Oil prices should go up but a price increase of over $1.20 in a year is to sudden and drastic for consumers to adept, hence the economy suffers.

A quarter a year or less would probably be slow enough for people to adapt.

This is a big country, we need reasonable priced energy to make it work. Oil needs to raise slow enough, ie controlled by normal market forces so other sources of energy can be brought online.

Natural gas for example which right now is about $1.70 for the equivalent of a gallon of gas.

__________________
2006 CL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2026 Genesis GV70
2007 Tiara 3200

I would like to see gasoline/diesel raise at a nice steady rate of about $0.50/gallon over the next 5-10 years until it reaches about $6-8/gallon. That would be slow enough for people/businesses to adjust and should significantly reduce consumption and increase production. We would see real adaptation of alternate fuels (including CNG) if everyone knew where prices were going over the long term. I don't know how to accomplish price stability without significant government controls, which I'm not a fan of.

Everything will go up with the price of fuel .If its shipped , trucked , or flown it will get a price increase,not just your stock value.This game their playing is not fun and games for alot of people ,its a day to day struggle just to make ends meet. .

Bubbles burst.

When that happens with the oil industry we will finally feel the recession down here in the oil patch.

That happened in the early 1980's and it took a decade for the oil patch to recover. Meanwhile, consumer prices for oil plummeted and stayed low for a decade.

Nixon tried to control oil prices. Yeah, that works.

surely this must be a problem which ayn rand addressed in her work? quick, to the randcave, to consult the sacred texts. then, off to keep the world safe for free enterprise. remember: the market is always correct.

__________________
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

So food speculators are responsible for the increases in the cost of food?
Car speculators drive up new car prices?
Flower speculators drive up the prices of market packs?

Sure, maybe some, but the inflated dollar is just worth less than it was. The price of a bbl of oil costs about the same in terms of gold as it has for some years.

__________________
1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

As Craig said, we're not arguing that the base price is due to speculation - but three 20 percent plus price swings in two weeks, the last one the commodities exchange all but admitted to causing it by raising margin requirements, the selloff so fast and furious they had to halt trading?

As far as the 3 examples you cited, you could make the argument that all of them showed price increases due to increased energy costs. At that, you could argue that food prices, especially corn, could be specifically blamed on our oh-so-wonderful ethanol program.

__________________
Just say "NO" to Ethanol - Drive Diesel

Mitchell Oates
Mooresville, NC
'87 300D 212K miles
'87 300D 151K miles - R.I.P. 12/08
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD 67K miles
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club

And a HUGE jump in the value of the dollar had nothing to do with it ???

The currency market is WAY too large for speculators to manipulate and this is where people like Soros play with Billions.
Even combined central bank intervention (if you wish the governments doing what speculators do by your definition) rarely has a long term effect. The market moves to where it should be.

Look at the recent intervention in the Yen, governments pumped it up and it has returned to well, a little above where they started.

Speculators have some effect, mostly in the volatility, but not a lot in the long term price.

__________________
KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

yeah, speculators had nothing to do with the real estate boom either.

__________________
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Its not about controlling oil prices its about controlling excessive speculation in the market which jacks it all up. If you look at price instability it started right around the time of all this deregulation. When you have 2/3's of the players in the market simply passing paper around the market will never stabilize.

All we need to do is reinstate the level of regulation we had before Reagen, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 jacked it up.

Considering how well the markets worked before than, the argument that it would cause issues doesn't hold water.

Once the markets are back to normal the price of oil will naturally increased due to a number of factors constantly cited.

__________________
2006 CL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2026 Genesis GV70
2007 Tiara 3200

IMHO the housing bubble was created by the polititicians, changing the philosophy of home ownership from a privilege to a right. As they lowed the requirements to get a mortgage and kept interest rate low they got the ball rolling.
Speculators took advantage of it and drove it over the edge.

If they had kept requirements at 20% down, reasonable - verifiable income requirements it would have never occured. Speculators would not have had the opurtunity to create the bubble.

And this presents a perfect example, speculators did drive prices out of whack for a while, now they are returning to normal. But the pendulem swings too far in both directions, it swung to far to the high end, now to far to the low end, it will return to the center.

When I bought this house (88), if you didn't have 20% down the banks would hardly look at you, people complained a few years ago Mtg interest rate were at 8 % OH MY GOD. When I bought this house interest rates were in the TEENS (mid to upper). We took an ARM at 11 % and I thought we did real well, no one offered us assistance ie government sponsored write downs etc.

__________________
KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

Exactly government deregulation ruined a perfectly good market, exactly what has been going on with everything traded on Wall Street for the last 20 years.

Were going to go back to the cycles that we had during the turn of the last century, a few years of boom followed by deep hard busts. Which culminated in the Great Depression, well there was another at the end of the 19th century too. The government put all these regulations in place and everything hummed along just dandy until the guys on Wall Street bought their way into power and started to throw them out 10-15 years ago. You have to remember whats good for the top .01% isn't really good for everyone else.

I mean if you were making $50m a month off this would you really care about stomping on some regular people who can't afford to fill their vehicles at $5 a gallon? You don't give a crap.

As it did 100 years ago at the height of the gilded age the pendulum is starting to swing a bit to far in favor of this new generation of robber barons. We need another Teddy Roosevelt to bust em up.

__________________
2006 CL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2026 Genesis GV70
2007 Tiara 3200

Further note.
Back in 88 NON owner occupied properties (ie speculation by your definition) required even greater down payments.
I looked at buying a property before we bought this house, a flip, it needed a major facelift / repair etc. Despite enough income to easily pay both mortgages (I owned a home at the time) most banks wanted 25% minimum (40% really) and the interest rate was several points higher than owner occupied.

__________________
KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

If price swings are bad then to remove them you must control the fuel price. Duh.

Volatility IS the market. It's a good thing. More please.

The real estate market for the last ten years has been volatile. How's that working out for the world?