Greasy Lies

CRUDE OIL PRICES SOAR   CRUDE SOARS   YOUR FUTURE

CORPORATE GREED    KEEP PAYING   LIE TO ME

 

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*** Here’s some more misinformation that should be  dismissed as another scare tactic by the large Oil Companies. As of this minute in time most of the oil fields in the Middle East are at a 80 to 90 percent production capacity. With the exception of Iraq, some of their Oil Fields are on fire because of the mostly unreported unrest in that country, another reason why we and the rest of the Freedom fighters don’t belong there. The only reason the prices are going up is the gutless uninformed media are hyping it instead of really doing their jobs and investigating it. Next the greedy corporations and Commodity brokers, the same ones that brought you the Crises of 2008 to now are driving it up with their open marketing bidding and futures pricing,they’re doing the same with your food pricing also. To prove my point BP and the rest of the Corporate Greed Mongols have been given the green lite for futher oil exploration in the Gulf. Until these people are held accountable and better reporting by the media is done you can expect to pay and pay and pay.*** Now here’s the article:

UNCERTAINTY DRIVES UP OIL PRICES

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and JAD MOUAWAD

Published: March 1, 2011

HOUSTON — Just when oil markets appeared to be calming, crude oil prices surged again on Tuesday as the potential for more oil shipment disruptions spread across the Middle East and North Africa.

With Libya’s oil exports almost entirely halted for the last several days, renewed unrest in Oman, Iran and Iraq rattled oil traders. An interruption of shipments from any of those countries would further tighten oil supplies, even as Saudi Arabia has rushed to fill the vacuum of Libyan supplies

The worries about the oil supply rippled through other markets, with stock markets turning lower on concerns that the higher cost of energy would slow economic recovery.

Gold prices also surged on the latest reports, and indexes on Wall Street declined sharply, with the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 1.3 percent. The Saudi Arabian benchmark stock index fell 6.8 percent.

In the latest sign that the political contagion was spreading, demonstrators in Oman on Tuesday tried to block a major road leading to the industrial port town of Sohar. Protesters in recent days have set fire to at least one police station and two government office buildings in the normally stable Persian Gulf country, which is ruled by a family dynasty and is the largest non-OPEC oil producer in the Middle East.

“To have protests in Oman, which had previously been seen as a sleepy gulf kingdom, heightens concerns that nowhere is immune from the contagion affects,” said Helima L. Croft, a director and senior geopolitical analyst at Barclays Capital. “Every day we seem to have a new country with a new problem.”

Oman produces 860,000 barrels of oil daily, almost 1 percent of world supplies, and its production has been rising in recent years with investments from Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Repsol and other international companies. Its importance is magnified by the fact that its crude is of such quality that it can be blended by most refineries around the world, although most of its exports now go to China and Japan.

Oman straddles the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic route through which 40 percent of the world’s oil tanker traffic crosses. On the other side of the strait lies Iran, another major producer, where there were reports on Tuesday that security forces had used tear gas to disperse protesters in Tehran. Iran, with approximately 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves, exports about 3.7 million barrels a day.

The price of light sweet crude rose to $99.63 a barrel while Brent crude rose 3.24 percent to $115.42. Oil jumped above $100 a barrel in after-hours trading in New York. The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline rose by nearly a penny on Tuesday to just over $3.37, which is 20 cents higher than a week ago.

In testimony on Capitol Hill, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said that it would take a sustained increase in oil prices to push up consumer inflation significantly and threaten the economy. “Currently the cost pressures from higher commodity prices are being offset by the stability in unit labor costs,” he added.

The rising tensions across the region sent the Saudi Arabian stock market into a tailspin, with Saudi shares suffering the biggest daily decline in more than two years despite rising oil prices. The Saudi index fell 6.8 percent, to its lowest close since July 2009. Refiners around the world have been hoping that Iraq, as violence ebbed, would again become a major oil producer, with production stabilizing at 2.3 million barrels a day. But over the weekend rebels bombed the country’s largest refinery, reducing the refinery’s capacity to refine petroleum products by 75,000 barrels a day. The attack came less than three weeks after a terrorist attack on a pipeline leading to a second refinery north of Baghdad.

Greg Priddy, an oil analyst at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, said it was “highly unlikely” that output in another major producer in the region would be shut off. But he said that markets were jittery because “if the Saudis are going to make up for the shortfall in Libya, their spare capacity is thinner.”

He added, “Another major country going out completely would use most of their spare capacity, and that is really what the market is worried about.”

