Lets just toss econ 101 out the frackin’ window
CFTC: Speculators caused 2008 oil price crisis
In a major U-turn from its claims during the Bush administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is now set to admit that speculation in oil markets – and not the forces of supply and demand – are behind last year’s massive oil price spike.
In the summer of 2008, oil prices on the open market reached an unprecedented $147 per barrel. Many economists argue the spike helped push the US into an economic free-fall last autumn.</em>
Its stories like this that make me want to smack all those dimwits nattering about “free markets” and a “capitalistic system” in the head. America- nay- the world- is not a free market system, as long as a bunch of guys in a room can divorce the marketplace from the rules of the marketplace. Anyone with a dollop of common sense realized that last years price gouging at the pump wasn’t the result of supply and demand- it was simply pigs at the trough, full tilt boogie on greed.
More regulations? Nah. Shotguns in board rooms? Yeah.
