The SOB's wouldn't do it again, would they?

The video I hope you just watched is from January 2009, for those of you who'll point out that it came from CBS, Bill O'Rielly did a similar segment for FOX.  It's pretty rare when both ends of the political spectrum come to the same conclusion.  I'm going to carry it a little farther, in 2009 oil prices started to increase shortly after the release of TARP II funds, within a few months the price of oil had climbed into the upper $40.00 dollar range and the banks were flush again.  The Stock Market hadn't gone back up, real estate was still going down the only thing that was up was the price of oil and the banks balance sheets.  In 2008 the experts spent the spring and summer telling us oil prices were the result of supply and demand.

We all know the the supply of oil from Libya are off the market, that represents about 2% of the supply.  The price of oil is up closer to 20%.  What isn't getting as much publicity is Saudi Arabia w\has increased production more than enough to cover the loss.  I don't know how much of the lost production we could make up ourselves if it wasn't for Obama's policies, that's a blog all by itself.

Now as in 2008 the experts are telling us demand is up and inventories are down..  After hearing that just a few years ago, I'm skeptical.  I am certain there are ways not to report all all inventory. that's why this article  Will Federal Regulators Crack Down on Oil Speculation? caught my eye this afternoon, I think the author, Christopher Hayes is streching things to try and make the Republican's fault, bit a great deal of he say's makes sense.

 “The most conservative thing that can be said right now [is that] this would be no time to dismiss the role that speculation plays,” says Greenberger. ” A moderate statement is that speculation is creating volatility that is aggravating the uncertainty in the market. If you start talking to industry people, they’re pulling their hair out. American Bakers Association is going bananas. They all believe that the markets are going screwy because of Wall Street.” A host of businesses and organizations from Virgin’s Richard Branson to Oxfam all make the same case.

What Hayes overlooks is the big banks that have easy access to almost zero interest Federal Reserve cash have also been big Obama Contributors.  Goldman Sach, Citi and Bank America to name a few.  Put on a more personal level. if you could borrow $100,000,000 million at zero interest, and make yourself between 3 and 5 million in a month for shuffling paper, wouldn't you do it?  Hayes tries to lay the blame on the Republicans with this paragraph

One way to attempt to constrain these volatile mini-bubbles is for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to impose “position limits,” essentially limits on the size of the bets that speculators can make. The New Deal–era Commodities Exchange Act gives the CFTC power to curb “excessive speculation,” and the just-passed Dodd-Frank bill explicitly calls for the CFTC to promulgate position limits.


Not surprisingly, the big Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs don’t want this, and the two Republican members of the commission don’t favor any position limits rules with real teeth. To his great credit, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler (a former Goldman banker I was quite critical of when nominated to the position) has taken a strong leadership position in advocating strong limits, and Democratic commissioner Bart Chilton has been supportive as well. That leaves the deciding vote in the hands of Democratic Commissioner Michael Dunn, who’s expressed misgivings

The question in my mind is not so much about Micheal Dunn's misgivings...... but why Barack Obama who is seldom shy about sticking his nose into affairs that aren't his business, is not commenting about something that clearly is