YOUR COMMENTS

SMD,Big Government makes more money,from oil,than the companies that actually provide it to us.
Then again,SMD,I'm sure you and your fellow travelers like that just fine.Don't
you,comrade.
Sheeple?Pot~Kettle~Black.
- Mike P., Manchester

It is possible to speculate in commodities and thereby influence their price. But the free market exacts a terrible punishment on the speculator who bets his money that the price of, say, crude oil is higher than it really is. You can't fake reality.

Ms. Shaheen embraces the invisible conspiracy theory, attractive to many low-income voters who don't understand the basics of commerce (and a few of them have low incomes for that reason), and predictably leaps to the self-serving conclusion that the problem is a lapse in regulation: that the government should know everything and control everything.

I hope this doesn't work, but if it does, do we blame the demagogue or ourselves?
- Spike, Brentwood NH

I'm a little surprised by the lack of foresight everybody seems to be showing here and resorting to political line bickering instead of seeking long-term solutions.

Experts agree that oil supplies are now on the down-side and that burning it to drive around, especially in guzzling vehicles, is a poor use of that resource. We need oil for many things, and will continue to need it for as long as anyone can foresee. The president even sees our dependence on oil as an "addiction" that needs to be broken. Rushing to drill everywhere to keep our prices low so we can guzzle it is like an addict doing anything for the short-term fix.

Yes, we have known we need to reduce our dependance on foreign oil for at least 30 years, but we only get more dependent on oil. Big Oil acts like a pusher for our addiction. Ironically, Big Oil is also in the best position to lead us into alternative fuels, but they fail to lead because of their huge profits doing just what they are doing now. The financial markets love big profits NOW with minimal ivestment in long-term R&D. In 30 years when we are still driving SUVs and paying $20 per gallon we will look back and wonder why we didn't take our addiction seriously. I personally like knowing ANWR is there as a resource for when it is really needed and won't be guzzled for profit.
- Jon, Bow

First to libertarian Ken Blevens. You can't simultaneously praise free markets while blaming them for high oil prices due to the activity of market participants on Wall Street.

To Gov. Shaheen, shame on you for joining in on this latest political blame game. Speculation may be having a small effect on oil prices at the margins, but that's it. Speculators don't consume any oil. If their activities were driving up prices, we'd see a large increase in oil inventories. Instead, inventories are at an all time low.

Today's energy crisis is a result of too much demand and not enough supply. Our country desperately needs leadership that can bring us together to activate America's can-do attitude and great entrepreneurial spirit. What we don't need are politicians playing to our emotions by pointing the finger of blame at faceless bogymen.
- Jim, Portsmouth

And I bet Shaheen wins??? That's insane!!!!! Pork spending, entitlements, wasteful spending, illegal immigrants etc, etc are all dooming our economy and the middle class of America. Watch out Americans, there will only be two groups: The rich and the poor.
- Jen, Manchester

Home owners are very worried to the point of almost panic over how they will heat their homes this winter. Will the elderly on fixed income freeze or must they move to a warmer climate. Filling a 275 GA. tank @6.00/GA will cost
$1, 650.00 and the average home burns 4-5 gallons a day. Do the math. Who can afford that. What about the poor? Something needs to be done now before the problem is starring us in the face 3 months from now. I call on lawmakers to do something to help their constituents...anything. That’s what we elected you for. That means YOU Gov. Lynch.
- Bob Ahern, Derry

I wonder she would have heard the complaints from folks who were paying high gas prices and her sales tax if it had passed? Do not tell me you understand the struggles of the everyday person if you were the only Governor in recent history to support a sales tax.
- Bill, Hampton

Big Oil is your friend, they care about you. Just because they have made record billion dollar profits the last couple of years is of no concern...sleep sheeple sleep.
- SMD, Merrimack, NH

Ms. Shaheen is blowing preverbal smoke, if we were going to become energy independent we should have started thirty years ago when we were warned about the looming problem. Instead we allowed the environmentalist lobby to influence the Democratic (and Republican) legislature in Washington into passing laws that have today strangled this countries and keep us dependent on foreign oil. NO drilling in the Artic, NO drilling off the cost of California, NO drilling off the cost of Florida, and all the time other countries can and are drilling 70 miles off our cost line. Now today Ms. Shaheen has the audacity to insinuate that the Bush and administration and Enron lobbyists in 2000 caused the current crises, please, Enron’s chairman meet with Clinton and Gore in the Oval office during their administration, Enron gave $420,000 to the president’s party over three years and donated $100,000 to Clintons inauguration, Enron’s chairmen stayed at the White House 11 time. We should have put into place sound energy policies years ago taping into as many streams of energy as we could from oil (where ever it maybe) to nuclear, bio-diesel, coal what ever else it took to forgo the crises at hand. I think the US government should get into the oil business clam the nations oil for the people in our national interests and drill where ever the oil is with as little impact as possible. Build government refineries were ever they have to and open up US GAS stations where ever they want and set the price of gas at what ever they see fit and if the big oil companies want to compete in this market then they’ll just have to deal with it. Shaheen is nothing more then a Pelsoi stooge, she was a bad governor and she’ll be an even worst senator.
- Anthony, Troy

