Why would I want to take speculation out of any broad liquid market? As long as there are clear rules and anyone who chooses to can buy or sell speculative demand -- and/or supply -- is as good as any other.
These rules on market manipulation are clear. Now if you don't like the 'market rules', then don't come here and get out of the market. Speculators only good for the exchange and exchange brokers etc. 90% of market speculators lose money. Goldman Sachs and the exchange and HFT love speculators. more money in the poker table pot to take.
I read recently("THE ASYLUM" BY Leah Mcgrath Goodman the renegades who hijacked the worlds oil market... a great read) that a barrel of oil changed hands 50 times before delivery. Go figure cheers john
Commodities crashing and staying low would signigicantly harm the budgets of many US or Eurozone creditors... Who will bail out Russia or Saudi Arabia? They need 90$ a barrel to balance the budget. Who will bail out Australia? Canada?
The general public has benefited from speculation/market activity in the last 30 years. They made a lot more saving in pension funds /investing in stocks than they lost in higher commodity prices, which is the only asset that resisted inflation during the period .
The demand in paper market for oil is 11 times the physical demand You take out paper demand, oil falls below $20 Simple as that
Open drilling all over the U.S. if you really want to see oil prices drop. But don't hold your breath on that one.
That premise is not fair. That's like saying "TAKE LIGHT AWAY FROM THE FOREST AND YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE THE TREES" Yes, if you remove light (price discovery) you WILL NOT be able to see the trees...but they are still there. Why blame speculators? They both buy AND sell! SPECULATORS ARE MESSENGERS! Some are buying oil because the Bearded Clam is printing dollars like crazy, and the middle east is unstable. Speculators are only messengers; don't shoot them!!!
Yeah, and forget about the fact that most most oil production in the world needs oil to be around 70 to breakeven on the capital costs of the wells, and that prices are set at the highest cost producers. Oil prices will continue to go up at 6 to 8% a year over the long run, well in excess of inflation, simply because marginal supply is harder to find, and at more expensive locations to drill.