May 4, 2008 2 min read

There really only two groups that can raise oil prices, OPEC and our oil companies. Our oil companies have made over $100 billion in profits the last three years, yet they have yet to build any new refineries since the 1970s. Two new major refineries would cost about $30 billion, which would bring them into the 21st century, and that would take the pressure off supply and demand. OPEC says they won’t raise production, they say there is plenty of oil on the market, and why should they when Wall Street raises the price of oil every day?

A Saudi oil minister once said, “It isn’t us raising oil prices, it’s Wall Street.”

Now here are the bad guys at Wall Street, they are called hedge fund traders. They speculate on everything from refinery fires to hurricanes, snow, cold, hot weather, and unrest in the Middle East, and now it’s our currency.

A couple of years ago a hedge fund investor lost $6 billion that was vested on oil and gas. Just one investor.

By speculation, they learned how to manipulate the oil market. It’s the greed of Wall Street’s hedge funds that drives up the price of oil, no one else.

Now they are in commodities, which is our food, corn, wheat, barley, etc. A group representing farmers and food producers has asked regulators to consider limiting speculation to return predictability to the markets, which have been stoked for two years by profit-hungry investors.

So you see, it’s Wall Street hedge fund traders who are driving up oil and food prices. They are making billions in profits while our “do-nothing” congress and senate do nothing.

Two words: manipulation and speculation. There is your answer to high oil and food prices.

James Porterfield

Roscoe