Oil Crisis: Blame Failure of U.S. Leadership, Not Big Oil

It's always easy to blame the administration for congresses shortcomings for the last 50 years. Speculators and commodity traders continue to push prices higher, while all citizens of the world suffer.

It’s Greed and Greed is good according to New Age Capitalism. I am in Retail Gas business so I feel the same pain that every consumer feels as it’s hurting our bottom lines too. I agree with all the supply and demand folks to certain extent. But right now as Saudis have rightly pointed out..the problem is isolated to US. IF you look at Europe, China & India, the prices are not going up. If demand from them is the only problem, why on earth it’s effecting just the US….Well there comes another dimension called Traders(Greedy) on Wall street. Trading is good but not the greedy one that we see these days. Remember the days of Tech Bubble. The Analyst side of the same organization sugar coats the pigs(No Good Tech. Companies) while the investment side make money of these pigs and dump it, while others lost their shirts. Well after the buble burst they did the same thing with Real Estate and now they are palying the same game with Oil. Well, we won’t here much about it because we hear most of it from the same people on the TV. Well in the 50-60s they did the same thing with Corn and the congress put a ban on all Corn trading for sometime until it stabilized. Well our congress is not effiecnt anymore to do such things I guess. Unfortunately they come in late in the game and try to take measures after the fact like they are now doing for the real estate industry. We will hear the same thing about Oil five years down the lane, but then it’s too late. These Greedy 1% of the society is taking hostage of the entire US by way of stalling the economy. Every one blames the oil company…but at leat they are providing jobs to thousands, but these Traders..every thing goes into their back pockets at the expense of others. So there I said it.

where was the esteemed senator from illinois's legislation to deal with issue during his tenure in the senate

Hmmm...I wonder if Mr. Task is a democrat. I thought this was Yahoo Finance not Yahoo politics. His arguements sound like a high school valley girl. "Like the Bush Admin must be like the worst Admin ever, like oh my god"

these guys are RIGHT ON! best reporting i've seen in decades!!

What alot of left wing subtext nonsense. Try blaming eco wing nuts who block real production. typical yahoo spin

TYPICAL FINGER POINTING. THE POLITICIANS IN BOTH PARTIES ARE TO BLAME. LET THESE HIGH PAID GUYS NOW GET US OUT OF THIS MESS.

B.S. many of what this article says is true. But Big Oil, is also in cahoots if not the driving force. Whether it is the corruption of controlling the politicians or actually writing the laws for the republicans and/or bush. Simply, you can not have an Oil Crisis and RECORD PROFITS at the same time. Profits are Big Oil's net after expenses. Period. End of Story. Big Oil is destroying America and the World over GREED.

Really interesting listening to two people that don't have a clue about oil, trying to carry on a discussion about it!

Dumbest Thing heard in Congress a week ago - "We can't drill our way to lower prices" With brains like that running the country, you get what you voted for. Had we drilled our way to 1 to 2 million barrels a day of Oil in the US, prices would be stable and we could tell the other exporters to drink their Oil and keep the money here in the US. As you ship out $700M a day to buy Oil, you weaken the Dollar. We need to produce our own energy and stop buying it from jerkoffs dictators.

This just highlights the lack of understanding that policy maers have in the fact that their limitaion of the production via refineries and the blockade on tapping into our natural gas, oil and coal resources right here.

ironically, Bush may have helped alternate energy by making conventional energy so expensive. of course, they will continue to promote ADM and friends to make billions at the tax payers and environment's expense, but maybe the free market will win out in the end?

The oil is there, just go get it and stop the talk !

///Bush has also overseen a huge increase in the deficit, which has undermined the value of the dollar./// This is a LIE!!! Although Bush IS a criminal, so are ALL of the congress & SCOTUS who've allowed the FED to exist since 1913, for they ALL abrogated their oaths in defense of the constitution. The FED and ONLY THE FED, is responsible for printing money receipts (FRN's) in excess of bullion to back them. And that, and ONLY THAT, is the pure definition of inflation. More unbacked money printed reduces the purchasing power of all dollars that exist. NEVER in history were fiat currencies to help the people, but to help the tyrants ripp off the people. There was NEVER a case otherwise. Deficit spending SHOULD be unconstitutional. What makes it "legal" is the illegal Federal Reserve that issues fiat instead of gold and silver money that IS constitutional.

First of all, there is speculation in the commodity trading. There should be enough of oil in the market, but why price keep going up? And why there is more money in commodity trading than ever? Second, why every where in the world, oil companies are being nationalized? Why allow big oils to reap the benefits while they lease land from the governement (the people owns the governement which means we own the public land)? Why allow a few to get rich while the rest suffer? We should tax oil company with excess profits. Third, I think governement should provide 0% interest rate for 10 years for ppl to install solar panels. We will import less oil and provide a new industry in the US.

Bush wanted to be a war time president. If it's ok for him to start a war on a whim, simply that he wanted to be a war time president, what we need to do is change things around, so it can't happen again. Mr. Bush isn't the only politician who's a jerk. For years, we've needed to curb consumption from abroad. If $5.00 / quart gas (yes, that's right folks), is what it takes, that's what it takes. It's not just motor fuel, it's just about everything on the shelf at WalMart. Nobody is going to by American because it's the right thing to do. There are alot of things we can't afford. We can't afford the military, as it now exists. And why do we need it? We don't. We can't afford the police establishment, as it now exists. And why do we need it? We don't. We can't afford the prison establishment, as it now exists. And why do we need it? It only trains criminals. We don't need it. We can't afford any of this.

Democrats opposed Bush's plan to increase supply. Every problem in this country (or the world) can be blamed on Liberalism.

The article is wrong-headed. There is enough oil supply, clearly the oil market is not functioning as "free." The mega oil mergers have given some players too much power to manipulate the market. They can spread a false rumor one fire here or disruption there and bingo you have the price spike. Some investment banks and hedge funds have also moved in aggressively in commodities (oil, metals, agri products) spiking the commodity prices. Congress should regulate commodity trading (suspend marging trading, e.g.), break-up the top oil companies to have more competitrion and make them less powerful, and impose windfall profit tax because hefty profits they are making by charging artificially inflated prices belong to the consumers. I strong support harsh actions by Congress against oil companies, speculators, and commodity markets. Gov't role is to protect people and that's exactly people demand, as will become evident in upco,ing elections. If these steps don't work, oil companies should be nationalized.

Uhhhhh,,, if we start drilling our oil in Alaska... if we start building more refineries.... if we go back to building nuclear power plants then we'll be out of this mess not right away but in the future. Best of all, if we stick with all the above, then we'll never be back to this situation again. It's not Bush's fault you idiot meaning this article writer, but the fault is yours and your liberal and environmentalist clowns who always oppose to anything and everything. yet you dummies never have anything good to suggest.

No matter what SOME people say, this is starting to change the way American families are spending money. This will help the Walmarts and Big Lots, but hurt others--fewer vacations--- fewer anything that is not needed.