Originally Posted by
SomedayRJ
Actually, part of the recent oil price spike is the deregulation of the commodities markets, compared to 10-15 years ago. Trading and speculation rules on the commodities markets were considerably relaxed during Enron's rise to profitability, and nobody bothered to un-relax them after the company imploded, taking 401k and retirement savings with it.
I beg to differ sir... government regulation generally leads to long term disadvatage particularly to typical free-markets. Sure oil supply/demand has a little to do with it, however a far bigger issue is the state of the dollar... and the reason for the weak dollar is because the fed will just print more money (among other things, incl paying for war), which acts like a band-aid for a gusher. The price of oil in terms of dollars went up like 350% in the past 10 years compared to like 200% in terms of euros... however it has stayed flat in terms of gold. Regulation may give temporary fixes, however it comes with a great price to free-market stabilization.
If you look at energy regulation in general, talk about a monopoly, where I live, Florida, FPL doesn't have competition for general energy. I resent the fact America sleeps with the devil (Saudis) as far as oil goes.
Oil is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.