Quote from mangudai:
People who say that speculators are driving up the price of oli are forgetting that you have to stockpile large amounts of crude to drive up the price. See Krugmans article for a nice counter-point.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/more-on-oil-and-speculation
Quote from achilles28:
16% !!! MORE Dollars are in the economy today, than this time last year.
16%.... Thats huge.
http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-m3.gif
Quote from orange_trad:
This statistic (if it is any reliable) only shows that there is a huge increase in speculative money supply, and it very well can be the most important source of driving oil prices up. Note that while M1 hasn't changed for years, thus showing that there is no more cash in circulation than a few years ago. Since M2 and M3 rose like hell, there is evidently an explosion in available credit = highway to speculation and asset bubbles.
Quote from achilles28:
Thats the point.
Congress is looking to blame the END PRODUCT of their wild-eyed money printing.
When the FED prints M3 into the stratosphere, yes, that makes cheap money available to all. Economic boom, then speculative excesses follow.
You can't have one without the other.
Thats why Congress is stupid for yielding an ear to this little tattle-tale Hedgie thats sold us speculators down the river as the next Enron or Worldcom.
Its total bullshit. I bet that dudes on the Congressional payroll.