SeanMartin, I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies in regard to our recent discussion about the oil prices.

(I may be a bonehead sometimes, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.)

I was (maybe) a little bit right, but you were nearly 100% right.

Anyway, our discussion got me to thinking and so I researched it a bit, and it turns out Phil Gramm had something to do with this, too.

Apparently, he is the one that helped get the "Enron loophole" legislation that essentially legalized insider commodity speculation in, among other things, the oil market.

So it really is, largely, a small group of speculators doing this and profiting from it at everyone else's expense, just as you said.

So yeah, I'm with you. Let's put 'em on trial!