more rising oil prices, and ignorant polical reaction

"The Economist" de 3 de Julio - Politicians who try to make oil cheaper by restraining speculation will just make things worse

The accusers point to the link between the volume of transactions on the futures markets and the price of oil. Since 2004 the near tripling of trading in oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the world's biggest market for the stuff, has neatly coincided with a tripling in the price.

.... neither index funds nor other speculators ever buy any physical oil. Instead, they buy futures and options which they settle with a cash payment when they fall due. In essence, these are bets on which way the oil price will move. Since the real currency of such contracts is cash, rather than barrels of crude, there is no limit to the number of bets that can be made. And since no oil is ever held back from the market, these bets do not affect the price of oil any more than bets on a football match affect the result.

Despite their dismal reputation, the oil speculators provide a vital service. They help airlines and other big oil consumers to hedge against rising prices, and so to reduce risk—a massive boon amid the economic turmoil. By the same token, they provide oil producers with more predictable future revenues, and so allow them to expand more confidently and borrow more cheaply. That, in turn, should help to lower the price of oil in the long run. Any attempt to curtail speculation, by contrast, is likely to make life harder for firms and oil more expensive.