I was watching a 60 minutes clip that was talking about the last spike in gas costs. Huge influx of speculators led by Morgan Stanley. For each barrel of oil delivered, there were 27 barrels traded. Demand had gone down, supplies were fine yet gas shot up to $4.50 a gallon. The government threatened to start calling people to testify and the speculators fled the market.
Yes I had heard that, and it has also been suggested that if the President would threaten to pull out some the the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the mere threat would serve to scare a lot of speculators out of the market. Meanwhile, the news today is that Americans have started driving less, based on a credit card company charges survey. I know I have and I encourage everyone else to do the same.