind claims of carmakers along with reducing country's huge oil bills ... read more about it on http://www.wheelsontrack.com/
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JaM 3:08PM (7/19/2008)
As a citizen of an oil producer country, I share with you your concerns about the rising oil prices because we are in the same ship. We also suffer from the goods, food and commodities price increase. It has affected our way of life greatly and our savings started to shrink. With all honestly, we and our government "and it has been stated officially many times on many occasions" DO NOT want oil prices to go ridiculously high which is the case now, nor we want it to be very cheap which was the case 10-15 years ago. We want what is bets for us and the rest of the world, a fair price for oil away from all the speculators and those on the oil markets.
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caddy dave 3:08PM (7/19/2008)
Ponder this: Newt Gingridge, (whom I personaly can't stand) had one great speach in his lifetime.
Take one third of the National petroleum reserves and dump it in the market. The result would be oil dropping by more than $50 a barrel and the speculators would loose millions and millions of dollars. Too bad, not a tear would be shed for the part they played. A lesson would be learned when they think about trying it again.
Next, open drilling off our coast, drill in Anwar, build new refineries and screw the mid-east.
The hell with ethenol, we all know what a mess that is to refine and the economical problems it caused.
Build more nuceeler (sic: GB) plants and if the greenies protest, build them around their homes and lock them inside.
Reality check; Full hydrogen and electric cars are at minimum ten to fifteen years out. Our countries economy won't last that long. The infrastructure alone will take decades to install. America has a passion with cars and America is a car/oil driven society. Every aspect of our economy is based on oil and there is NO alternative in the near or distant future.
Unless we can come up with a true leader that comes from the people and knows the hardships the people are having, and takes the initiative to make us truly independent of mid-east oil and that quack Chavez, we will become a third world economy. And don't get me started on the moron dumocrats with their "let the price go to $10 a gallon and conserve the planet crap". The planet survived and thrived long before Al Gore and will continue doing so long after he's gone.
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SimbaDogg 3:10PM (7/19/2008)
sorry guys, just saving my password
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Neil 3:15PM (7/19/2008)
This whole oil problem, while painful, has given us a much needed nice swift kick in the ass.
We lost our edge after the 1960s and instead of being a proactive society have become reactive. We never do anything because it's the good thing to do or because we have an ultimate goal, we do things because something awful happens to us and we need to stop this.
What happened to the great United States of the 1960's that was able to send a man to the moon?
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Steve 3:46PM (7/19/2008)
You really think we went to the moon? Try these five thoughts:
1- The first object to just simply be fired up to space and have it come down 20 minutes later was sputnik in 1957. How do you go from that to a spaceship with 3 people on it, a big dune buggy rover, lots of food and equipment to the Moon 12 years later?
2- I dont know how old you are but 20 years ago if you walked into an accountants office, calculators were big and powered by electricity. I have a handheld calculator from my birthday in 1980 and it takes 3 AAA batteries and its big. How do we have the technology to send people 200,000 miles away in 1969?
3- Bush 3 years ago said we should go back to the moon. Nasa said it would take 25 years to go back. WTF? After Kennedys speech we went to the moon in 8 years, and in 2008 with all the technology it takes 25 years? Why dont we go dust off the old rockets from the museums and go back to the moon next year then?
4- Technology was simply not there. China today says it will take them 20 years at break neck speed to go to the moon let alone land there and drive around and sleep on the moon for 3 days.
5- A cell phone today or an Ipod is more advanced than when Macintosh came out in 1981 let alone any computers in 1969. You simply dont go from nothing to the moon in 8 years. In 1958 USA had no space program. then several satelites and weather satelites. Then boom, we are driving on the moon.
It doesnt make sense.
snakesausage 4:20PM (7/19/2008)
I hate to get into this debate because it is so far off topic...
But...
Steve all you have proven is that it takes rocket science, not electronic science to get someone to the moon and that people have much less conviction of character then they did in the 50's.
And...
Have you been to China? I have and I am surprised that they have gotten anyone into space yet…
Seriously dude? You probably believe that the US government blew up the WTCs too. weak arguments…
Steve 4:35PM (7/19/2008)
I don't believe anything nor am I a conspiracy nut. All I believe in is that the technology was not there. Thats all.
Humanity is about evolution. Unless you discover the atom first you don't make an atomic bomb. technology is a building block of past scientific achievments. But when I look at the Apollo program I see a sidetrack of technology that does not fit with the times.
