Well, How to begin.  Anyone notice that the price of rice, corn, copper and other commodities, including oil have continued their upward spiral when the dollar is recovering nicely, the subprime mortgage "crisis" has been discounted, the world (including the Chinese and Indians) are using less oil (recession?)?  Could it be that the spiral is due to speculation in petroleum and other futures markets.  Want to see $60 to $70  a barrel oil again.   Raise the margin requirements on oil futures contracts from the low 5 - 15% to 100%.  Anybody remember  when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the Silver market?  Raising the margin to 100% shot them out of the saddle.  Write your politician and suggest higher margin requirements on strategic commodities like fuel and food because the commodity exchanges are government controlled.   Who is responsible?  Ask yourself, if you were a big time commercial banker and  had just taken a horrendous writedown in the value of some of your debt vehicles wouldn't you be tempted to regain some of that lost capital by gambling in the futures market, eh?  We're talking big time hedge fund investment of bns of $.   Think?  Can anyone imagine the friendly arabs, chinese and others who bailed out  those commercial banker with bns not wanting to hedge their bets  (can you say "hedge fund?).