If Oil Prices Are Due to Greed

If oil prices are due to “oil speculators looking for a quick buck at the expense of American consumers” as Senator Byron Dorgan (D-olt) has claimed, does that mean they were really generous last fall and winter? Or could the drop in oil prices have had something to do with a pro-drilling campaign slogan last summer and the recent rise to an anti-fossil-fuel administration?

By the way, if you look at the graph of noncommercial long positions and crude-oil futures accompanying the cited article, you might notice that the speculators were selling while oil prices were near the peak. In other words, they were helping to bring those prices down just when that help was needed. (Another conclusion from the same phenomenon is that oil speculators knew what they were doing … in contrast the mortgage securities people.)