Eff'n All

If anyone (including BushCo) thinks that corn ethanol will save us in the bottom of the 9th inning, they need to first expend a few brain cells in digesting the logic of this post at Pharyngula. Not that we have a game-clock or 9-inning rule to judge the winners and losers, we simply have to assume that a practical solution obeys its own time table.

Until that time, lots of money will get spent on subsidies (ethanol) and on (as Newberry points out) pure speculation:

The sell off the most recent speculative peak has happened. Oil prices could well drop by 15 to 20 percent, before mounting their next chage.

Oil prices rises have, as most speculative moves are, been a series of sharp spikes upward. What is important is that nothing has changed that will prevent the next spike from going higher still. This is because the speculators, most of them, are making very solid profits each time through selling to those in a supply pinch. There will be another one, and another one after that.

We have recently struggled through this already in regards to the tight speculative silver market.

And notice how the silver speculators proudly fly their flag. They admit as much to pumping the price.

Every bull market claws two steps higher before retreating one step back so corrections are totally normal and should be expected. It is futile to fight them.

Every correction and subsequent recovery lines the pockets of the investor class, likely never used in funding enhanced R&D or in educating the consumer, who keeps falling for this scheme over and over. As Big Gav said in the comments:

Anybody with a passing familiarity with the system would understand that long term futures prices are simply a function of the present - arbitrageurs guarantee it (and will keep taking money off those who aren't willing to understand how the system works forever).

End of case.