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"Big Oil" helps set the price of the crude it buys. You think it
doesn't have "partners" sitting on the OPEC committees?

I'm sure they do. But, there are also speculators at work, in the
exact same way speculators dick with the price of stocks to the
point where their prices are completely disconnected from physical
& financial reality.

Speculative nonsense:

Think back. Although laughable when compared to current values, the
price of oil quadrupled during the oil "shortage" crisis in the
early 70's on Nixon's watch. Later that decade, under Carter it
doubled again in less than 12 months.

Neither had anything to do with Wall Street, Dick Cheney or secret
"Big Oil" meetings with OPEC.

Eisboch


That was then. This is now. And (separate issue), in this discussion,
I'm not concerned with any particular politician.

In the long list of things you buy regularly, can you think of 5 or 6
whose prices are determined by speculators, causing almost daily
price swings? I'm in the grocery biz, and I handle about 500
different products. I don't see this happening.

How about shoes, or anything else you buy?

I am on a conservation kick. I go barefoot.

Seriously, at 100 bucks or so a barrel, I don't see daily price swings
of a few dollars per barrel as being very significant.
There's something more than speculators causing prices to more than
double in two years. I admit, I don't fully understand how oil
prices are "set" despite JimH's links. Seems to me that those who
control the goods determine the price.

Eisboch

It's all the factors working together. Demand is part of it, but not
all of it. The problem is that people will gamble on absolutely
anything. If we added chick pea futures to the other available via the
commodities exchanges, people would be gambling on chick peas.
And if they are wrong, they lose their shirts.

Supply and demand eventually wins.


But someone always wins, no matter what happens to the speculators.
That's a multi-million dollar business, and it does not serve the best
interests of this country.

Why doesn't it serve the best interests of this country?



I'll need to use an analogy to answer that question. You OK with that?