Judging from your username, there's a six letter country you have in mind. Although you should consider that marc rich did flee to switzerland, did he not?
I believe that the price of crude had an artificial run up. But I don't believe that there was any purposeful manipulation. Commodities were pretty much the only bull market in town and the money flows where its going to make more money. Speculation is GOOD in every market but in every good thing is a little bit of bad. The only thing regulators need to focus on is keeping speculation to a healthy 20% market share. When you get an imbalance in their amount of market control is when stuff like this happens. Outlawing speculation might be the stupidest idea ever though. Just look at onions.
Where has it been proved that speculation is good? Is this some doctrine that has just been accepted because it sounds nice? Too many of you guys get a hard on just from looking at the word speculation. Afraid you might have to find honest work I guess if gambling gets a bad name. I would much prefer the price of commodities to be stable and represent the cost of production + modest profit. Wouldn't you?
Here you go friend. I'll post the link and the actual article. Speculators are basically a way of regulating markets. They keep producers from going crazy and actually prevent wild price swings. Happy reading. http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/27/new...undrum_Birger.fortune/?postversion=2008062713 (Fortune Magazine) -- Before the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission starts scrutinizing the role that speculators may have played in driving up fuel and food prices, investigators may want to take a look at price swings in a commodity not in today's news: onions. The bulbous root is the only commodity for which futures trading is banned. Back in 1958, onion growers convinced themselves that futures traders (and not the new farms sprouting up in Wisconsin) were responsible for falling onion prices, so they lobbied an up-and-coming Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford to push through a law banning all futures trading in onions. The law still stands. And yet even with no traders to blame, the volatility in onion prices makes the swings in oil and corn look tame, reinforcing academics' belief that futures trading diminishes extreme price swings. Since 2006, oil prices have risen 100%, and corn is up 300%. But onion prices soared 400% between October 2006 and April 2007, when weather reduced crops, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only to crash 96% by March 2008 on overproduction and then rebound 300% by this past April. The volatility has been so extreme that the son of one of the original onion growers who lobbied Congress for the trading ban now thinks the onion market would operate more smoothly if a futures contract were in place. "There probably has been more volatility since the ban," says Bob Debruyn of Debruyn Produce, a Michigan-based grower and wholesaler. "I would think that a futures market for onions would make some sense today, even though my father was very much involved in getting rid of it."
Weather. Not greedy fat fingered punks. Not overblown funds gambling with opm. Big difference. Learn.
I actually used to agree with a lot of the things you say but you obviously are just ignoring the facts in this case. Speculative players keep producers fair. I really think your anger for the drive up in oil is blinding you from what you know to be true. Come on your smarter than this.