You’re right, even as it was cratering on the way down, they continued to push real estate as “something they ain’t making any more of”.
Before that, they claimed that companies weren’t influencing the electric market in California.
That's got to be one of the stupidest analogies I have ever heard.
A huge chunk of both generation capacity and the energy trading market were controlled by one company, which gave it sizeable market power.
None of the "evil" speculators supposedly driving up the oil price controls even 1% of the global oil market.
Just because one market can be easily manipulated does not mean another one can be as well.