i might be wrong here and there on this and please correct me, someone, if i am...
but this is my 'take' on how
'they' shaft us on a daily basis......
oil is sold in 'futures contracts'...basically a trader takes a stab at what the price of oil
will be at some point in the future..and buys the futures contract..
if, when the time comes, the oil price is lower than the guess they took when they bought it..they lose money..
if, when the time comes, the oil price is higher than that guess...the make a mint!
at least that is how it is supposed to work............
but its not.....
what happens is...as soon as the contract is bought, it is re-sold, again and again and again.....maybe hundreds of times....on the stock market, before the contract matures...if that is the right word..
so!
when the oil is extracted, it costs about 5-20 $ per barrel.....
once it has been through the stock market......and the processes and ''service'' that we are told that these 'good people' are doing for us, that we cant live without...it costs about 75-100 $ per barrel...
so someone is making a lot of money for not doing very much.....