Rosemary,

Don't mean to beat a dead horse ... but since we were talking about speculation...look what was reported today...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The price of retail gasoline could fall by half, to around $2 a gallon, within 30 days of passage of a law to limit speculation in energy-futures markets, four energy analysts told Congress on Monday.

Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135.

Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co., Edward Krapels of Energy Security Analysis and Roger Diwan of PFC Energy Consultants agreed with Masters' assessment at a hearing on proposed legislation to limit speculation in futures markets.

Krapels said that it wouldn't even take 30 days to drive prices lower, as fund managers quickly liquidated their positions in futures markets.

"Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals," according to Gheit. "Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel."

"Energy speculation has become a growth industry and it is time for the government to intervene," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the full committee. "We need to consider a full range of options to counter this rapacious speculation."

There has been much discussion recently about how big a role speculators have been playing in the sharp rise in energy prices, though no consensus has emerged on this point.

Dingell introduced a bill on June 11 that would ask the Energy Department to gather the facts on energy prices, including the role played by speculators. See full story.

There are two kinds of speculators in the futures markets, Masters said. Traditional speculators are those who need to hedge because they actually take physical possession of the commodities. Index speculators, on the other hand, are merely allocating a portion of their portfolio to commodity futures.

Index speculation damages price-discovery mechanisms provided by futures markets provide, Masters added

The committee will likely consider legislation that would rein in index speculation by imposing higher-margin requirements; setting position limits for speculators; requiring more disclosure of positions; and preventing pension funds and investment banks from owning commodities.

Both major presidential candidates have supported closing loopholes that encourage speculation in the energy markets. Read more on Election Blog.

However, other witnesses said that pure speculators have had little impact on energy prices, which have doubled in the past year to about $135 per barrel. Both Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman have dismissed the impact of speculators on prices paid by consumers.

Speculators now account for about 70% of all benchmark crude trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from 37% in 2000, said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the investigations subcommittee. Stupak introduced a bill on Friday that would limit index speculation.

There has been much discussion recently about how big a role speculators have been playing in the sharp rise in energy prices, though no consensus has emerged on this point.

Congress, however, has grown increasingly concerned over speculative investors' role in the energy market in comparison with those buying futures contracts to hedge against risk from price changes. Lawmakers are expected to consider legislation to set strict limits -- or in some cases, an outright ban -- on speculative trading in energy futures in some markets.

Dingell is looking into any legal loopholes that may have contributed to speculation in energy markets. In 1991, according to documents provided by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the committee's investigators, the agency authorized the first exemption from position limits for swap dealers with no physical commodity exposure. This began what Dingell said was "a process that has enabled investment banks to accumulate enormous positions in commodity markets."

In a letter to the CFTC last week, Dingell asked the agency to disclose how many other exemptions it has provided over the years.

Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.
Michael Kitchen is a copy editor for MarketWatch and is based in New York.

Marilyn,

Good find.  I'll read it and see if I can figure out how a paper bet drives up the price of oil.  Some say it does and others say it doesn't.  Why don't they know for sure?  Anyway, as I understand this, the trading is done in London, how are we going to legislate that?   And take out loopholes in trading practices if it's not done here?  We need to get together with England and have a chat.

As long as they know what their doing, that's all I care about, get the prices down to affordable ranges and still drill to get foreigners out of our pockets.  We now import 60% of our oil needs.  We owe the world a fortune over oil.  We can't afford our debt payments with mounting interest rates right now. 

Anne,

I do not use 25 barrels of oil yearly.  Someone is taking my share.  

Rosemary,

How can you be so sure? 

Rosemary, we drive even less that you. However, your car gets better gas mileage than mine.  Tomorrow I will drive to a neighbor who is a beautician and have my hair cut and highlighted.  No, I'm not walking because by the time I get back my hair will go POOF!  And I may go to Target to get some aspirin which is probably two to three miles from me.  I spend a lot more on groceries than I do on gas.  However, oil is used for almost everything from clothes to shoes.

