The European antitrust authorities have finally carried out inspections of oil firms in three countries, as well as the offices of the price-index publisher Platts (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/15/us-oil-pricing-platts-idUSBRE94E0NG20130515) to determine whether the oil firms with the cognizance of Platts distorted published prices of crude oil and petroleum products. It is a first...

In a scolding editorial yesterday, "Targeting Jamie Dimon," the WSJ berates the "activist shareholders and the ususal media scolds pushing for JP Morgan to strip Mr. Dimon of his Chairman's role in the name of better corporate governance... that the JPMorgan chairman and CEO now finds himself the...

In 2004, nearly nine years ago, at the beginning of the school year, an incident took place of such murderous hatred that its happening serves as the defining dimension of the nature of the separatist insurgency and violence that have shaken Chechnya since Muslim rebels have been agitating for independence...

Headlined in Sunday's New York Times, front page lead column "Short Of Money, Egypt Sees Crisis On Fuel and Food" goes into the grim details that Egypt is at the precipice of an acute food shortage, and that Egypt's desperately scarce wheat, needed to feed a growingly restive...

In a classic example of crony board behavior, in spite of the grossly embarrassing Senate hearings highlighting massive fissures in JP Morgan's trading oversight and management, highlighting a corporate policy of proprietary trading, more clearly translated as rote gambling, that was not only countenanced but encouraged by management resulting in...

JP Morgan has finally, finally been brought to account in the congressional hearings yesterday. The alacrity and seeming ease with which $6 billion were spirited away trading in proprietary derivatives by the "London Whale" with seemingly conspiratorial oversight by top management was breathtaking in its full-bore lack of assumed responsibility...

The "arbitrary and dumb" budget cuts brought about by the sequester is a shameful exercise of government mismanagement most especially and precariously in these difficult economic times.

No matter the obdurate positions of Republicans and Democrats alike, the resulting indiscriminate across the board reduction in government spending without thought to...

The title of the article in Friday's Wall Street Journal -- "Drivers Feel Pinch of Climbing Gas Prices" -- says it all. Yet we have an anomaly in our courts, irresponsibly supported by the executive and legislative branches of our government, in the manner that our courts interpret...

Among the most salient arguments in defense of the Keystone Pipeline is the perception that the oil originating in Alberta Canada is from a safe and politically reliable source. This in sharp contrast to current U.S. imports of crude oil from the Venezuela of Chavez and the Saudi Arabia of...

On February 10 Bloomberg reported that "Putin Turns Black Gold Into Bullion as Russia Out-Buys World," advising that the world's largest oil producer's central bank has added some 570 metric tons of gold over the last several years for a total inventory of 958 tons. This while the...

In his letter of resignation from the post of Energy Secretary, Chu characterized his Department as a "Department of Science, a Department of Innovation, and a Department of Nuclear Security." He then goes on to point out the myriad achievements and initiatives during his tenure ranging from BioEnergy...

Chuck Hagel needs be asked many questions but one overriding issue is Hagel's relationship to the interests of the oil producers from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and on. Questions to the formation of oil prices, and the interests generally of the oil and gas industry whose history has proven all too...

What a newspaper chooses to print goes hand in hand with their editorial proclivities, most especially what commentary that is selected to propagate issues reflecting the paper's mindset. Recently this was clearly the case whereby the New York Times elected to regale its readership by twice publishing a...

With the price of oil hitting a year-long all-time high, averaging over $111 barrel for Brent crude, OPEC's benchmark, the OPEC oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia will glom more than a $1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) in net oil revenue, a record windfall in 2012. This, in spite of weak...

There she was, on the December 26th letters to the editor corner of the New York Times, militating against the extraction of America's vast resources of shale gas and oil through fracking technology. Yoko Ono's condemnation is absolute and without equivocation nor codified substantiation: "But the evidence shows...

The price we pay for gasoline is derived in large measure from the price of oil as quoted on the commodity exchanges. We are told that these prices are a reflection of an unencumbered and freely traded commodity reflecting a true universe of supply and demand. Really?

The U.S. benchmark...

This is something I had hoped never to be writing about, not because it's secret, but rather because it is so gruesome I had purposely never brought it up, nor was I ever inclined to discuss the issue. It is one of those kernels of information best left unsaid and...

Warren Buffett, that "Oracle of Omaha," who at the height of the financial crisis, having invested billions in Goldman bonds, instructed us through every microphone or camera he could find that we should understand that all those wonderful "Abacus" deals cobbled together by Goldman Sachs costing their client-investors into the...

Some four weeks ago the New York Times published an article on page four under the fold that appeared more as a curiosity than hard news ("Hamas Finds Itself Aligned With Israel Over Extremist Groups" 10.20.12). Given the events over the past week, the Times' reportage has taken...

"In the forty year history of OPEC there has never been the case of the Secretary of Energy calling OPEC in the middle of an OPEC meeting... We are upset and disappointed at external pressure. We don't like it."

To his everlasting credit, this was the comment elicited from the...