If the price of oil is based on supply and demand,?

why does the price continue to decline while OPEC continues to drastically reduce their supplies? Is the demand, realistically, any less than it was when oil was being sold for $147/barrel (just a short time ago)? Now it's at only $35/barrel. My personal opinion: the speculators (those who can afford to lose money) are the ones who control all the markets. Do not be deceived by these greedy S_ofa_B's who are all about creating Hell on Earth for the masses while they lounge around, consuming the harvest which was meant for all. They feel they have the right to reap what they do not sow.If the price of oil is based on supply and demand,?
ur right. its the speculators





if the price was based on supply and demand, for gas prices to drop this much, something huge had to cause it (like an atomic war, massive flu epidemic, discovering how to use crap as energy or something to SEVERELY reduces the number of consumers)


in these days supply and demand might be responsible for maybe .15 or .20 cents difference but defiantly not $2-3 differences





sure i see the freeways these day with a FEW less drivers but thats not enough to force oil companies to desperately reduce the price by this muchIf the price of oil is based on supply and demand,?
OPEC might cut supply on paper, but in reality, they are still pumping the same or more.





Think about it.. You are an OPEC member. Your economy is going down the tubes because of the global crisis and you need money. Are you going to sell less oil in hopes that prices rise? Or are you going to nod and winkle to your OPEC buddies and then call the President of your State Run Oil Company and tell him to open the taps, we need that oil sold yesterday? Its not like there are any OPEC Police watching the output of its member nations.





And proof is in the fact that oil inventories keep rising, not falling. Until inventories drop, prices will keep falling.
It isn't.
I feel like your question was more of a political statement than an economics question, as you already seem to have your mind made up, but I'll try to answer anyways.





First off, remember that OPEC is not the only producer of oil. Russia and Canada (In fact, The United States buys more crude from Canada than any other country), for example, are non-OPEC nations that produce a large amount of crude. While OPEC can cut supply, Russian companies must accelerate production to keep revenue up in the face of lower prices. This increse in supply helps keep prices down.





Secondly, last years price spikes were a long time coming, and had very little to do with speculators. The skyrocketing demand for oil in China and India, coupled with inflation in the States was a price jump waiting to happen. In economics it is very easy to look at the surface of a problem from the sideline and come up with all sorts of explinations on things, remember in this science you must do detailed and unbiased research to find the answers.