Yes, I agree that the the "seal" was offensive.

I'm sure the seal is a a one-time use, mainly because everyone was so offended (and even some of his advocates are using, gently, the word arrogant, and also because it's not legal to use any seal that looks like the presidential seal. Not even, I gather, by the president if he's campaigning, although not sure about that one.  And this is the man of judgment!

Yes, Roesemary, how can you be sure. Whatever the case, I'm sure you use more than one or two barrels of oil a year.  I know you live in the south, but there must be times when you use heating oil.  And as Shirley says, oil is used in so many products.  We all use more than our fair share--and I'm  guilty too, although we now use more wood than oil to heat our house.  Pain though, as we have to feed it every hour, and spend lots of hours stacking and hauling. 

Today, our neighbor installed a pellet stove, which he tells my husband will bring down his heating costs from almost $3,000 last year to about $1,000 this year.  It's tough on folks who live in Maine, particuarly as they are generally poorer than those in other states. 

For those who really believe that Obama is a new type of candidate:

From yesterday's Times. 

As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.

“I will never forget the quote,” Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide’s words. “He said, ‘We have a very tightly wrapped message.’ ”

When Mr. Obama began his presidential campaign, Muslim Americans from California to Virginia responded with enthusiasm, seeing him as a long-awaited champion of civil liberties, religious tolerance and diplomacy in foreign affairs. But more than a year later, many say, he has not returned their embrace.

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit.

In interviews, Muslim political and civic leaders said they understood that their support for Mr. Obama could be a problem for him at a time when some Americans are deeply suspicious of Muslims. Yet those leaders nonetheless expressed disappointment and even anger at the distance that Mr. Obama has kept from them.

“This is the ‘hope campaign,’ this is the ‘change campaign,’ ” said Mr. Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota. Muslims are frustrated, he added, that “they have not been fully engaged in it.”

Aides to Mr. Obama denied that he had kept his Muslim supporters at arm’s length. They cited statements in which he had spoken inclusively about American Islam and a radio advertisement he recorded for the recent campaign of Representative Andre Carson, Democrat of Indiana, who this spring became the second Muslim elected to Congress.

In May, Mr. Obama also had a brief, private meeting with the leader of a mosque in Dearborn, Mich., home to the country’s largest concentration of Arab-Americans. And this month, a senior campaign aide met with Arab-American leaders in Dearborn, most of whom are Muslim. (Mr. Obama did not campaign in Michigan before the primary in January because of a party dispute over the calendar.)

“Our campaign has made every attempt to bring together Americans of all races, religions and backgrounds to take on our common challenges,” Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman, said in an e-mail message.

Mr. LaBolt added that with religious groups, the campaign had largely taken “an interfaith approach, one that may not have reached every group that wishes to participate but has reached many Muslim Americans.”

The strained relationship between Muslims and Mr. Obama reflects one of the central challenges facing the senator: how to maintain a broad electoral appeal without alienating any of the numerous constituencies he needs to win in November.

After the episode in Detroit last week, Mr. Obama telephoned the two Muslim women to apologize. “I take deepest offense to and will continue to fight against discrimination against people of any religious group or background,” he said in a statement.

Such gestures have fallen short in the eyes of many Muslim leaders, who say the Detroit incident and others illustrate a disconnect between Mr. Obama’s message of unity and his campaign strategy.

“The community feels betrayed,” said Safiya Ghori, the government relations director in the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Even some of Mr. Obama’s strongest Muslim supporters say they are uncomfortable with the forceful denials he has made in response to rumors that he is secretly a Muslim. (Ten percent of registered voters believe the rumor, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.)n an interview with “60 Minutes,” Mr. Obama said the rumors were offensive to American Muslims because they played into “fearmongering.” But on a new section of his Web site, he classifies the claim that he is Muslim as a “smear.”

“A lot of us are waiting for him to say that there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, by the way,” Mr. Ellison said.

