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My mom out in California is elated -- gasoline prices in her neighborhood are below $4 a gallon for the first time in four months. Less so are the world's petro-rulers, who are watching the price of oil -- their life blood -- plunge at a rate they have not experienced since the dreaded year 2008. Industry analysts are using phrases such as "devastation" and "severe strain" to describe what is next for the petro-states should prices plummet as low as some fear. No one is as yet forecasting a fresh round of Arab Spring-like regime implosions. But that's the...

It is all too easy to bellyache about the high price of oil and blame greedy big oil companies, with absolutely no proof. Shell oil earns about 2 cents and Exxon/Mobil earns about 5 cents per gallon at the pump. The fact that Exxon pays more in total taxes than it earns in profits makes them anything but greedy. Oil companies do not set prices, market supply and demand does, and anyone who disputes that fact is simply ignorant of how the economy actually works. That is of course when government is not setting the prices for commodities. Many liberals/progressives...

http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/index.html

‘Rogue broker’ blamed for oil spike By Javier Blas and Izabella Kaminska in London Published: July 2 2009 12:07 | Last updated: July 2 2009 20:26 The startling spike in oil prices to their highest level this year on Tuesday was caused by a rogue broker who placed a massive bet in the Brent oil market, triggering almost $10m (€7m) of losses for his company. PVM Oil Associates, the world’s largest over-the-counter oil brokerage, said on Thursday it had been the “victim of unauthorised trading”. The privately owned company said that as a result of the unauthorised trades it had...

Excerpt: In 2004, George Soros attempted to crash the stock market with financial manipulation, media appearances, and op-eds aimed at scaring investors out of the market. He nearly succeeded but the market was too resilient and rebounded from his attempt. He even threatened to spend half of his fortune to defeat George W. Bush. This year saw gasoline prices peaking after Soros had moved his investment money from oil production to oil speculation. Now we have this mortgage crisis, and once again, it’s the Democrats who are behind it. Although the problem with Fannie and Freddie has been brewing since...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Atlanta hedge fund manager Michael Masters has been a star witness in two recent Congressional hearings on how speculators are supposedly driving up oil prices. Masters and I don't see eye-to-eye on this issue, so I was surprised to get a call from him after my "Don't Blame The Oil Speculators" column went up on Fortune.com last week. Masters contends that without speculators, the price of oil would be $65 or $70 a barrel. He points out that the amount invested in commodities index products has risen from $13 billion to $260 billion in five years,...