[extropy-chat] Re: peak oil debate framed from a game theory standpoint ?

[Brian Atkins]

Ok let me simplify and just ask you and/or Hal this:

If we are to accept that longer term crude futures contracts have any worthwhile 
prediction capabilities, how do we explain the fact that the current October 
2005 contract (CLV5):

<http://charts3.barchart.com/chart.asp?vol=Y&jav=adv&grid=Y&org=stk&sym=CLV5&data=E&code=BSTK&evnt=adv>

essentially just has mirrored over its lifetime the spot cash price:

<http://charts3.barchart.com/chart.asp?vol=Y&jav=adv&grid=Y&org=stk&sym=CLY0&data=E&code=BSTK&evnt=adv>

If it truly had some predictive power shouldn't it already have jumped up closer 
to $60 when it started off? As recently as May of this year it was below $50, 
and back as late as June 2004 it was below $40. If the market is so intelligent, 
or moved by the opinionated, why didn't it forsee yet more worldwide demand, 
continuing strained supply etc.? And is Hal's analysis that we should look to 
the 2008-2011 future prices as proof of no upcoming oil price spike really worth 
considering?

All I see from those two charts is a market dominated by shorter term analysis, 
perhaps as short as 3 months or less, with no significant deviation of the 
longer term contracts from the immediate consensus at any given time.
-- 
Brian Atkins
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/