They live in the real world, too. I don't think there was any attempt to maximize the reported (profit) numbers.

193

We've seen a marked increase in oil price volatility. The lows are lower, the highs are higher, but I'm not so sure that structurally things have changed so much.

126

Chavez is a hawk on oil prices and always has been. His hold on power is getting increasingly tenuous. This is very negative for intermediate oil prices -- OPEC could lose its principal hawk.

110