(The following appeared at TeamsterNation.blogspot.com on March 9.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — No, the reason why gasoline costs an average of $3.49 at the pump (more in Illinois, New York, Nebraska and the western states) is that hedge funds are driving up prices.
Our friends at The Economic Populist make the case that Libya sells us 2 percent of our crude oil. So civil war in Libya can’t possibly explain why gas prices are soaring.
CBS, to its credit, doesn’t buy the argument that Libya is causing high gasoline prices, either. Yesterday the CBS Evening News quoted Sean Cota of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, who said “…it’s unbridled investment money that is dominating the market, to the point where supply and demand doesn’t matter anymore.”
Cota said pension and hedge funds have been bidding up the price of oil. Last week, two-thirds of all oil traded was sold by investors, not oil companies. Cota said
The full story is at TeamsterNation.blogspot.com.