West Texas Intermediate West Texas Intermediate West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also known as Texas light sweet, is a grade of crude oil used as a benchmark in oil pricing. This grade is described as Medium crude oil because of its relatively low density, and sweet because of its low sulfur content. It is the underlying commodity of New York Mercantile Exchange's oil futures contracts. The price of WTI is often referenced in news reports on oil prices, alongside the price of Brent crude from the North Sea. Other important oil markers include the Dubai Crude, Oman Crude, Urals oil and the OPEC Reference
Exchange value is identical to what Marx refers to as price. These trading processes are no longer understood in economics as social processes involving human giving and taking, getting and receiving, but as technical processes in which rational, self-interested economic actors negotiate prices based on subjective perceptions of utility. Market realities are therefore understood in terms of supply and demand curves which sets price at a level where supply equals demand. Professor John Eatwell criticizes this approach as follows: Exchange value In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value (German: "Tauschwert") refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity,