“If financial speculation were pushing oil prices above the levels consistent with the fundamentals of supply and demand, we would expect inventories of crude oil and petroleum products to increase as supply rose and demand fell. But in fact, available data on oil inventories show notable declines over the past year.”

- Ben Bernanke (Federal Reserve Chairman), Congressional Testimony (7/15/08)
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"Efforts to rein in supposedly damaging speculation have run the gamut from requiring futures exchanges to raise margins to an outright ban on trading. But there is no historical evidence that politically inspired increases in futures margins — or other attempts to limit futures trade — have been effective at lowering overall prices."

- Futures Imperfect – Dwight R. Sanders and Scott H. Irwin (Op-Ed Contributors), New York Times (7/20/08)
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"What about those who argue that speculative excess is the only way to explain the speed with which oil prices have risen? Well, I have two words for them: iron ore. You see, iron ore isn’t traded on a global exchange; its price is set in direct deals between producers and consumers. So there’s no easy way to speculate on ore prices. Yet the price of iron ore, like that of oil, has surged over the past year. In particular, the price Chinese steel makers pay to Australian mines has just jumped 96 percent. This suggests that growing demand from emerging economies, not speculation, is the real story behind rising prices of raw materials, oil included."

- Fuels on the Hill – Paul Krugman (Op-Ed Columnist), New York Times (6/27/08)
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"The first myth is that high prices are caused by technical factors, such as speculation. While these factors may have an impact on the margins, the data clearly show that high prices are really caused by economic fundamentals."

- Let the markets end the energy crisis – Tony Hayward (CEO BP), Financial Times (06/11/08)
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"The first refuge of a politician panicked by rising prices is always to blame "speculators." So right on time for this election season, Congress has decided to do something about rising oil prices by shooting the messenger known as the energy futures market."

"This would of course make it more expensive to trade in U.S. futures markets, which in a world of computerized, instantaneous trading means that those trades would merely move to markets overseas. As luck would have it, the Dubai Mercantile Exchange celebrated its first birthday last week with the launch of two new oil futures contracts that compete with those offered by American exchanges."

- Dubai's Favorite Senators – Editorial, WSJ (06/10/08)
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"The senators ought to appreciate that it takes two to speculate -- a buyer and a seller. If a senator thinks speculation is driving the price of oil far beyond the level of reason, her response should be to call her broker and sell oil short."

"Instead of seeking a quick profit from their allegedly superior knowledge -- which we could respect -- the senators are just talking up the bearish side of the market for political gain."

- Bears Growl on Capitol Hill: Congress takes aim at energy speculators – Thomas G. Donlan (Barron's Editorial Commentary), Barron's (06/09/08)

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"It's indisputable that worldwide demand has surged, chiefly driven by strong growth in China, India and the Middle East. It's also true that most of the world's reserves are controlled by governments in places like Russia and Venezuela that mismanage production, thus curtailing supply growth."

"But today, the sudden surge in demand and the production bottlenecks have thrown the market radically out of balance."

- Why oil prices will tank – Shawn Tully (Editor Fortune Magazine), Fortune (06/09/08)
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Paulson conceded that record oil prices and $4-a-gallon gasoline were "a problem" for the U.S. economy but blamed it on supply and demand and declined to blame speculators for playing a role in soaring prices.

"My position, and I've looked at this very carefully, is I don't believe financial investors are responsible to any significant degree for this price movement," Paulson said on CNN.

- Double, or quit? – Editorial, Financial Times (06/09/08)
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"Half the world's population benefits from subsidised fuel, though the distortion becomes less dramatic if one takes into account that the fuel they purchase at cut-rate prices represents only one quarter of the world's total."

"China - whose oil demand is expected to grow 5-10 per cent - fuelled in part by the country's preparations to host this summer's Olympic Games - caps its price of fuel."
"Even if China moves to reduce the waste and shortages caused by unreasonably low prices, oil demand in the short term may rise - exactly the opposite of what is expected."

- Ever upward? How high prices are affecting world appetite for oil – Carola Hoyos, Financial Times (06/06/08)
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"But coincidence isn't causation. And such causation that can be shown to exist actually runs the other way: Rising commodity prices cause the dollar value of commodity index funds to rise, just as rising stock prices would make a stock index fund more valuable. This accounts for nearly half the reported growth in commodity index fund assets this year."

- Commodity-Price Scapegoats – Donald L. Luskin, WSJ (06/03/08)
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"There's nothing to it to start with...That's not what happened. You have 85 million barrels a day of oil available in the global energy market and 86.4 million barrels a day of demand. So the price of oil is going to go up until you can kill demand.''

- Pickens Says CFTC Probe of Oil a 'Waste of Time' – Boone Pickens (Billionaire Hedge-Fund Manager), Bloomberg (06/02/08)
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"Right now the oil market is tight and there isn't a lot of additional supply that can come on at very short notice and the market looks like it's going to remain under pressure for some time to come."

- Oil Markets Expected to Remain Tight, Says IMF – Simon Johnson, IMF (05/31/08)
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"But it's important to remember that the nature of the oil marketÑspecifically, the extreme inflexibility in both supply and demandÑis amplifying whatever influence traders exert on prices."

"But suspicion isn't the same as substantiation. To date, no one has pointed to particular examples of hoarding."

"With energy demand in China escalating and world supplies static, the influx of money has helped chase prices higher."

"Supply is essentially fixed in the short term because it takes years to find new fields and bring them online. Demand, meanwhile, is also essentially fixed, since there is no ready substitute for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel."

- Speculation - but Not Manipulation – Moira Herbst, BusinessWeek (05/29/08)
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"The collapse of the dollar exchange rate, alone, explains at least half of the increase in the pump price of gas over the past five years. If it wasn't for the falling value of the dollar, the price of gasoline wouldn't be an issue."

- Oil Is Up Because the Dollar Is Down – David T. King (Former Chief of NY Federal Reserve's Industrial Economic Division), WSJ (05/23/08)
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