The Great Scam

By Arthur Shaw

Speculators at petroleum exchanges in New York City, London, and Singapore relentlessly drive up the price of a barrel of oil to ever higher levels. These speculators are nothing but underhanded imperialist thieves manipulating "demand" for oil within the context of the demand and supply fundamentals.

Speculators play the chief role behind high oil prices. But there are other factors, such the value of the dollar and geopolitical tensions resulting from imperialist aggressions. The principal aggression is in Iraq where the US aggression has cost 2,000,000 Iraqi lives and where the imperialists steal 2.3 million barrels of oil everyday. The threats of aggression (mainly against Iran and Venezuela) also contribute significantly to the problem. To some extent, the speculators use these "other factors" as a cover or a pretext for their stealing at the petroleum exchanges.

When we talk about the real demand for oil, we're talking about the numbers of barrels of oil the world economy needs every day in order to run.

That number is more or less about 87 million barrels per day. So, 87 million barrels per day, more or less, is what the world, at the moment, really "demands" on a daily basis.

87 million barrels a day is more or less what the world produces or supplies because that's what the world really asks for.
Enter the imperialist thieves ... mostly investment banks, hedge funds, oil companies, other institutional investors, and some big individual players ... operating through floor traders at the three major petroleum exchanges (New York Mercantile Exchange, London Petroleum Exchange (owned by US imperialists) and Singapore Stock Exchange which is much smaller than the other two.

These imperialist thieves submit orders for oil to these exchanges. These orders are called, among other things, "futures" and they represent at least 15 times greater volume than what the world really "demands" or wants; thus, artificially creating a staggering but bogus imbalance between supply and demand for oil.

This multiple of about 15 is not real demand, rather it is a phony "paper" demand, creating an illusory imbalance between supply and demand, pumping up the price of oil.

15 X 87 million bpd = 1,300,000,000 bpd

So, on "paper," the three petroleum markets are "demanding" 1.3 billion barrels everyday when the world only needs or demands 87 million barrels a day - and the price of a barrel soars.

If the world could or would produce 1.3 billion barrels a day, the world would drown in oil. There would be no place to put it.
This oil scam demonstrates the irrationality of the so-called "free" market, but the imperialist thieves make a killing everyday in this "free" market for oil.

Goldman Sachs is perhaps the biggest and most aggressive imperialist thief among the investment banks. Exxon-Mobil, of course, is the biggest among the oil companies. Thousands of hedge funds [often fronts for banks and oil companies] managing capital for the wealthy are running amuck in the oil market.

Driving some of the imperialists to steal, especially the investment banks, is something more than their natural and compulsive avarice. Many of them have of late, suffered catastrophic losses with mortgage-back securities like the so-called "subprimes". Others have fallen through the floor with unbelievable losses in currency trading. So, they look to oil swindles to recoup some or all of their unbearable losses.

Once again, the scam with oil futures and other related financial instruments is sometimes called "speculation" in the oil market.
To get away with the scam, the imperialist thieves tell their cappie [that is, "capitalist"] press or media to spread lies, blaming OPEC for the imbalance between supply and demand for oil. Their friends in the cappie media blame the prices on production cutbacks. They also tell an assortment of lies about China and India using up too much oil or other fabrications the media cooks up itself.

When the truth about the gigantic scam periodically breaks through the pile of lies emitted by the cappie press, the imperialist thieves point their fingers at the floor traders who are hustling futures contracts at the petroleum exchanges in New York, London and Singapore. These floor traders are no more than highly compensated foot soldiers and patsies of the imperialist thieves.