Remember the $4.00 per gallon gasoline ??

[kentuck]

Surprise! It wasn't due to the forces of supply and demand.
=============


<snip>
The head of the U.S. agency weighing new curbs on Tuesday faulted "excessive" speculation but also underscored the role of financial investors in helping set fair prices that can benefit consumers.

As the WSJ reports this morning (subscription required), the Commodities Futures Trading Commission is now admitting that oil speculators "played a significant role" in a sudden spike in the price of oil in the summer of 2008. That summer oil reached $147 per barrel, and the CFTC claimed the price increase was due to the forces of supply and demand. In an interview with the WSJ, Bart Chilton, one of the agency's four commissioners, said that analysis was based on "deeply flawed data."

<snip>
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, urged the CFTC commissioners to set strict limits on speculative oil trading. Americans are tired, he said, "of being ripped off at the gas pump by the same Wall Street gamblers" that brought the meltdown of financial markets.

<snip>
Another reason why the agency's hands-off approach prevailed for so long, critics say, was the deep-pocketed financial industry and its lobbying muscle. The industry opposes new limits on speculative trading, arguing they would crimp the cash flowing through the market and drive business overseas.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/government-considers-limi_n_246792.html

[baldguy]

1. If prices were set due to supply & demand, gas would be $1.50-1.75/gal.

Who said we live in a capitalist economy?

[kentuck]

2. The stock market has been corrupted beyond repair...

by these manipulators, in my opinion.

[razorman]

3. Oh, yes. I remember it. Don't worry. It will be back to remind us soon.

[ElboRuum]

4. Um. Did anyone ever think it was?!? n/t

[kentuck]

6. Yes, there were some.

Believe it or not.

Also, many of the energy traders worked for Goldman Sachs, I seem to recall??

[Myrina]

5. Where's my refund?

:shrug: Since I was essentially robbed, or unofficially 'loaned' those companies my money for the past year, when do I get it back? I'll take cash.

[kentuck]

7. See Goldman Sachs.

They got the biggest chunk of it.

[Kansas Wyatt]

8. It was right before the Banks needed a big bailout.

As soon as the bailout started and happened... Gas prices dropped.

Yet nobody in the Government is interested in what a few wealthy people did to everyone. They screwed the American people before the bailout and they screwed the American people with the bailout.

If any of us tried to do what the they did, the Government would seize everything we have and throw us in prison to rot for the rest of our lives.

[kentuck]

10. Excellent connection!

I think you are right on target and I had not seen it made before.

[Kansas Wyatt]

11. If the Government would just investigate it.

But, perhaps they already know that little chunk of ice is just the tip of the iceberg.

I said it at the time, that it was just too coincidental that all of the sudden the banks needed a MAJOR bailout right at the very same time people were demanding that the government do something about gas prices skyrocketing. It was coming down to crunch time for the government to do something about it, so the banks needed a bailout and gas prices dropped.

The Wealthy Elite thieves are defrauding money on both ends.

[kentuck]

12. Perhaps it was with the "government's" blessing?

It was like a shock tax on all Americans. Probably about $200 billion dollars worth, maybe more?

[Kansas Wyatt]

13. Corporate America telling the Government what to do for them, instead of...

The Government telling Corporate America what it can and cannot do.

But, FuzzNuts & DeadEye Dick were in the 'Commander In Chief' chair at the time, and that may have been their idea of an exit strategy. Since then, the Democrats just can't rock the boat about what was really going on and keep it swept under the rug.

If the truth were to ever see the light of day... People in this country would revolt.

[kentuck]

14. Someone posted this down the page.

from The Prospect.

<snip>
...the idea that America's "existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability" flies in the face of all observed reality. For at least eight years, those institutions consistently failed to deliver accountability, and the Department of Justice and courts likewise failed to punish some of the greatest abuses of power in our history.

-----

But Obama's apparent belief that existing institutions can do what they have so far failed to do -- and his resistance to creating new ones -- is emerging as an odd, surprising theme of his presidency.

-----

Strange as it is, there is something admirable, tough, and consistent in Obama's cockeyed optimism about our institutions. It's not like he doesn't know that our democratic institutions have failed. Rather, by asserting that they are capable of actually governing, he is, in effect, demanding that they do so, calling them out in much the way that he has called out conservatism: by taking it seriously.

[Froward69]

9. DUH

this is what I was screaming about LAST YEAR!!! The speculators had driven the price through the ceiling while supply's were overflowing.

I was (and still am) advocating speculators must take delivery of what they bought and store it themselves.

[Terry in Austin]

15. Oh, it'll be back soon enough

And then some. Count on it.

Meanwhile, economists -- amateur and otherwise -- can keep reading the tea leaves and sheep entrails in search of "the reason" that gas prices go up. It's so nice to find someone whose fault it is.

You gotta ask, though -- will knowing "the reason" make it any easier to wait in the gas lines?

[kentuck]

17. It's been back several times...

if people have noticed? It goes up as far as people can stand and then it goes back down and people forget and then it goes back up and every time, they make a fortune on Wall Street, not to mention the Big Oil companies.

[Terry in Austin]

18. End game

People are going to find ways to profiteer off the oil end game one way or another. It's the American way.

Right now, it's about the money and who gets to skin whom.

Soon enough, though, it's not going to be just about the money. It's going to be about getting enough to put in your tank at any price.

[Serial Mom]

16. It's OK to screw us this way, but not pay for healthcare....