Commodity bear market now worse than stocks' slide

Los Angeles Times

October 16, 2008

In the retail business, a half-off sale usually attracts a swarm of shoppers.

So far, that isn't happening in the battered commodity market, where buyers pretty much remain on strike.

Oil on Thursday joined the lengthening list of raw materials now marked down at least 50% from their record highs: Crude futures in New York slid for a third straight day, losing $4.69 to $69.85 a barrel.

That left the price down 52% from its record close of $145.29 a barrel on July 3.

Oil's plunge has been steeper than the stock market's dive. The Standard & Poor's 500 index has fallen 39.5% from its all-time high reached a year ago... .

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Again, why should and how could the average middle class or poor American identify with commodity futures traders and investors who are whimpering daily about falling crude oil prices?

We on limited incomes have been under virtual house arrest for the last year as gasoline prices climbed from $2.60 a gallon to a ridiculous $3.50 or more.

I encountered no mercy or compassion from any energy company CEO, any wealthy war-mongering Bush administration neocon, or any New York Mercantile Exchange wheeler and dealer as I put off a 150-mile shopping trip to my regional commercial center month after wearying month because I could not fit a tank of $3.50 gasoline into my budget.

These Republicans did not give a damn that I could not afford to go anywhere. They passed by on the other side, as it were, confident their bubble of prosperity was as impervious to loss or change as my poverty is grinding. 

I have no doubt that those making the most from petroleum drilling and refining will find a way to prevent market forces from causing the cost of gasoline to fall to a level commensurate with my income. 

But while they are fumbling and fretting with the methodology of their return to preeminence, I will enjoy whatever limited relief I may encounter at the gas pump.

Call it evidence of Marx' anticipated proletariat v. bourgeoisie clash.

Call it evidence of unregulated laissez-faire capitalism running rampant after eight years of Republican neocon policies of looking the other way while their legions in the financial sector screwed the rest of us.

Call the present market slide what you will in support of your ideological and political predispositions.

There is no denying the presence of a predictable and inevitable clash in America between poor wage and hour workers on the one hand and their typically white collar asset owning and manipulating counterparts on the other.

What is good for the investor is often bad for the person on limited income.

Investors lament deflation because their income and assets will be reduced.  This is understandable and predictable.  If one's income is derived from quarterly dividends on crude oil futures, one doesn't want crude oil to fall in value.

On the other hand, if one subsists on a fixed retirement income or a wage and hour job, he or she prays that crude oil prices will continue to fall, permitting a penurious monthly income to go further.

This inevitable clash in aims, goals, and self-interests will dog America so long as greedy corporate capitalism sets the tone for all things. Capitalism has won every round in the United States for far too long.  She will most likely prevail in the present upheaval.
 
But someday, somewhere, at some time, the masses will waken from their lethargy and rise up against their masters here and in every other society where a moneyed class makes the rules, skims the profits, and arrogantly professes an inherent right to the best of the fruits of society.

Enjoy your hegemony while you can, capitalists.  Your days are numbered.  A fairer and more just order in society is inevitable.

D. Grant Haynes