Get the ######s that already have money out of my freakin' pocket.
The speculators are already driving up the price of oil futures trying to cash in on impending Irene.

###### ###### ####s. Time to get these #######s clamped down and quit letting them drive the price of what it takes for us peons to drive.

Gas prices expected to rise short term...

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I would support some form of control over the price of oil, coal and natural gas as a strategic commodity and therefore it should be outside the day to day fluctuations of the stock and commodities markets. But who would be in charge and who would they have to answer to?

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

All energy and strategic assets, which to my mind, includes, public transportation and water supply should never be in the hands of private companies. These are the assets of a nation, not some grubby little man in a 'pin-striped suit! I'm pretty sure that I've stated this in this forum, before and I'll keep on saying it. We've all seen what happens when the 'money men' get things wrong....we all pay and things stay the same for them!

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Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!

All energy and strategic assets, which to my mind, includes, public transportation and water supply should never be in the hands of private companies. These are the assets of a nation, not some grubby little man in a 'pin-striped suit! I'm pretty sure that I've stated this in this forum, before and I'll keep on saying it. We've all seen what happens when the 'money men' get things wrong....we all pay and things stay the same for them!

Yup....I am tired of the bastards that already have all the money making more offa the poor man's misery.

There are things that are central to this nation's lifeblood. Energy is the foremost, and should not be handled as a common commodity.
One of the only areas I support more government involvement and regulation.

Dumbama has too much money coming in from them to consider such regulation.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Last year, when I went back to Devon for a holiday, there were large tankers full of crude oil, just anchored in Lyme Bay and in other places around the South-West coast of the UK. Prices at the pumps were going down and these tankers were just sitting there, waiting for stocks to run low, and the price to go up. Its not governments, tax and conflict that cause the huge increases in fuel costs - it is 'speculators'. It always has been. The same people who find ways to not pay tax, whilst living lives of luxury, expecting everyone else to pay tax to subsidise their 'write-offs'. I got wise to them, years ago and, frankly even with my 'extended RAF vocabulary', words fail to adequately describe these people! My understanding is, their actions are called 'capitalism' and they are aided by governments throughout the World, because they are corrupt and they 'feed' off all of us. Every last stinking one of them. Strong words, perhaps, but when did you ever see a national politician get on a bus?

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Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!

oh fella's, sorry we can't bother the rich...or their money...because they are the ones creating jobs!! (what jobs?)

we have to pony up ourselves and sacrifice for the good of the nation...
if that means taking great-grandma out of the nursing home because medicare and social security have been gutted...

see with out tax breaks the oil companies cannot exist on their meager multi billion dollar profits...they can't explore for new oil or build new refineries...without tax breaks...and we as good americans have got to support them...or we won't be able to drive around in our huge gas guzzling cars!!

and we have to start taxing the bottom 50% of the population...
families of four that make $25,000 a year and pay NO taxes....because we can't
tax the top 2% that are making billions of dollars a year...because we are still waiting for them to create jobs!!!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over?

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Wow. Just wow.
You really want regulation?
That stance flies in the face of the stances you take on so many other issues.
Sure, blame it on Obama. Riiight. (Not that we could say politicians of either US party aren't rich.)

sad but true W actually set in motion the elimination of certain speculation(people that had no oil holdings or businesses involved in any way with oil) on Oil during his last few years in office. It had a nice chilling effect on speculator. Unfortunately, like most pond scum they seem to have found another means to survive off the very thing they were banned from

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

pond scum?
like used car salesmen?

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In Portugal the situation is similar as in the UK. We had all energy companies nationalized and then in the name of competitivity everything was privatized.
Guess what? Prices are all the same around the service providers and everyone says that there are no cartel practices. Same with the price of petrol or gas, doesn’t matter if the price of crude is more or less stable, prices at the pump keep rising, and once again by magic in all the providers, at the same hour and in the same amount… Funny I’m paying now more by gallon or liter of fuel when the price of crude was at 145 us per barrel.
One day, mr and miss tax payer will explode, because all this companies are acting shameless with the government support. I feel helpless and somehow just want to puke.
These are some of the situations that give me doubts about democracy. It seems something is rotten in our system, and the smell comes from the chamber where the politicians and the government work.

"because all this companies are acting shameless with the government support."

because they bought the politicians!!!

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sad but true W actually set in motion the elimination of certain speculation(people that had no oil holdings or businesses involved in any way with oil) on Oil during his last few years in office. It had a nice chilling effect on speculator. Unfortunately, like most pond scum they seem to have found another means to survive off the very thing they were banned from

Really? This does not sound like something George W. Bush would do. Please provide links or some sort of elaboration.
I would think regulating things such as stem cell research was more up his alley.