Mr. Ellison, a first-term congressman, remains arguably the senator’s most important Muslim supporter. He has attended Obama rallies in Minnesota and appears on the campaign’s Web site. But Mr. Ellison said he was also forced to cancel plans to campaign for Mr. Obama in North Carolina after an emissary for the senator told him the state was “too conservative.” Mr. Ellison said he blamed Mr. Obama’s aides — not the candidate himself — for his campaign’s standoffishness.

Despite the complications of wooing Muslim voters, Mr. Obama and his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, may find it risky to ignore this constituency. There are sizable Muslim populations in closely fought states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia.

In those states and others, American Muslims have experienced a political awakening in the years since Sept. 11, 2001. Before the attacks, Muslim political leadership in the United States was dominated by well-heeled South Asian and Arab immigrants, whose communities account for a majority of the nation’s Muslims. (Another 20 percent are estimated to be African-American.) The number of American Muslims remains in dispute as the Census Bureau does not collect data on religious orientation; most estimates range from 2.35 million to 6 million.

A coalition of immigrant Muslim groups endorsed George W. Bush in his 2000 campaign, only to find themselves ignored by Bush administration officials as their communities were rocked by the carrying out of the USA Patriot Act, the detention and deportation of Muslim immigrants and other security measures after Sept. 11.

As a result, Muslim organizations began mobilizing supporters across the country to register to vote and run for local offices, and political action committees started tracking registered Muslim voters. The character of Muslim political organizations also began to change.

“We moved away from political leadership primarily by doctors, lawyers and elite professionals to real savvy grass-roots operatives,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a political group in Washington. “We went back to the base.”

In 2006, the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee arranged for 53 Muslim cabdrivers to skip their shifts at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to transport voters to the polls for the midterm election. Of an estimated 60,000 registered Muslim voters in the state, 86 percent turned out and voted overwhelmingly for Jim Webb, a Democrat running for the Senate who subsequently won the election, according to data collected by the committee.

The committee’s president, Mukit Hossain, said Muslims in Virginia were drawn to Mr. Obama because of his support for civil liberties and his more diplomatic approach to the Middle East. Mr. Hossain and others said his multicultural image also appealed to immigrant voters.

“This is the son of an immigrant; this is someone with a funny name,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, who is a Christian who has campaigned for Mr. Obama at mosques and Arab churches. “There is this excitement that if he can win, they can win, too.”

Yet some Muslim and Arab-American political organizers worry that the campaign’s reluctance to reach out to voters in those communities will eventually turn them off. “If they think that they are voting for a campaign that is trying to distance itself from them, my big fear is that Muslims will sit it out,” Mr. Hossain said.

Throughout the primaries, Muslim groups often failed to persuade Mr. Obama’s campaign to at least send a surrogate to speak to voters at their events, said Ms. Ghori, of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Before the Virginia primary in February, some of the nation’s leading Muslim organizations nearly canceled an event at a mosque in Sterling because they could not arrange for representatives from any of the major presidential campaigns to attend. At the last minute, they succeeded in wooing surrogates from the Clinton and Obama campaigns by telling each that the other was planning to attend, Mr. Bray said. (No one from the McCain campaign showed up.)

Frustrations with Mr. Obama deepened the day after he claimed the nomination when he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel. (Mr. Obama later clarified his statement, saying Jerusalem’s status would need to be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians.)

Osama Siblani, the editor and publisher of the weekly Arab American News in Dearborn, said Mr. Obama had “pandered” to the Israeli lobby, while neglecting to meet formally with Arab-American and Muslim leaders. “They’re trying to take the votes without the liabilities,” said Mr. Siblani, who is also president of the Arab American Political Action Committee.

Some Muslim supporters of Mr. Obama seem to ricochet between dejection and optimism. Minha Husaini, a public health consultant in her 30s who is working for the Obama campaign in Philadelphia, lights up like a swooning teenager when she talks about his promise for change.

“He gives me hope,” Ms. Husaini said in an interview last month, shortly before she joined the campaign on a fellowship. But she sighed when the conversation turned to his denials of being Muslim, “as if it’s something bad,” she said.

