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I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

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Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#61

Post by andyjohnson0 »

33W wrote: post #60

Planet Money had a recent podcast titled "The Onion King", where someone took physical control of onion futures, and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/episo...

"and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress"

I was intrigued enough to follow this up, although I didn't listen to the podcast. From wikipedia:

During the hearings, the Commodity Exchange Authority stated that it was the perishable nature of onion which made them vulnerable to price swings. Then-congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan sponsored a bill, known as the Onion Futures Act, which banned futures trading on onions. The bill was unpopular among traders, some of whom argued that onion shortages were not a crucial issue since they were used as a condiment rather than a staple food. The president of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, E.B. Harris, lobbied hard against the bill. Harris described it as "Burning down the barn to find a suspected rat". The measure was passed, however, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill in August 1958. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Kosuga#Regulatory_acti...

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#62

Post by dictum »

pjc50 wrote: post #46
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Alibaba is indirectly responsible for many containerloads of goods traveling from the east to the west.

How do people handle QC issues with Alibaba orders? I dipped my toe in when ordering a crate of allegedly "CE marked" chargers that turned out to be obviously unsafe, and haven't been back.

That's the problem with acronyms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#63

Post by wycx »

refurb wrote: post #54
oxymoron wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once took a university course called "Chemical Equilibrium" which required some lab time. The labs were about examining solutions with unknown ions and figuring out what they were. A common tool in doing so is by bubbling hydrogen sulfide gas through the solution, which will cause the precipation of certain cations. Needless to say, we were warned about the dangers of H2S, and told that if it ever escaped the fume…

If I remember correctly, a fatal concentration of H2S is actually lower than HCN (hydrogen cyanide). Many people each year succumb to H2S poisoning. It's a pretty insidious poison.

And for those interested, H2Se has an LC50 about an order of magnitude lower than H2S. Fortunately S/Se in crude oil is likely to be >10000. It smells like garlic.

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#64

Post by dclowd9901 »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #61
33W wrote: post #60

Planet Money had a recent podcast titled "The Onion King", where someone took physical control of onion futures, and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/episo...

"and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress" I was intrigued enough to follow this up, although I didn't listen to the podcast. From wikipedia: During the hearings, the Commodity Exchange Authority stated that it was the perishable nature of onion which made them vulnerable to price swings. Then-congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan sponsored a bill, known as the Onion Futures Act, which banned futures…

And yet, crude, as a staple good, gets no such protections.

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#65

Post by leoc »

ptaipale wrote: post #15
comex wrote: post #4

Another notable excerpt from the linked state safety agency document ( http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis_wsh_cet5041_90142_7.do... ): -- Two employees of a fertilizer company in Riga, Michigan, were assigned to install a new float valve in an old 35-foot deep cistern for a new 300-foot well. This cistern was covered with a concrete slab with entry through a covered manhole. The first worker entered the cistern an…

Shit kills. I guess this happens everywhere in the world, but over here (Finland), there are the occasional deaths at farms where H2S released from remains of cow manure, stored in a tank, kills people. https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf "Description of event A farm-owner suffocated inside a manure tank which was lacking oxygen and contained toxic gases. Also his brother, who went in to help, died…

It's common in Ireland as well, where beef and dairy are big: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-27754408

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#67

Post by HarryHirsch »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #59
palmer_eldritch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fire chief entered the cistern wearing a self-contained breathing apparatus. After reaching the plank platform, he removed his face mask to shout instructions to those on the surface and he, too, was instantly overcome. Now that one is probably deserving a Darwin Award...

You might want to find a better way to describe the death of a person who was brave enough to risk their life to try to save other people. Hint: these are people .

Bravery on its own just isn't enough. This complete fool forgets all his confined space training, endangering not only himself but also his men, who now have one more victim to extricate. The rest of the rescue crew are people, too. Submariners have the word "oxygen thief" for this magnitude of idiot.

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#68

Post by mikestew »

palmer_eldritch wrote: post #9
comex wrote: post #4

Another notable excerpt from the linked state safety agency document ( http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis_wsh_cet5041_90142_7.do... ): -- Two employees of a fertilizer company in Riga, Michigan, were assigned to install a new float valve in an old 35-foot deep cistern for a new 300-foot well. This cistern was covered with a concrete slab with entry through a covered manhole. The first worker entered the cistern an…

> The fire chief entered the cistern wearing a self-contained breathing apparatus. After reaching the plank platform, he removed his face mask to shout instructions to those on the surface and he, too, was instantly overcome. Now that one is probably deserving a Darwin Award...

Says the guy arm-chairing the situation on HN. In contrast to anyone that's actually done such a thing, reads this and thinks, "yeah, but for the grace of $DEITY go I, because a single lapse in judgement is all it takes, and in a stressful situation single lapses in judgement come in boxes of a dozen."

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#69

Post by bostonpete »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #67
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to find a better way to describe the death of a person who was brave enough to risk their life to try to save other people. Hint: these are people .

Bravery on its own just isn't enough. This complete fool forgets all his confined space training, endangering not only himself but also his men, who now have one more victim to extricate. The rest of the rescue crew are people, too. Submariners have the word "oxygen thief" for this magnitude of idiot.

Well, the accident in question happened nearly 50 years ago. Who knows what kind of training was in place at the time or even how well understood this sort of problem was.

Re: I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil

#70

Post by ars »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #64
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress" I was intrigued enough to follow this up, although I didn't listen to the podcast. From wikipedia: During the hearings, the Commodity Exchange Authority stated that it was the perishable nature of onion which made them vulnerable to price swings. Then-congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan sponsored a bill, known as the Onion Futures Act, which banned futures…

And yet, crude, as a staple good, gets no such protections.

It's not a protection, this law causes problems, it doesn't help anything.
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