To be honest, there are so many antiBUSH websites that getting a real quote that isn't an embarrassing one is pretty hard.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I am that I am said the burning Bush.

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sad but true W actually set in motion the elimination of certain speculation(people that had no oil holdings or businesses involved in any way with oil) on Oil during his last few years in office. It had a nice chilling effect on speculator. Unfortunately, like most pond scum they seem to have found another means to survive off the very thing they were banned from

Really? This does not sound like something George W. Bush would do. Please provide links or some sort of elaboration.
I would think regulating things such as stem cell research was more up his alley.

I was not aware the commodity exchange had stopped listing oil.

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Janice

Cartels, monopolies, Trusts, restraint of fair trade and price-fixing have nothing to do with democracies.

These are all banned. Teddy Roosevelt may have been the last president to enforce actions against these illegal situations. Now the cartels and monopolies are international and the PACs and Lobbyists bribe the legislature with their "Campaign Contributions" and hence escape regulation. If there is no police force nor enforcement there is Chaos. Sort of like a football game with no rules.

Unfortunately, democracy requires regulation and enforcement of rules. We tend to over-regulate and gum up the works for essentials and fail to regulate important things for which Congress is paid to turn the other way.

We also implement policies (Ethanol, subsidies, oil depletion, etc) that favor special interests to the detriment of the society at large.

Sometimes I think a benevolent dictatorship is the way to go. Very few benevolent dictators that are smart enough to chart a valid course can be found however. At least in a democracy the scoundrels can be replaced with new scoundrels. These new folks may then take a little while to corrupt.

Someone said "Democracy is a terrible form of government except that there is nothing better"

Actually the US is not a democracy--we are nominally a Federal Republic. To which I would say--a Federal Socialist Republic--is more correct.

Perhaps we are really a Bribeocracy or at best an Incompetancy.

sad but true W actually set in motion the elimination of certain speculation(people that had no oil holdings or businesses involved in any way with oil) on Oil during his last few years in office. It had a nice chilling effect on speculator. Unfortunately, like most pond scum they seem to have found another means to survive off the very thing they were banned from

I don't think this is correct. I am quite sure that you can buy oil futures if you so desire even if you do not take delivery of the contract for your own use.

Tripling the margin requirements and prosecuting front-running Market Makers and Wall Street Insiders would go a long way to fixing the problem with oil. There will always be a problem with oil due to the fact that it is International in it's production and market manipulation and therefore, largely beyond our control. Add to this the fact that a lot of it is in politically unstable and unfriendly regions and you have ample incentive to try to reduce usage and to boost development of your own resources. We do have the Markets here on our shores and a lot of the crooks "is us" to paraphrase a marsupial philosopher.

Sometimes I think a benevolent dictatorship is the way to go.

There are no such things as benevolent dictatorships. A dictator is always a bad thing as does not allow pluralism of thought.
And regarding to corruption, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The way to end monopolies and cartels is to enforce the legislation that exists, but like in any law, if there is not a will to enforce it then the law is useless.
Corporations and politicians think that they can manage people but by the way things are going, a recipe for disaster is being created.
The common person is losing confidence in politicians and in the system that the state where he lives has. The system is unable to provide to the common person the basic needs that he is expecting.
There will be a moment in time where frustration will be too much and then if we multiply this by thousands of people the result will be a angry mob, that will do almost everything and will be completely out of control.
History repeats itself, and it seems that politicians do not learn with it. What will happen no one can predict, but I’m very concerned about the future, and in what kind of society my children are going to live.

There are no such things as benevolent dictatorships.

Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. Very strict society but no problem if you follow the rules set down.

The truth is that corporations are doing whatever they want, specially with commodities and with the price of energy.
We are paying more for less, this is the truth, and no matter if you are in the US/UK/Australia/Portugal or even Singapore, there will be a time when people will get feed up with a situation, simply because it becomes unbearable.
Never forget that poor people don’t make revolutions, is the middle class who does them, simply because they are the ones who get more frustrated by watching their life style getting deteriorated due to bad decisions from the politicians in whom they had trusted.
Even a dictator can survive without some kind of support. In my point of view changes will come, because the forms of government as we know are not being enough to reply to the needs of the population, especially in Europe and in the US. You can sense that the winds are changing, I can only hope that not for worse, because when there are times like the current ones, is when usually some messiah pop’s up with a magic recipe that will heal everything and solve all bad things in this world and beyond.