It is not speculators and the futures. If the supply of oil were to rise or the demand fall the price per barrel would drop. Speculators are only speculating on what they think conditions will be; they don’t determine what they will be.
Why don’t you blame it on a very weak dollar instead along with high demand and intentionally limited supplies.
The Hunts proved that wrong with silver a couple of decades ago. The bubble popped, but not before the price per ounce rose to $50.
You are right about demand and the dollar, but speculators who buy at above market rates ALSO cause the high prices for oil.
To say speculators don’t contribute to the high price of oil is like saying speculators didn’t contribute to the housing bubble. You bet they did. By paying too much for a house and expecting to flip it for even more, they pushed the price of houses up for all houses in the neihborhood.
Sure, lower interest rates and easy credit pushed up the house prices as well, but so did speculators. And speculators are doing it again with oil? How much of that $132 per barrel is caused by speculation, I haven’t a clue. We’ll know after oil plunges back down to where it should be.