Quote:
Originally Posted by Donger
It's pretty simple. Do you see any gas stations that have no gas for sale?
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I've given this more and more thought and the answer I think is simple although not entirely obvious. The key to this is speculation. Speculation on the prices of oil by investors raises the price and curtails demand in advance of supply side shortage, in effect the speculators jumpstart the price and profit off of it before it gets to the point of a real shortage.
I think if you mull that over for awhile you will see that this is not only likely, but in todays economic world it's almost inevitable. I believe it would be difficult to have a true shortage of anything today unless it somehow caught us by complete surprise such as a natural disaster drastically changing a commodity market. Speculation will always get their first if there are any real indicators to lead off of, and in this case there were tons and tons.