Quote:

Are you retarded? The first sentence of the article you linked to explains the manifold reasons for the historic price increase:

Quote:

Oil prices spiked more than $25 a barrel Monday — the biggest one-day price jump ever — as anxiety over the government's $700 billion bailout plan, a weak dollar and an expiring crude contract ignited a dramatic rally.



If you can make it a little further down, the author also explains the conection to the banking crisis:

Quote:

The 15-nation euro rose to $1.4807 in afternoon trading, up from the $1.4470 on Friday. A weak greenback was a catalyst for the commodities boom of the past year, and analysts said large investment funds were expected to pour money back into the sector.

"That trade was very successful in past so if the dollar keeps weakening, a lot people are going to want to own hard assets like crude," said Andrew Lebow, senior vice president and broker at MF Global in New York.






My point is that oil prices are not driven by supply and demand they are driven by speculators. Each of the points you just posted support what I'm saying. Neither of those points are related to consumption, drilling, refineries being down, or any supply related issue. They are all related to speculators moving their money into oil to drive prices up, gain a quick profit and then they will sell. The end result is higher prices and inflation for the average consumer.

How is any of that retarded?

All of this points to why we need stricter controls on markets that impact regular people and enrich traders.

Now do you understand?
_________________________
Honestly, I don't know...I'm torn. We haven't talked since AVN (other than the hearing in February)- Eric on Bree Olson