Originally Posted by KoruPilot

Speculators makes sense.

It kind of reminds me of the current housing 'crisis'. It's not really a crisis for me as I didn't buy a house at an over inflated price. I wonder how many of those geniuses are currently buying vastly over inflated oil futures. At some point they are going to have to sell them, or buck up for the $140 and have those barrels dropped at their front door. As it looks now, with all the airlines parking planes and the market for large vehicles drying up, they just might not have the buyers. No buyers and the price drops. More positions out there, the harder it is to sell them, the price drops further, those geniuses have to cover their positions so start buying cheaper to cover themselves, etc. etc. and down it goes; much like it has in the past.

Everybody should take a little read of how the commodities market, and specifically the trade of oil and oil based products works; in particular those smart guy's buying futures, probably with someone else's money (again). Likely the same guy's sitting on over valued property, also paid for with someone else's money.

All this said, personally I see the whole thing as natural selection at work in human society, and since I work for an airline that still makes money I can only hope that the price stays up long enough to cull the herd a bit more. In the mean time people driving gas hungry cars can go ahead and halve their fuel cost by getting into a smaller, cheaper to by and cheaper to run car.