some of the gyrations are due to OPEC. But they are just a piece of the puzzle, a smaller one than in the 1970s.
On 1/16/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 11/29/06, Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Doug Henwood wrote: > > > > On Nov 29, 2006, at 12:54 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > > > > > In the last 50 years how many > > > price-changes of a few dollars a barrel have there been? > > > > The average of the absolute value of the yearly change in the yearly > > average price of oil is 22% since 1861; 27% since 1970. In other > > words, the price of oil is extremely volatile. > > O.K. And the implication I would draw from this is that when a point > wanders all over the place all the time _nothing_ whatever can be > inferred from one particular variation, or even half a dozen. I'm not > sure what even in principle _might_ a variation that could be assigned > any meaning. One of the determinants would be the degree of capacity for collective action on the part of oil producers, and it would be interesting to track that. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
-- Jim Devine / "Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty is ridiculous." -- Voltaire.
