Report from the International Oil Price Fixing Convention

This past week the 41st annual International Oil Price Fixing Convention was held in Houston. While in the past it has been located at an undisclosed location within the underground convention center complex in Geneva, Switzerland, the price of airfares became prohibitive. Because every major oil company in the U.S. and Western Europe has major operations in Houston, it seemed only appropriate to host it within easy driving distances of most of the attendees. The price was steep, but I was able to negotiate a pro-rated price with Sherry, the receptionist, since I was only going to attend the Saturday portion of the convention.

The first presentation was from the Italian economist Giovanni Illuminati who gave a devastating epistemological deconstruction of theories posited by Nobel Laureate John Forbes Nash and the accepted solution to Prisoner’s Dilemma. He revealed that, in fact, a long-term international cabal to manipulate prices was not only feasible, but because class determines one’s form of logic, massive conspiracies are inevitable.

The second presentation was from the Disinformation Section President. One of the more impressive accomplishments of this group was their ability to hack into California Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ word-a-day e-mail subscription and remove the word “Nationalize”. The direct effect of these efforts can be seen in this video here

Text from the video:

Waters responded, in part, "And guess what this liberal would be all about. This liberal will be about socializing … uh, um. …"

The congresswoman paused to collect her thoughts.

"Would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies. …"

The Disinformation Section President also clued us in on Operation Truth in Plain Sight. Because Rep. Ron Paul’s candidacy for President has led him to be much more visible, and being the only person in Congress who understands that the weak dollar is a main driver of oil prices, he needed to be marginalized. The organization has funneled well over $1.2 million dollars of campaign donations from a laundry list of cranks and crackpots. They have also fed news stories to dim journalists to create a heuristic halo of crazy around the good Congressman from Texas. The Section President extended his thanks to the good people of the Wall Street Banking conspiracy for their assistance in these efforts.

During the question and answer session, a young gentleman asked some questions on how U.S. companies can continue to maintain a worldwide collusion over the price of oil. The Section President answered that through the assistance of consultants from TMZ and People Magazine we have been able to blackmail a number of world leaders to toe the line. Apparently, Vladmir Putin has an obsession with Rocky IV, Red Dawn, and Molly Ringwald, which would not bode well for his nationalistic credentials. As for a number of Arab Sheiks, what happens in Dubai, unlike Vegas, does not stay in Dubai. The student then pressed for any new hopes of controlling Hugo Chavez’s behavior. The Section President stated relations have remained tense with him for some time. Some progress was thought possible after Big Oil convinced the Houston Rockets to return their colors to Chavez’s favorite red. (Hugo was in agreement with many local fans that the unsightly navy blue uniforms cost them at least two championships.) However, he considered the Chinese influence on the logo font was in his words, “A slap in the face to the people of Venezuela.”

The next speaker of the Saturday convention meetings was Jim Kazlinsky. Around two years ago, ExxonMobil’s CEO and Convention Chair Rex Tillerson was surfing the internet only to stumble upon a banner ad that guaranteed a 78% return over 9-months. Eventually he was able to track down Mr. Kazlinsky and his former college roommate who had set up E-trade and Forex accounts on their home computers after finally passing their Series 6 exams. Both men had apparently won several stock picking contests amongst their friends in college. Mr. Kazlinsky, through the aid of several charts and some pretty sweet youtube videos explained to us that Eugene Fama’s Efficient Market Hypothesis was totally wrong. One chart revealed that oil prices had been going up for several years now and that if we had only bought a series of call options we could have made a profit of no less than 3500%. It was through his iconoclastic presentation two years ago that the Exorbitant Profits Council was able to spread the word that speculation in the market was a guarantee of profits and also a way to lift oil prices into the stratosphere. Mr. Kazlinsky continued his presentation by comparing the rise in the price of oil to the beanie baby bubble of the mid 1990s. Using a highly technical linear approximation technique he referred to as “eye-balling” we can predict that oil prices will plunge beginning late this year.

After Mr. Kazlinsky left the stage, Chairperson Tillerson had some ominous accusations as well. Someone, possibly in the room at that moment, had leaked information on oil price speculation to the Daily Kos website. What had been a highly profitable, low cost collusion had now prompted Congressional hearings and significant patronage would now have to be paid.

The last presentation of the evening was a forward look into the future. The Propaganda Section had already created a number of videos of “Average Americans” who had been wiped out by investing their hard earn money in oil futures and under cut by evil short sellers. A draft bailout of oil future investors hurt by the oil bust has been drafted. It was their expectation that no less than 90% of the bailout money would go to corporations secretly owned by Big Oil.

After the presentations, we had a great dinner. The party lasted well into the night. Royal Dutch Shell’s CEO Jeroen van der Veer got a little soused and forced a clearly uncomfortable James Mulva (ConocoPhillips) up on stage to sing a few Hank Williams karaoke songs. Till next year.