http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3479342The above is a link to a thread in General Discussions that someone asked me to post here. I will summarize the main points. There are lots of links and much more discussion in the thread itself.
Basically, Goldman Sachs is accused of manipulating the price of oil using the Enron Loophole, raising prices by 50% to 100%. This makes profit for it and the oil companies, both through speculation and for Goldman Sachs own oil refineries (yes, it is in the oil business, so it sets its own price). Goldman Sachs also owns several large utilities. In Texas, it owns what used to be TXU. Through Luminant, it controls electricity wholesale rates which have been doing an Enron-California number this summer spiking up to 20 times their normal rate some hours driving competitor electricity retailers out of business driving up consumer rates (Texas is now deregulated thanks to the GOP--it was supposed to save money) and allowing Luminant to lobby for more nuclear reactors which it can suddenly boast will be
cost efficient in the new world of $2500 killowatt-hour electricity that the state faces. Yes, Luminant (owned by Goldman Sachs) not only controls wholesale electricity rates, it also owns nukes and wants to build more of them despite stiff opposition from people in Dallas and Fort Worth who say that they will use up scarce local water and will produce overpriced electricity.
In other states, Goldman Sachs is able to make investments in more friendly solar technology, safe in the knowledge that it can keep energy prices high enough that it will see return on its investment. Solar is great. Market manipulation is not.
And Goldman Sachs also owns a utility that--get this---supplies oil refineries. So, it can brown out oil refineries and affect oil supplies in the U.S.
that way. No word on whether federal regulators have investigated them to see if they have tried that tactic, but someone should. I recall a bunch of refineries being off line last year and the year before that.
It is ridiculous to try to hold a meaningful discussion about the economics of energy investment when you realize that companies like Goldman Sachs--which in 2004 gave more money to the political parties and candidates in the US than any other company--game the system in order to keep energy prices the way that they want them. If Goldman Sachs wants to build nuclear reactors in North Texas, Goldman Sachs will brown out the electricity supply in North Texas, its electricity retail unity will make out like a bandit, its politicians in Austin will look the other way, eventually people will agree that something has to be done and work will begin on nuclear reactors that will not go online for years....
It is all a shell game.
Real scientific and manufacturing companies, that are actually researching real advances in nuclear technology and trying to build state of the art reactors that will last should be the first to condemn this new breed of
Enron type robber barons , because companies like Goldman Sachs are going to cover the United States with defective shoddily built nukes that they have no intention of maintaining since all they want to do is make a quick buck and move on to the next get quick rich scheme.
Oh, and if the oil companies or the Saudis ever see their prices drop, all they have to do is get Al Qaeda, which the Bush administration has made stronger in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo, blow up one of these nuclear power plants that have absolutely
no security except rent a cops (because their owners want people to think of them as good neighbors) and suddenly we will all be back on the oil and coal standard again. But only after the Goldman Sachs of the world have taken us all for a few trillion dollars that we could have spent in a diversified energy portfolio instead.
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