It sure sounds like it. Why do we keep giving away everything to Wall Street who keeps screwing everyone? DailyFinance:
But is the current situation such an emergency? No way. After all, as I wrote last month on DailyFinance, Libya represents a mere 0.5% of U.S. oil imports, and Saudi Arabia is increasing its production to make up the difference. There has been no sudden increase in demand for oil, nor has there been a truly significant drop in supply. In fact, refineries -- which convert crude oil into gasoline and other chemicals -- are operating at a relatively low 88.4% of capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Institute.
So why are oil prices going up so much? Speculators.
Oil speculators using cheaply borrowed money to bet on rising oil prices and a falling dollar are playing on media-fueled fear to make big profits. The good news is that stopping those speculators would be easy: Regulators should demand higher margin requirements. By cutting off their easy ability to gamble with cheap debt, the regulators could push speculators out of the market and relieve consumers from pain at the pump.
Last time we had a huge run-up in oil prices was 2008 when oil hit $147 a barrel. When the Commodities Futures Trading Commission -- the body that's charged with keeping the trading pits honest -- investigated, it discovered that 81% of the trading volume in oil was being conducted by speculators. Put another way, businesses that actually use the oil, such as airlines, were doing just 19% of the trading. The vast majority was done by hedge funds and investment banks to make a quick buck.
