Speculative premium on oil at $ 60 a barrel: India

[dragonrider]

I see some expert told congressmen today that the futures market accounts for 50% of cost of fuel so that would mean if we just shut down futures trading on oil and gas we would have $2 gas. If congress gave a shit they would just shut it down. The dems won't do it because then they would lose a lot of ground on enviormental issues. The repubs won't do it because them and there cronnies are the ones capitalizing on the futures market.
Will we ever not have any crooks running for congress?

Futures trading is very important to any commodity market, so you can't just "shut it down." But they do have to at least find out what is going on with this. I don't really get how a huge bubble in prices in the futures market could even develop --- I always thought successful trading in futures had more to do with being accurate about future market prices, not about high prices.

[medicinal]

Speculators are riding this like Enron rode electric energy. It's a let's see how much we can fuck the public all over again. I'll bet they're laughing all the way to the bank. In case you haven't figured it out, Rich people revel in high gas prices, thins the traffic you see. The traffic in my part of the world has fallen off a good 25%.

[NoDrugs4Me]

I drive a 90's model eclipse and used to get great gas mileage. About two months ago I noticed "Contains 10% ethanol" stickers on ALL of our gas pumps. My car was NOT designed to run ANY ethanol. I have gone from averaging 28-30 mpg highway to around 22-24. Not only are "they" increasing gas prices, but the gas we get won't last as long due to the crap "they" are putting into it. What's the deal?

Don't forget that George Bush has oil rigs/refineries in Texas. The president is not allowed any source of income OTHER than from being president. Why would a president have a trilateral war (drugs, Iraq, terrorism) and destroy the value of our dollar while he's in office? I believe he's going to sell HIS oil when he gets out of office and wreak the benefits of bending us all over.... just something dad and I came up with the other day.