It has something to do with that I'm sure...

Russia and China signed one of, if not the largest energy agreement the world has seen this past summer. Not much of it was reported in the News but if you look around you can find information on it...

China holds large amounts of US debt as most everyone with a brain already knows...

The energy deal was a big step that in the future could greatly devalue the US dollar on a World stage potentially allowing for a new currency to become the Standard....Crush the Russian economy, drive energy costs down, make the deal worthless and it lessons the chances of that happening.

I think that is the big driver behind all of this....

Time will tell...

Being a skeptic and hearing us regular folks tell me they've switched all their new market money into oil rich energy stocks got me thinking. Are the money managers on wall street "honey potting us"? Was new investment dollars starting to dry up because the market was consider to be at the top swing by some? A temporary downturn would certainly bring new investment. How many people are investing in energy that weren't 6 months ago? I guess they have their new long term money now since most will just leave it in the energy game.

Nothing to do with oil, well may be little, but with all the debt the US has, don't be surprised if there will be a new currency that will pretty much wipe out the debt we have overseas. Dollar is out, Colombus is in, or whatever they will call it. Kinda like the Euro switch. It's coming, as well as states will depart from the "united" stature. Remember this post later. :(

If we're going to complain about record profits let's take a look at big pharma. They operate at margins comparable to big oil. Anyone want to complain about their blood pressure meds or viagra?

Big oil and big pharma are well protected sacred cows .

Tamiflu, the flu meds with the "big people in the little house" ads on TV.......$200 for two tiny 5-6 oz bottles. Luckily insurance paid for 85%

the availability of shale oil to US refiners started to affect the market share of the saudi oil. Saudi oil is cheaper to produce(wells are decades old) than shale/fracking operations. I think the break even point on some of these are in the 60-80 $/Bbl range. They are simply trying to drive those companies out of business to regain and protect their market share. The first people to feel it is people like ICU, push boat, supply boat companies, machine shops that manufacture the drill pipe and bits. The bigger co's will start to squeeze them first, the ones that were not over extended and diversivied will survive, the others will either get bought out or go under.

And you can blame the strike on the current rise in gas prices

Agree we should be using all the natural gas we can. At least as a supplement to coal / oil. More of a push for vehicles to use natural gas as well.

As for OW. I would not call it a scam. IMHO They could not get their supply up and they thought that if the got more diversified in banking that the would have a pos cash flow.

I still find it strange that people in the Western world still don't under stand that all the rules and regulations only work with those who want to play by the West's rules. The New players coming into power with technology, manufacturing, production understand they don't need the West to survive. FPCA, SOX, EPA, Unions, all the litigation, not saying it is bad but it does go to the bottom line. I feel it just crushes certain economies like the O&G field.

The next few months should be interesting.

I hope so:) I am in plastics (downstream oil) and my wife is in pharma. I figured if you can't beat'em join'em. I am running for office next.

That has been going on for about a little over a yr now. The Big boys have been giving away dumb iron, really hurting a lot of shops.