Imagine that. Maybe someone should do something?
There are growing indications that Wall Street speculators are driving up the price of crude and Americans are paying for their profits at the pump.
“Americans overpaid $10 billion dollars for gas at the pump in the last month alone,” said Gene Guilford, president of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association, speaking at a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing held on April 4. Guilford estimated that speculation is adding roughly 75 cents per gallon of gas.
The high price of gas is not simply due to supply and demand mechanisms, but insteadperceived supply and demand. Currently, a majority of oil trades are made by Wall Street speculators rather than commercial end users of oil. There is increasing evidence that these traders are having a powerful influence on the price of petroleum.