For Ms. Ghori and other Muslims, Mr. Obama’s hands-off approach is not surprising in a political climate they feel is marred by frequent attacks on their faith.

Among the incidents they cite are a statement by Mr. McCain, in a 2007 interview with Beliefnet.com, that he would prefer a Christian president to a Muslim one; a comment by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton that Mr. Obama was not Muslim “as far as I know”; and a remark by Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, to The Associated Press in March that an Obama victory would be celebrated by terrorists, who would see him as a “savior.”

“All you have to say is Barack Hussein Obama,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights lawyer and contributing editor at Islamica Magazine. “You don’t even have to say ‘Muslim.’ ”

As a consequence, many Muslims have kept their support for Mr. Obama quiet. Any visible show of allegiance could be used by his opponents to incite fear, further the false rumors about his faith and “bin-Laden him,” Mr. Bray said.

“The joke within the national Muslim organizations,” Ms. Ghori said, “is that we should endorse the person we don’t want to win.”

Again, I'll say that Obama isn't the answer and I WILL write-in Hillary's name in the fall.

I refuse vote for someone because they may be the lesser of two evils.

Oh, AnneShirley----Surprised you fell into the trap----Mr Slick at least knows political history and certainly is walking his usual tightrope here lest he have a Dukakis moment--------

Remember Dukakis on the death penalty---What he would have done if it was his wife------one of the more memorable moments of the campaign.

Obama is way too shrewd to fall into that trap.

My the way your man Nader had quite a few things to say about Obama today.  I think the Obama spokesmen called him "delusional" .

Anne...I am really curious, in not supporting the death penalty, what do you consider appropriate punishment for say a serial killer?

And if you think the death penalty is what defines a civilized country, what do you think about countries that cut off hands for theft?

I have no desire to argue the issue, I am just curious as to your ideas.  

Did anyone read about Obama's speech in Jacksonville on Friday?  Funny how it's not getting much press.  Well maybe not so funny.  A shame, really.  The best write up I could find about it was actually from a UK newpaper.  It seems that since the Republicans aren't playing the race card, Obama is doing it for them.  Gee, isn't that the same game he played (successfully, I might add) on Hillary and Bill Clinton.  I guess if it worked once, he figures, why not do it again?  He is so sleazy.  And scary in how his ambition has overtaken every aspect of his campaign.   

Barack Obama: Republicans will stoke racial fears to stop first black president

By Toby Harnden in Washington Last Updated: 12:41AM BST 23/06/2008

Senator Barack Obama has told supporters that Republicans will stoke racial fears in an attempt to stop him becoming the first black president of the United States.

"We know what kind of campaign they're going to run," the Illinois senator said at a fundraising event in Jacksonville, Florida.

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me - 'He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?'"

Polls show that Mr Obama is now the clear front runner for the White House, leading in national opinion polls by an average of nearly six percentage points. A Newsweek poll released yesterday put him 15 points ahead.

More crucially, he also has narrow leads in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.

Figures released at the weekend, however, showed that Mr Obama's prodigious fundraising tapered off somewhat last month, when he raised $21.8 million, just $100,000 more than Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee.

Mr Obama has raised a record $296 million thus far, compared to Mr McCain's $122 million. He has opted out of public funding, which comes with a spending limit, in anticipation of raising much more than the $89 million ceiling his opponent, who will accept public funds, will have to abide by.

The Democratic and Republican candidates currently have almost the same amount of cash in their coffers available - just over $30 million. Mr Obama, however, is expecting a surge in funding from mega-rich supporters of his vanquished Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

During his long primary campaign against Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama made few references to his race until the furore over anti-American comments by his then pastor Jeremiah Wright forced him to address the issue with a major speech.

But his advisers believe that potential racism should be tackled head on in November's general election against Mr McCain and is anticipating racially-tinged attack advertisements from groups allied with him.

