This is the problem for Republicans - they did not notice or did not care that working men and women, that business owners are paying for speculation which is not about the market of supply and demand of oil. Thus they let people trade oil on futures and margins with a tiny amount at risk - that kills the true market. The Republicans should have been all over this topic years ago when the rules of the market got out of hand.
“speculation which is not about the market of supply and demand of oil”
I’m at a loss as to how speculation is not about the market. They’re trying to get rich by predicting the future, right? You can say this is one example of the market not working well, but you can’t say it’s not the “real market”. For everything that people do voluntarily on the free market is real. If it’s a problem of their manipulation leading to a bad result, that’s not the same thing as saying it’s not real. Their manipulation is part of reality, as it is in every market on the face of the earth.
Here’s the deal, like it or not both parties are corrupt... the corruption comes from different sources and philosophies, but both are corrupt.
Republicans anymore swing way way way way too far into the “market are gods” territory... Too many take too much money from big businesses and industries (banking basically owns both parties folks) they won’t bite the hands that feed it, and have fooled enough of the rank and file into this line of thinking by a century plus of propoganda.
Democrats have the same problem, except their philosophies are more along the line of “government is god”. They are beholded to their donors, and the overlap particularly among the investment classes is HUGE.
It behooves them to sit back and do nothing when things go insane, because they get bribed to sit back and do nothing.
Markets are not gods, governments are not gods, anyone who advocates either position is an abject fool.
Capitalism unfettered breeds just as much oppression and corruption as any other ism can. The individual becomes subjugated to someones perceived value of them in a capitalist system that is completely unfettered. So, for example if I know, you will die from doing the job I need you to do, and your death might warrant me paying out $1M to your family, but in the course of your life working for me in that job you earn me $20M net profit... Making you do something that will kill you is absolutely justifiable. Your cost is below my profit and so having you do it makes sense. The only difference between unfettered capitalism and unfettered communism or socialism is that the people who do the opressing are distributed by wealth, not by birthright or government position. The end game for the individual is exactly the same.
Now, fortunately we don’t live in an unfettered capatilist society, we do have a system of laws and government that oversees the capitalist system and keeps it ideally within a moral framework.
There is a role for government, and our government has been so corrupted, and our political system so screwed up, that its effectively a failure. We have a system of government that literally rewards doing nothing, saying nothing and achieving nothing. It effectively punishes leadership and rewards complacency.
“Unfettered capitalism breeds corruption” - Theodore Roosevelt. (He was a republican by the way.)
You are right republicans should have been all over this issue... Bush should have said “wall street got drunk” in front of America, not in some back room meeting... because its the TRUTH. Instead of the truth we get hack kneed idiots regurgitating nonsense that the CRA caused the housing bubble. Absolutely utter nonsense, but since the R’s have engaged in this “the market is god” nonsense so long, they can’t possibly admit GREED, unadulterated GREED is what caused the mess.
GREED, unadulterated GREED created the commodies bubble... the regulators should have shut down the blatant manipulation in oil years ago, but they didn’t. Its all such a joke, there are no leaders in washington regardless of the letter beside their names.