And I don't mean how you think they are... I want to see actual quantitative evidence...real numbers... not some drive by media opinion piece. Show me hard numbers that indicate that speculators are driving up the price of crude and that will stand up to the kind of scrutiny my bosses have always demanded of me.
I have 20+ years as a quantitative analyst, much of it in the energy market and I'm telling you, that market is NOT BEING MANIPULATED BY ANYONE!!!!!
The price is going up because our energy policy looks like a case of mass mental illness. The price is going up because given the current political situation, and the attention on global warming instead of cheap energy, the people investing in those market believe it will continue to go up.
If the congress announced tomorrow that they will grant a drilling permit anywhere offshore of the US and in ANWR to any established american drilling company, the price of oil would fall like a stone.
That's why the price of oil is up... because the government is pushing it that way. The speculators aren't driving the market they are following it.
you know what really gets to me... if I were a doctor posting something about the genetic predisposition toward encephalitis of some Asian sub-ethnic groups no one would chime in and tell me they know more than me about it. If I were a lawyer and wrote a detailed analysis of some constitutional question it would be the same. But for some reason every two bit chump who ever bought 100 shares of stock thinks they know exactly how markets work.
I've been in the business for 20 years and made hundred of millions of dollars for the firms I've worked for, and even now I don't know everything. But I do know that this market is not being manipulated, an all the freepers who think it is should consider changing sides and voting with the rest of the "know it all's" over at Democratic Underground.
People need an easy scapegoat.
Forget switching! I would rather have high prices and speculation in liberty than low (controlled) prices and shortages in Democrat Hell.
I've never traded a stock in my life but that just seems like common sense. If speculators were driving the price up artificially they would be the first to know that there was no sound basis for it and that the price could plummet at any moment. Which in turn would cause them to get out/stay out of long contracts on oil which would bring the price down in line with actual supply/demand factors. No?
Well said!!!