Saudi Arabia has a total production capacity of 12.5 million barrels a day, and currently produces nine million barrels after increasing its output by several hundred thousand since the beginning of the year. Saudi officials say they are ready to pump what it takes to fill any supply gap, but much of its 3.5 million barrel excess capacity contains sour crudes that do not easily replace the Libyan sweet crude European refineries in particular desire to produce diesel. In Libya, major oil operations in the eastern part of the country remained under the control of rebel forces. While foreign operators withdrew most of their foreign workers, local Libyan employees can still produce some crude. Oil experts say at least one million of the country’s 1.6 million barrels a day of production has been shut down.

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Companies Raise Prices

COMPANIES RAISE PRICES AS COMMODITY  COSTS  JUMP

S.O.S. AWARDS    LIARS     THIEVES         HYPOCRITES

S.O.W.  AWARDS         CROOKS    NEWS MISREPRESENTATION

LIES MY MEDIA TELLS ME     NOUVEAU GREED

PLAYING WITH YOUR FOOD

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, MOTOKO RICH and WILLIAM NEUMAN

Before you read the article keep in mind who is driving the costs up of everything is the Commodity Brokers the same ones that brought you the Crises of 2008-to present.. Not the producers, farmers,  the farmers, growers and producers are barely making enough to live on until these high powered Brokers are controlled we’ll all be paying  a lot more for everything, they’re the same thieves that brought you what we’re going through now with the banks, mortgage companies etc. . That is what the riots, in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Iran, Yemen and soon Lebanon are all about. It will come down to the simple basics in the end.

New York Times

A package of Oscar Mayer cold cuts. A pair of Nine West boots. A Whirlpool washing machine.

By the fall, people will most likely be paying more for each of them, as rising prices hit most consumer goods, say retailers, food companies and manufacturers of consumer products.

Cotton prices are near their highest level in more than a decade, after adjusting for inflation, and leather and polyester costs are jumping as well. Copper recently hit its highest level in about 40 years, and iron ore, used for steel, is fetching extremely high prices. Prices for corn, sugar, wheat, beef, pork and coffee are soaring. Labor overseas is becoming more expensive, meanwhile, and so are the utility bills to keep a factory running.

“There are cost pressures from virtually everywhere,” said Wesley R. Card, the chief executive of the Jones Group, whose brands include Nine West and Anne Klein. After trying to keep retail prices flat or even lower during the recession, Jones says prices for its brands will climb 15 to 20 percent by autumn.

When commodity prices started to rise last summer, many manufacturers and retailers absorbed the costs, worried that shoppers would not pay higher prices during the competitive holiday season or while the economy was still fragile.

Many big companies, including Kraft, Polo Ralph Lauren and Hanes, say they cannot hold off any longer and must raise prices to protect some profits.

Whether shoppers will pay is unclear. “Consumers are not exactly in the frame of mind or economic circumstances to say ‘Oh, pay whatever they ask,’ ” said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist at MFR Inc. “There’s going to be pushback.”

Economists say the increases may eventually show up as inflation, though they are not yet projecting rates that would set off alarms. Despite some fears, inflation has been extremely low, at a rate of just 1.4 percent annually in December. Data for January will be released Thursday, but economists expect inflation will run about 2.5 percent this year.

Some do see the creeping signs of higher inflation, and warn that the Federal Reserve will need to raise interest rates or at least stop pumping more money into the economy. Others argue that such moves would choke off economic growth sorely needed to get companies hiring again.

For consumers, higher prices in stores means there will be a little less extra cash to spend. For companies, profits may be squeezed

making them a little less likely to invest in equipment or to hire aggressively.

“One has to think about these higher prices not as a reason for economic activity to get derailed,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics, “but as a reason why the recovery is slower than might otherwise be the case.”

Given that the price of a gallon of gas is now well over $3 on average, Americans may feel that they are already dealing with higher prices.

Adding to the cost of food won’t greatly distort most household budgets. Food, gas, clothing, personal care products and cleaning and laundry supplies make up less than a quarter of household spending in the United States, according to government data.

People at the bottom of the income scale struggle more as these prices rise, of course, because a larger share of their spending is on such essentials.

To some, the prospect of modestly higher prices is no reason to worry. In fact, rising prices can indicate improving economic conditions. Greater demand from fast-growing countries like China has helped push up the costs of many raw materials — though officials there are worried about inflationary pressures, as are some officials in Europe.

In the United States, the willingness of companies to raise prices shows they are feeling better about the domestic recovery.

The sharp rise in commodity prices since last year has not translated into all new records. Food commodity prices are about 8 percent below the high in the summer of 2008, while energy prices are less than half their zenith. Prices of a basket of other commodities are about 4 percent below the heights of mid-2008.

The cost of raw materials accounts for a small portion of the cost of most consumer goods, as labor, processing and packaging tend to make up a larger share of the price at the cash register. Foods like coffee, meat and milk, which are closer to raw materials, will probably show some of the biggest price jumps.

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A version of this article appeared in print on February 15, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition.