[jveritas]

Short term solution: Change the laws to severely punish the the oil speculators who are irrationally manipulating the oil prices without any real basis on the supply and demand of the market. There is more than enough oil supply to satisfy the market demand now and in the future. What the oil speculators are doing is not free market but it is pure and clear theft.

Long term solution: begin drilling more for oil in the US.

[wtc911]

Change the laws to severely punish the the oil speculators who are irrationally manipulating the oil prices without any real basis on the supply and demand of the market

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That you Obama?

[Orange1998]

Nobody in power understands the oil business better than Bush. I’m amazed he can sit on his hands and tell the American people the best he can do is squeeze a point or two of increased production. I think Bush and Cheney got what they wanted and will do absolutely nothing. Kinda reminds me of Carter Oil blunder.

[ichabod1]

Some of those speculators are going to be left holding the bag when the streak ends.

[OB1kNOb]

Short term solution: Change the laws to severely punish the the oil speculators who are irrationally manipulating the oil prices without any real basis on the supply and demand of the market.

You got my vote on that, although I'd prefer an open season with no bag limit. ;-)

[SAJ]

Why punish the index specs? Why not just -- lawfully -- force them to quit their positions, in an orderly fashion (who needs more volatility in energy mkts, eh?) THEN, if some are recalcitrant, THEN punish them. This can be done with ONE, count 'em ONE, CFTC ruling in any 60-day period you like, and the Regress are not required to do anything, except either openly or tacitly acknowledge the validity of the CFTC ruling.

Technically, they haven't broken any laws (well, aside from some ERISA provisions). What's to punish?

Long-term solution? Drill, nukes, coal, shale, capacity, exactly none of which the a&&holes in the Regress intend to allow.

[The Ghost of Rudy McRomney]

I agree. I’ve always thought since this whole crapola fest started that Wall Street speculators were responsible for about 90% of it. Careful, though, you’ll get called “comrade” here for even suggesting such a thing as ‘an enemy of the free market”. Meanwhile, we edge ever closer to depression, and a few become richer. That isn’t capitalism.

[PjhCPA]

“there you go again”....Ronald Reagan

[Syncro]

I keep waiting for the DOW to dip, and for the Federal Reserve money printing guy to raise the prime rate.

The second act will bring the price of gas down, and the first will show that the speculators are not controlling the price of gas anymore.

Drilling and pumping is not only a long term solution, it is a short term one too.

It's my understanding that there are a lot of locations that could start pumping oil with minimal cost but have been shut down by environmental wackos for no valid reason.

What with the high price of oil, the oil companies can afford to explore and pump if not for all the liberal restrictions.

If they were lifted by one carefully worded Executive Order, the Saudis would start a lot more oil flowing to bring down the price to try to prevent us from bringing our own oil reserves into play.