They only reason they have put this big change on the cost of fuel is so that they can easily come back in a year or two - just when they think this wasn't such a good idea and they're losing even more control - and say that, "Well, fuel isn't as expensive now, so let's start meeting again for the book study."
Gas my A$$
by writerpen 24 Replies latest jw friends
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Robdar
Well, why waste the gas going to the book study when you need the gas for field circus?
Besides, it's more fun to wake people up on Saturday morning. LOL
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DJK
If gas were an issue, why wait until January?
Seems to me the WTS may be paranoid about something, or they expect larger donations at the regular sessions.
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skeeter1
Remember how the housing market had a bubble in it, and now it's sliding down fast? The buble was caused by investors.
Investors are causing the current gas crisis... There is a huge bubble in what we are paying. It's not real demand that's driving my gas to be $3.69 a gallon (and that's at Costco). If I were president, I'm ready to get rid of speculators....
Speculators blamed for sky-high prices for oil, other commodities
12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, March 25, 2008
By JIM LANDERS [email protected]
WASHINGTON – India's petroleum secretary has urged Washington and London to shut down commodity exchanges selling crude futures because he believes they are largely responsible for a sharp spike in oil prices.
In the U.S., biofuel producers blame corn futures speculators for pushing prices so high that no one will lend money for new ethanol projects.
They are reacting to a stampede of investment dollars into commodities that has helped push oil, gold and grain prices to sky-high levels.
They also reflect an instinctive suspicion that speculators periodically drive commodity prices far beyond where consumption and supply meet in the marketplace.
Commodities like gold and, increasingly, oil are also seen as a hedge against inflation. So even though consumption of precious metals for jewelry and oil for gasoline may be falling in an ailing economy, investors are buying both to protect their savings.
Last week, commodity prices dropped as banks toughened credit terms, regulators demanded higher margins and inflationary expectations cooled somewhat.
Traditional commodity futures help producers and consumers insure themselves from sharp price fluctuations.
Southwest Airlines Co., for example, has famously stayed ahead of skyrocketing fuel bills by buying jet fuel futures contracts priced far lower than markets demanded at the time Southwest actually took delivery of the fuel.
Sometimes these contracts are options, which allow the buyer to purchase the commodity at the contract price at any time prior to an agreed expiration date.
In the last five years, trading in futures and options has exploded. The Futures Industry Association reports a jump from 6.2 billion contracts in 2002 to 15.2 billion last year. The increase in 2007 alone was 28 percent.
This year, the financial press is full of accounts of investors like pension funds and investment banks buying commodities as they flee stocks, bonds and real estate.
Unlike Southwest Airlines, which buys these contracts because it wants the oil, the current wave of investors is speculating on commodities with no intent to take delivery of the actual goods.
They hope to sell the contract for a profit to someone who will.
"Pension funds in particular are feeling pressured by shareholders concerned that the stock market is just doing very poorly, so there's nowhere to go, probably, but commodities," said Harold Zhang, a finance professor with the University of Texas at Dallas School of Management.
Individual investors are also taking part.
"There's silver, gold, energy ... all sorts of ways you can just buy a commodities index share through your broker," said Brian Bruce, a professor at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. "It's a very easy way for new buyers to get into this."
But an investor's safe harbor may bring on a consumer's hurricane. Commercial commodities traders – those who make and sell the goods – are getting pushed to the sidelines by speculators, leading to complaints that prices have lost touch with actual supply and demand.
Late last year, India Petroleum Secretary M.S. Srinivasan said a halt in crude futures trading would lead to "a drastic reduction in the price."
There are "no supply constraints right now, and demand has not escalated out of control," he said.
Grain prices are far above year-earlier levels, due in part to the huge demands of U.S. biofuel producers that are consuming about a fourth of the U.S. corn crop. But the ethanol boom does not explain why rice is up 50 percent since the start of the year.
China has become the catchall explanation for booming commodities prices.
But even in an economy with a voracious appetite for raw materials, supply and demand are distorted. Price controls hold down gasoline and electricity prices, encouraging consumption but creating spot shortages and blackouts that feed panic buying.
The Chinese, hit with 23.3 percent inflation for food over the last year, are also starting to balk at prices demanded by foreign suppliers. Premier Wen Jiabao promised this month to hold inflation to 4.8 percent for the year.
Even in an economy still subject to government commands, it's hard to see what Beijing can do about speculation.
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journey-on
I can almost guarantee that saving the b & s $$ on gas is not the real reason behing the change. It may be the spin reason,
but it's not the real reason. I foresee so many new changes in the years ahead because the witnesses have become so complacent
with the same ole same ole, that any new thing at all gets them all hyped up....."O-ooo! this must be because the end is s-ooo close! We
better stick around and see what's changing next!"
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Alpaca
I agree that gas is a smoke screen for real reasons to axe the BS.
The BORG is in real trouble with the internet and the consolidation of the meetings is one more control mechanism to stifle independent thinking.
Hopefully, this will backfire.
Alex
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skeeter1
Another thread is blaming child molestation as the cause for the BS change.
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journey-on
It could be a combination of things: more opportunity for child molestation, more opportunity to develop closer familial relationships
with others and openly discuss doubts, too many complaints about too many meetings, a need for more field service activity thus
freeing up an extra day, vulnerability for lawsuits, people just getting tired of the same old rehashed literature.
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keyser soze
This would actually be a practical reason to reduce the number of meeting nights during the week. Too bad it's complete bullshit.
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watchthem
Gas is just an excuse. Yes why wait till end of the year? Do they have special info that 2009 will be the worst time? the right time? What is prices drop then? We are already having problems now! Many are just exhausted from a vicious cycle of work, meetings, family, shopping, bills and so on and on and on. One can run a race if he knows that there is a finish line. Now with no end in sight who is going to run the race like before? Is it damage control before the inevitable happens? By the way the TMS schedules for 2008 is already out so we cannot go back and change that can we? We have to wait till the schedule is over. We don't change retail, we change wholesale.
Very confused and sad. All the guilt feelings we got for missing BS. All the wifes who left their husband(unhappy) and family(unhappy) at home to attend this very important meeting. who got beatings to attend? who risked their lives to transport people to these meetings?, what to say to them? No longer need, why didn't do in the first place? No insight? Didn't expect times will be this difficult in the last days? The world had a GAS problem in the 70's, what happend then? GAS is the god of this system of things? GAS decides what our future will be. When we run out of GAS no more meetings, FS all gone. We burn GAS just to put in hours so no one bugs us about low hours in the FS (with no results), money burned for nothing. This is bad man. GAS! This is really giving me GAS!