Why Shipping Is Going To Get Even More Expensive

Posted by Pam Molloy on 1/9/2012 to Preparedness

The most frequently asked questions we get are regarding the cost of shipping. We keep the prices of our products as low as we possibly can. When we get discounts from our suppliers, we pass them on. We look for the most economical method of transport and we charge what we are charged. In April of 2011, the U.S. experienced a rather severe hike in costs and it was explained, in part, as an increase in the surcharges. Surcharges are an additional charge added by the shipping company to cover increases in their fuel costs. Why have fuel costs risen so much? Wars in the Middle East? Are the big oil refining companies getting greedier? Really? In case you are unaware of how oil prices are set, I would like to share a wonderful article written by Chris Kahn, emphasis mine. Everything that costs you money is manipulated by those who make their money by 'changing' money.

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Oil Prices Fall as Concerns About Iran Retreat

    By CHRIS KAHN, AP Energy Writer

    NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices started the week lower after analysts said that nations should have ample supplies regardless of Iran’s threats to block exports from the Persian Gulf.

    Benchmark crude on Monday fell by 84 cents to $100.72 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price foreign oil varieties that are imported by U.S. refineries, fell 80 cents $112.26 per barrel in London.

    Prices climbed last week on fears that Iran could try to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in response to international sanctions. One-sixth of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the narrow strait, and traders feared that a conflict in the region would slow down crude shipments out of the Persian Gulf.

    Morgan Stanley analysts pointed out over the weekend that producers can always bypass the strait by transporting oil through pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Libya also has been ramping up oil fields that were idled during last year’s rebellion, and its exports will help replenish stockpiles.

    Also, Morgan Stanley analyst Hussein Allidina said, Europe’s soft economy will further depress the world’s energy appetite this year.

    “If tension in the Mideast recedes, the premium that has been built into crude prices is likely to fade, sending crude prices lower,” Allidina said in a research note.

    Europe’s flagging economy remains a major source of concern for oil traders. Less government spending is expected to constrict economic growth and possibly send the eurozone into recession this year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy met Monday to work on ways to boost the continent’s flagging economy.

Please excuse my repetition. Oil crashed into the $30's when the US economy was being bailed out by President’s Bush and Obama. There has been no job recovery yet and we have kept running record deficits ever since. In fact, though employment figures are slightly less horrific, nothing has changed at all or has it?

Now it seems, out of nowhere, Europe is trillions in debt, the EU is coming apart, the Pound is unstable, the Euro hopeless, all facts unknown to analysts in the oil trade who set prices at $37 dollars. Europe was just fine then and America was as it is now, pretty much.

Get the picture?

Oil should be at $20 dollars, gasoline here should be at $1.35, the US would have no trade deficit because of this, our economic recovery would be spectacular, everyone would go out and buy a new SUV, employment would be up, spendable income would increase dramatically or are there signs that this is simply “not allowed.”

Can the manipulation of oil prices be seen as a sign of the collective economies of the US and EU as being systematically pushed into debt for the profit of banks, with oil companies fully participating and no government saying a word.

Worse yet, governments, so many of them, seem to be enjoying destroying themselves as though it were some kind of sick game.

Let’s add two more factors to this:

    * New oil discoveries have placed “inventories” worldwide at 40% above last year’s estimates. Oil is being found everywhere, West Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, in fact oil companies are now actually afraid to look. It seems the planet is floating on oil
    * World natural gas supplies are the same, supplies are infinite, cheap to deliver and wholesale prices are collapsing.
    * Energy technology, including “cold fusion,” long presented and “junk science” are turning out to be “suppressed science” instead. Surprise, Surprise.

What should we be asking?

The big question, why has nobody said anything about this? Why isn’t President Obama screaming from the rooftops or Ron Paul standing on a milk crate on some lonely corner in New Hampshire?

For the average family, the savings are enough to pay rent or a house payment, fuel costs are that much. If we add a 75% reduction to heating bills, which is where the natural gas market really is, what would that do?

Oh, did I forget? Last year we had the highest increase in food prices in history. Food prices are driven, primarily, by the price of diesel, which should almost be free except for market manipulation. Currently, the Bush family has taken a position in “corn” which means “ethanol.”

Imports of corn for ethanol will crash the market, this is already in motion and has been for months.

Food should nearly be free, not going up 2% per month.

This is all being rigged too.

We don’t need ethanol for gasoline, in fact we probably won’t need gasoline in 3 years, not if we use new technologies. I saw my first 100 mpg gasoline engine, powerful and conventional two years ago. It puts out more horsepower than most hybrids and has no batteries, motors or other such wasteful expense. It was so “green” that you could pump its exhaust into an incubator.

We have a hundred suppressed technologies, have done everything possible to kill mass transit in the US and have worked, day and night, to make it impossible for Americans to survive.

The cash for a nationwide mag-lev train system sits in the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, one trillion dollars of private funds, held up for years.

This is 400,000 jobs.

The project, and I have seen the court filings, the bank transfers, the pay orders, has been held up for years now, a project that would end much of America’s unemployment and make national travel at over 300 mph dirt cheap and totally clean.

The game?

We are going to send “the fleet” to threaten Iran, pretend that oil should be $100 per gallon when we don’t need it at all, keep putting the $3.49 per gallon signs at the gas stations and keep selling hamburger for $2.89 per pound instead of $1.39.

Electric bills will stay triple what they should, natural gas even more.

Cell phones, internet and television will always cost equal to half your rent with every source priced within pennies of the other although all use government paid for resources resold to the public.

Some call it slavery.

Eventually, some may call it a time for war.