Now what really happened and whatever I dont know nor do I care about. How we went there so flawlessly and came back is simply a miracle that cant be explained.
why not the LS2LS7? 4:37PM (7/19/2008)
Steve. I hope you're a troll, because you're way off.
Sputnik orbited the Earth for 5 months, it wasn't just a parabolic shot like the X-15 or SpaceShipOne.
The moon rover was on one of the last missions, about 5 years after the first moon landing in 1969, and 17 years after 1957.
Pocket calculators were common and available in regular stores in the late 1970s, that's 30 years ago, they weren't still huge 20 years ago. Accountants' calculators (still known as adding machines back then) were larger and plugged into the wall because accountants wanted tape printouts (it takes a lot of power to run motors) and probably didn't look forward to changing batteries. They wanted big buttons so they could type faster.
Why would NASA say it would take 25 years? Because of funding. We aren't funding NASA well right now. 1/10th the funding means 1/10th the work gets done. It's not just the rockets either, NASA is about to fire off a rocket that is more powerful than a Saturn V (but not as large or impressive).
An iPod today is more advanced than a Macintosh was in 1995! But you don't need a lot of CPU to calculate orbital trajectories. It was done before computers even existed. NASA made a big deal about how the computers ran the show, like how fractions of a second in firing de-orbit rockets would cause the landing point to move by hundreds of miles, but when it came down to the humans to do it themselves, it worked out just fine.
The biggest thing is people didn't just sit around and say "I wish someone would invent the microcomputer so we can get some work done."
Disgruntled Goat 7:11PM (7/19/2008)
Dear lord, I can't believe I'm even responding to this but....
"I don't believe anything nor am I a conspiracy nut. All I believe in is that the technology was not there."
Little contradictory there don't you think? Pick one.
Some days I can't tell whether I'm on Digg or Autoblog.
John Cressy 7:49PM (7/19/2008)
Neil, this is not for you. I worked on Minuteman Missiles in 1970-72, then SRAM from 1972-1990, In between I taught cruise missile 1980-1984. The early Minuteman I was simple. You could draw a line from it's silo over the North pole to the target. When Minuteman III came out in 1970 it had three warheads and could hit three targets. They replaced the old Minuteman I using the same silo's. SRAM was introduced in 1970 using 1960's technology. It could fly from 18-125 miles at Mach IV and deliver a 22KT warhead. Since it was covered in rubber that burned off during flight it could be considered the forunner of stealth. The cruise uses the same GPS/Tercom combination with temperature and air speed indicators as airplanes to find a target. Again 1970's tech to fly 1500 miles at 400 mph and get within 7 feet of a target. Tell me again why we didn't land on the moon? By the way all these were fine products of Boeing Military Aircraft Company.
Artie Lange 8:15PM (7/19/2008)
Mars to Steve: we got the technology from the wrecked UFO at Roswell. Duh.
Ian B. 4:21PM (7/19/2008)
Regardless of the reasons of the recent oil price run up, everyone has been given an opportunity to peer into a crystal ball. We now have witnessed what high fuel prices and the secondary effects will do to the country, the economy and your life. How will you deal with it?
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Jacob 4:29PM (7/19/2008)
The sliding dollar will insure that the dollar prices of oil will keep increases. The dollar will continue sliding as long as we import more goods than we export, as long as we have loose monetary policy, and as long as the economy is weak.
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BlackbirdHighway 5:27PM (7/19/2008)
One word: Iran.
The recent drop in price was exactly in sync with the Bush administrations announcement that they are going to negotiate with Iran, and even start to have a diplomatic presence in Iran.
Previously, there was much talk about bombing Iran from Bush, John McCain, John Bolton, Fox News, etc.
If either America of Israel bombed Iran, the price of oil would double overnight. This led most of the oil traders to be long oil. Who would want to be short oil and wake up one morning to find out that Bush had pulled the trigger? That would be financial ruin.
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Randy 7:08PM (7/19/2008)
If people would just keep their heads and hold on gas will drop back down.
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snakesausage 8:45PM (7/19/2008)
Artie, I vote that comment as the funniest of the month! Jesus Christ... I seriously almost fell out of my chair laughing so hard!
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Artie Lange 9:07PM (7/19/2008)
Thank you. I'll be here all week, twice on Saturdays.
Steve's clearly got his tin foil hat on tight; no government x-rays or fluoride's gonna keep him from the truth.
snakesausage 8:47PM (7/19/2008)
Reply function did not work.. this was for Artie's comment to steve:
Mars to Steve: we got the technology from the wrecked UFO at Roswell. Duh.
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