Oil Price Plunge - Nomad's Paranoid Musings


In a decline that started almost exactly concurrant with the U.S. election, oil has lost 22% of its value. Peaking at $55.17 just before the election, oil has plunged to $42.80 in the subsequent weeks, and it appears to be a good distance from bottoming out.

Call me crazy, but I have a hard time seeing this as coincidence. Forces around the globe had a vested interest in seeing George W. Bush booted from office. Many oil producing Arab states were of course, at the top of this list, as Bush has doggedly sought change in the Arab world that threatens the longstanding control of many of the region's despots. Russia, which produces its own significant portion of the world's oil, and has a leader who is proving to be less West and freedom friendly than we had hoped, may also have preferred a Kerry administration. Other oil producers like Mexico have had cool relations with the president. My paranoid mind suspects some (if not all) of these players working to deliberately raise prices in the weeks leading up to the election in order to create an economic panic that would tilt the election in Kerry's favor.

I've been looking for some commentary to support my delusions, but have come up dry to date. I'll keep looking. I do recall stumbling across a blogger's suspicions that George Soros, who has a history of manipulating commodities markets, had the means and the motive to lend his speculative weight to any temporary upsurge in oil prices.

Here is a reasonable piece from NRO on the decline from a few days ago.

I am sure Leuffer is correct about the underlying fear factors that contributed to oil's 2004 rise in price. What doesn't sit well with me (and is clear from the chart above) is the sudden, drastic and historic skyrocket that occurred from July to the end of October (interrupted slightly by a downtick after the GOP Convention). Alone, that surge might not be enough to raise my suspicions, but followed immediately by a complete collapse of the bubble that corresponds so closely with Bush's reelection... I have a hard time swallowing it.
- served up by Nomad @ 1:59 PM