Originally Posted by
milky
I wish just one of you had some clue as to how our markets work before you spew on here. Speculation is not the culprit in the rising cost of fuel. There are speculators on the futures market for just about every commodity that is sold in the U.S. If the price of oil was not going up, speculators would not buy futures at higher prices. When the price of oil dropped dramatically in the past, was that the speculators' fault too?
What you are asking here is for government to regulate the price of oil which is a global commodity. This is ignorant and just shows how little each of you know about how the market works. Democrats and media blaming speculators is just a way for them to seem like they are doing something without actually doing anything. Stopping the decline of the value of the dollar and putting more oil into production is the way to bring down the cost of oil. Futures markets just reflect the actual cost of the oil.
Maybe you can understand how many of you have no idea how free market economics works. Many of you guys were willing to speculate on your income by paying 70,000-100,000 for your ratings to fly airplanes. In the real market, all of you would be done trading on the futures markets because you can only make so many bad trades before you are out of money. In this case, you would find out that putting yourself that much in debt for the chance to be a regional pilot and make 20,000/year is a bad purchase on the market. Somebody sold you a really bad trade, and you lost. Now, if the oil speculators bought oil for as high as you paid for your ratings, they would all be in trouble because NOBODY would pay that much for a barrel of oil. So, they would be holding useless oil that cannot be sold for what they owe. They would have to sell for a loss, and most people cannot operate on a loss for long without going broke. SO, recognize that futures traders are only buying oil for what they believe will be paid on the open market. If the market does not bear the price, they will lose their shirt. THAT IS IT. They do not hold some secret power to raise the price.
The conspiracy theory is bunk. Quit making yourselves look dumb.
That's more or less true in a well regulated open market. The key is transparency. The Hunt Bros tried to corner the silver market, when other speculators saw the huge position the Hunts held they realized the price was artificially high and they dumped their holdings. The Hunts were burned to the tune of $2Billion. Thats the traditional risk to cornering the market. What happens if non traditional players with massive amounts of money enter the market? Now add in a market where there is no transparency, i.e. you can not see who holds what or who's trading with whom. You get wash sales. What if these new players, all playing the same game (a herd mentality where no one company corners the market but as a group they have), own 70% of all existing futures contracts? As they trade amongst themselves (no risk in a wash sale) they are holding these contracts out of the market( artificial limiting of supply). The true speculator (who intends to take delivery) must enter the market and bid for what is available at that time. He must his business requires it. Thats trucking companies, airlines, refineries, etc. With these daily trends he can not sit back and hope that fear of a contracts expiration will cause a drop in price. Oil in normal trading is far to liquid for that. I'll show you that supply isn't the issue, I'll show you that the weak dollar doesn't cover current price either. What have been the effects of the Commodities Modernization Act? Why does the Intercontinental exchange exist? Who trades there and why don't those investment banks etc trade on the NYMEX? Please don't throw out cheap easy stuff like it's the fault of leftists, environmentalists, or the scapegoat of politicians. Stick to the point and explain the price.