[ccmay]

Morons. If they had hedged properly with oil futures, like Southwest Airlines did, they'd now be buying fuel at the equivalent of $54 per barrel, as Southwest is.

But no; now they're asking Congress to destroy the oil futures market altogether, so nobody can hedge. These losers deserve to go out of business.

Hands off the markets! If the so-called "speculators" are betting against the fundamentals of supply and demand, they'll get their comeuppance soon enough. There is nothing the government can do in this situation but screw things up worse than ever.

-ccm

[pleikumud]

Congress is also blaming speculators to deflect criticism from itself. Congress has obstructed domestic oil production, obstructed construction of new nuclear power plants, and obstructed the building of refineries.

So the airlines are sucking up to Congress by agreeing with its theory of speculator conspiracy.

We are all speculators, every day, so long as we have freedom and capitalism. But speculation is not the key element behind current prices.

The price of oil is driven by the fact that worldwide demand exceeds production.