Comment Text:
Greetings,
I just signed the following petition addressed to: Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
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Ensure that the price of oil/gasoline isn't driven by greedy speculation.
Excessive oil futures speculation is one of the hidden reasons our economy collapsed in the first place. Gasoline prices were spiked due to speculation buying, thus costing consumers more to commute to work. This put pressure on lower income workers, the ones targeted by 'predatory lenders', and thereby eventually causing a cascade of foreclosures as the families couldn't afford to pay for groceries, gasoline and a mortgage they didn't know they couldn't really afford. We are once again experiencing high gasoline prices that threaten our economy, and it is all due to oil futures speculation, not the natural cause of supply and demand.
Consider this quote from a letter to the CFTC from over 70 Senators: "According to the Energy Information Administration, the supply of oil and gasoline is higher today than it was three years ago. And, while the national average price of gasoline is now over $3.70 a gallon, the demand for oil in the U.S. is at its lowest level since April of 1997. Nor is the global supply of oil at issue. According to the International Energy Agency, in the last quarter of 2011 the world oil supply rose by 1.3 million barrels per day while demand only increased by 0.7 million barrels per day. Yet, during this same period, the price of Texas light sweet crude rose by over 12%. Meanwhile, oil speculators now control over 80 percent of the energy futures market, a figure that has more than doubled over the past decade."
Please help send a message to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that we will no longer stand for greedy speculators that ruin our economy and our livilihood for the sake of their pocketbooks.
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Sincerely,
JoAnn Epperson
Irving, Texas
Note: this email was sent as part of a petition started on Change.org, viewable at http://www.change.org/petitions/end-greedy-oil-speculators-influence-on-gas-prices. To respond, click here
