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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (878)	7/23/2008 4:08:40 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

The world oil market is much larger. Also CA had all sorts of government restrictions on the market which enable the manipulation (even if not intentionally). Also since electricity doesn't generally get stored (sure we have tons of batteries and other storage mechanisms but they are dwarfed by electricity production), its more subject to manipulation. You can create short term shortages, if you control enough of the market. That's ability is strengthened even more by the larger concentrations in that market. Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, etc. only have a fairly small part of the whole market. When trades are made in exchanges overseas, such as the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, there is no US oversight at all. Dubai, as well as other Arab countries have a very high motivation to manipulate the price for a profit. They have high motivation, but little ability, other than by limiting the supply of oil. To bet that no manipulation is occurring with this backdrop is simply being naive. Who said anything about no manipulation? They might be able to manipulate the price up and down by a very tiny amount for a short time, to make large profits off large and/or highly leveraged positions. This is risky but it could be done. But driving the world price very far up for months or years is another story.