Is this the sort of disingenuous demagoguery we can expect from Shaheen if she is elected to the Senate?
- Tom, Campton

Clever presentation. The largest discoveries recently found are nothing compared to the already discovered reserves which are not here or even close. Anyone that thinks that the "easy way" is to point the finger at the special interests, hasn't heard of K Street and the strange hold that lobbiests have not only in D.C. but in Concord as well. Look at our Senators. These comments are written by those whose continued richness depends upon the government not doing its job and protecting the rest of us from them. It would be one thing if you and I didn't have to pick up the tab from Bear Sterns, Enron, World Com, Keating Five, now sub-prime mortgages but we do. I'm all for people who can take the heat taking the risk but that is the very thing financial manipulators avoid at every turn.
- William, Deerfield

Guess Jeanne didn't hear Sen. Shumer when he said to withhold arm sales from Saudi Arabia until they increased production in order to drop the price of crude and gas. And out of control military spending? What about out of control entitlement spending? What about pork spending?
- Roy, Raymond

It is really scary how ignorant Jeanne is about the markets. You would think someone with her level of education and her Harvard professor position would actually understand supply and demand. Notice how she names "hedge funds and other large investors" as the culprit. Those other large investors are pension plans and are mainly controlled by public employees. I notice she also did not mention the billion dollar endowments from universities like Harvard her former employer and their impact. If you really want to punish these investors, open the supply of oil in this country for exploration and watch the price of oil drop. Since the government announced they were suspending the filling of our strategic reserves, the price of oil has dropped almost 10% and this is only 70,000 barrels of oil a day for country that consumes millions of barrels a day. Increasing supply is the real answer Jeanne. Stop pandering to your left wing constituents and really help small business owners. This issue is so cut and dry, it doesn't take a Harvard education to figure out the solution.
- Kyle, Bedford

Supply and demand IS in effect, operating on the US dollar itself. As our economy sinks into the debt hole of out of control military spending, the demand for our dollar - the confidence that it will retain value - is falling. People with dollars are looking to exchange them for something that will hold value. Voila! They buy oil futures.

Add to that underlying driver the loopholes, tax breaks and subsidies that exist and you have a pretty good model of the current situation.

Get our debt under control by reducing our bloated military budget, and at the same time reduce our dependency on oil ( no, not just 'foreign' oil, ALL oil) and the dollar will stabilize.
- tom, candia

For someone who is supposed to be brighter than the average lightbulb, this woman is being intentionally obtuse to drive those who would rather meekly follow than look at all of the reasons. She ignores standard accounting principles that demonstrate oil company profit margins remain relatively static and below 10% where other industries enjoy much higher profit margins - never mind the dollars and cents those margins represent. And she misses that these same oil companies put money back into the economy in a number of ways, not the least of which is employment. If she can't see this picture accurately, then what other ones that are only NH's will she miss or misread?
- Ellen, Portland

Excessive speculation driving oil cost (up and down)

As we've seen over and over, when Democrats and Republicans look the other way, rules get bent and broken by special interest campaign contributors , and middle-class families pay the price. Filling up the tank is tough enough for New Hampshire families and small businesses without letting Wall Street and Big Oil reach into their pockets. It's time to return real free market ideals into energy markets. And it's time for new leadership in Washington that puts freedom and middle class families ahead of the special interests.
Ken Blevens is the Libertarian Candidate for U.S. Senate
- Libertarian Ken Blevens, Bow

It's interesting that recent discoveries place the largest oil reserves in the world under our shores and mainland. The reason no one is drilling for it is because of restirctions put in place by our government. Dear Jeanne, get the government off the backs of the oil industry and we'll all have all oil we need for a very very long time.
- AJ, Windham

We have experienced these oil "shocks" before-1974-75 and 1979-81-both mainly caused by the complex (for some) economics of supply and demand. It's easy to blame "Big Oil" and the 8 cents on the dollar they take in. Try finding a solution instead of taking the easy and popular way out and pointing the finger at Wall Street and Big Oil.
- MIB, Kingston, NH