GREED TAKES A HIT

Greed may know no bounds, but Thursday last week greed--the Federal kind--took one across the face.

U.S. District Judge Carl Babier ruled that British Petroleum unloaded 3.2 million barrels of oil in the Gulf not 4.2 million the U.S. government claimed.

That's a 25% decrease and as we previously noted U.S. officials wanted to fine BP $4,300 a barrel. On Friday BP's shares jumped 5.5% to close at $37.86. Even at this price the shares on a $2.40 dividend are  yielding 6.7%.

Instead of the old milk bottle, this is a game of spin the oil price wheel and see where she stops. Nor is it how long the price stays there, despite the palaver about falling knives and lost opportunity costs owing to tied up capital.

Big oil is cutting costs. Most of these programs means job cuts, too. In this case higher paying jobs--not those hamburger flipping types created since 2008. Those job cuts effect to a degree any benefit of lower prices at the gas pump.

If there is a mainstream media meme more over-worked today than that expected $150 billion tax break to consumers if oil stays in the $50 a barrel range, we have not seen or heard it.

 Much of the current attitude around the Street about oil disallows for the unseen.