Obama Hates Oil Speculators, Hearts Ethanol

Samir Syed
by Samir Syed

Bloomberg reports that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is proposing new rules to increase government interven… err… oversight in energy markets. He wants to "require the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to regulate trading in energy futures contracts and direct the commission to investigate ways to lessen speculation, such as increasing margin requirements." As oil takes an extended sojourn in the neighborhood of $135/barrel, Obama joins the growing chorus blaming high oil prices on greedy speculators. While Sen. Obama rails against the "Enron loophole"– allowing energy speculators to speculate without Uncle Sam riding herd– he's also busy promoting ethanol. And ethanol is promoting him. According to the New York Times, one of Obama's advisors, Tom Daschle (yes, that one), identifies himself as a man who spends "a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy." (That's a lobbyist, to you and me.) Obama's also traveled on a corporate jet owned by "Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation's largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state;" not-so-coincidentally the nation's second-largest corn producing state. In fairness to Senator Obama… no, that's all I got.

Samir Syed
Samir Syed

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  • Qwerty Qwerty on Jun 23, 2008
    So what’s driving oil speculation? The same thing that drives all bubbles: Money chasing easy returns. We have gone from a stock bubble to a housing bubble to a commodities bubble. The business of America is no longer business, it's bubbles. Uranium went from $7 to nearly $140 and is now back to $60. It was not because of Peak Uranium.
  • Anonymous Anonymous on Jun 23, 2008

    12 dollars a gallon for gasoline in England. Baracks socialist buddies no how to cut consumption. I am gonna make a lot of money off Barack.

  • Anonymous Anonymous on Jun 24, 2008
    Uranium went from $7 to nearly $140 and is now back to $60. It was not because of Peak Uranium. Are you certain? I've been hearing about some sort of nucular* program in Iran. * Intentional misspelling, I know that its spelled nukeyalar ;-)
  • Notright Notright on Jun 27, 2008

    So forgive me but did the housing bubble just burst? And did the speculators in Wall street not have a major role in this? And finally, do we not have a Oil traders bubble now? Hold your answer and lets talk in 12 months. Then we should look at what happened to Housing and Oil and see if by chance deregulation and speculation had anything to do with it... I can be wrong just like the next guy.

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