Thought on oil

Is there perhaps a way that oil could be taken off the commodities trading markets? I have long felt that this would help the energy crisis all over the world since most of the price now days is not due to supply and demand, but to investors trying to regain the money the lose when the housing loan scam blew up in their faces. Right now they buy up oil, sell when the price goes up which in turn causes the price to drop, then they buy it back up at the cheaper price, and start the process of raising the price once again. It's a circle of buy low, jack up the price, and sell high. I tend to agree with the Arabs that there is plenty of oil out there, but prices are being manipulated for large profits.

If it could be regulated and not traded as it is today, the prices could be kept down. Just a thought!

It's the speculators who are responsible for the huge increase in price.

And I still believe the oil companies are profiting because of the war, which is illegal. You simply cannot make that much profit by just passing on increased costs to consumers. The profits weren't that high a decade ago, so I see no justification for them. The public is being gouged.

Is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Bush keeps pumping more and more into the reserves which also helps to keep oil at record highs. Even republicans in congress are saying we should stop putting oil in the reserves!

I also agree with you, the war was a gimmick to help increase the price of oil, and the record profits that the oil companies have made year after year since Bush took office.

food, energy , housing, health care should be regulated and not for profit. Not that you can't make a living off it, but to profit from others suffering is just wrong.

internationally.................course the capitalists have wrecked the UN, so this is difficult at the moment. But we can fix it.

It would have to be done on an international level. With the price rising all over the world, it may get more support, at least from the people, now the governments would be a whole other story.

The futures market is also essential for businesses that depend on oil. They can lock in the price they will pay for the next year. That kind of security is necessary in an oil dependent business like airlines, cruise ships, other shipping, etc. It could be chaotic otherwise.

It would be difficult to enforce because some authorized traders would no doubt become surrogates for those speculators we are trying to lock out.

We can also reduce the allowed leverage ratios for trading so that hedge funds aren't trading oil with 60 and 70 to 1 leverage ratios.

These funds that leverage out the ying yang can create much of the problem.

is an absolute disaster for people and the planet. It works out great for the super rich. Which is about 1 percent of the population.

Not that this would ever happen here, but what if the government were to nationalize oil companies and subsidize oil supply kind of like what Chavez is doing in Venezuela? Thing is he has A LOT of oil & we really don't.