He remains vulnerable on the experience issue while many Americans have suspicions he is lacking in patriotism - both major potential handicaps against Mr McCain, 72, a Vietnam hero.

By conflating these issues with race, Mr Obama could help give legitimate criticism the taint of racism. Some Republicans reacted angrily to his Jacksonville remarks, accusing him of himself playing the race card.

At another fundraising event in Chicago last week, Mr Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, said that Republicans would also try to make people scared of his wife Michelle.

"They're going to try to make me into a scary guy. They're even trying to make Michelle into a scary person. Right? And so that drumbeat - 'We're not sure if he's patriotic or not; we're not sure if he is too black.'

"I don't know, before I wasn't black enough. 'Now he might be too black'. We don't know whether he's going to socialise, well, who knows what."

Mr McCain, who has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh and was himself subjected to racial smears during the 2000 Republican primaries, has vowed to conduct a respectful campaign.

He repudiated conservative radio host Bill Cunningham after he repeatedly referred to Mr Obama by including his middle name "Hussein", which came from his father Barack Obama Snr, who was from a Muslim family.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2176293/Barack-Obama-Republicans-will-stoke-racial-fears-to-stop-first-black-president.html

How would you feel if your little girl was raped and tortured like the little girl in Florida?  And then buried alive?  And there's absolute proof this guy did it?  I would probably kill the guy myself!

How would you like it if one night a man came into your home and took your little girl.  And later they find her dead on the side of the road like a dog?  Remember the guy who took the girl from her bedroom and killed her in his RV?  And there was DNA to prove he did it.

Shall I name a few more?  I've got three grown daughters and remember worrying about them.  And I still do.  My dd was working late tonight with her patner at their law firm.  Her partner saw this guy through the kitchen window breaking into my dd's car.  She told her to call the police.  The police got their quickly and they caught him hiding under her partner's car.  It scares me to think he could have tired to break into the office with these women in there.  And sometimes my dd works late and she's by herself.  I told her to get a gun.  Concealed weapons are legal in N.C.  You go through a background check and have to learn how to use the gun before you get the permit.

Ain't it the truth Rosemary! I always say I am a born again Texan!

And whomever keeps copying and pasting this stuff that extends the message could at least edit it by using their ENTER key on the LONG sentences so this stuff could be read easier. 

Paulette531,  Sorry to distrub.  My screen is not displaying the same thing that you are seeing.  And since I don't understand why the problem....I'll simply not do it again unless I can make it align.  All in a day's work.  Did my edit fix things yet?  or do I need to delete the whole thing again?  Let me know.  Thanks.

Rosemary,  I'm glad to hear that you have a great neighborhood that might be insulated from this problem....it's the rest of the country and many people who were dooped to believe that the bubble was 'safe' who will feel this the worst. 

I was glad to hear yesterday that the federal government is prosecuting the lenders who sold product under false pretense.  It's not nice to fool mother nature!

Sorry, Anneshirley, seemed to have missed that news bit about the Supreme Court & Obama--out of the loop as have been busy with medical stuff and granddaughter.

Can only respond on my values and beliefs--not what Obama said. So, I do not believe in the death penalty ever. Nor do I believe in indeterminant sentencing. Nor do I believe in isolated confinement. I do believe that there is justice when someone is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, because they will sit in jail for the rest of their lives and have each and every hour and every minute of every day to think about what they did, and how they must atone for it. God will deliver the punishement when the person dies. It is not up to me to judge this person. I'm sure there will be many that are horrified by my response. So be it. And I do know if a member of my family was murdered, I would have a hard time abiding by this decision, but I would meditate and pray for the strength to stand by my convictions here.

I abhor violence and killing, but I do not believe that the death penalty keeps anyone from commiting crimes. It is not a deterrant to criminal behavior. Even the 3rd strikes law is not a deterrant to criminal behavior. And, it costs more to execute a criminal than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives.

And I will bet that no one wants to know what I think about our prison system in this country. LOL Especially since our prison system was built upon slavery and the plantations in the south. Mmmm. Food for thought perhaps?