Soros and other say speculators causing oil madness
Committee hears about the 'runaway train' that has driven up fuel prices
Combined News Services
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 06/07/2008
WASHINGTON - One is a billionaire financier and the other operates seven gas stations and convenience stores in a farming community of 7,000 in eastern Washington state.
But George Soros and Gerry Ramm joined others in delivering the same message last week to the Senate Commerce Committee. Rampant speculation has helped spur out-of-control crude oil prices, which neared $140 a barrel Friday.
In the measured tones of high finance, Soros, whose hedge fund by some accounts made $3 billion last year, talked about a ''speculative excess'' and warned that the run-up in oil prices could drag the United States into a recession.
''It is intellectually dishonest, potentially destabilizing and distinctly harmful in its economic consequences,'' he said.
Ramm, the president of the Inland Oil Co. of Ephrata, Wash., was a bit more plain-spoken.
''Excessive speculation on energy trading is the fuel that is driving this runaway train in crude oil prices.''
Others testifying said speculation by investment banks, hedge funds, institutional investors and others may be responsible for more than half of the skyrocketing price of crude oil. The Federal Trade Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, they said, have failed to investigate.
Gasoline should cost about $2.25 a gallon, and everything above that is ''funny money'' largely tacked on by speculation and manipulation, testified Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America.
(Continued here.)
Combined News Services
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 06/07/2008
WASHINGTON - One is a billionaire financier and the other operates seven gas stations and convenience stores in a farming community of 7,000 in eastern Washington state.
But George Soros and Gerry Ramm joined others in delivering the same message last week to the Senate Commerce Committee. Rampant speculation has helped spur out-of-control crude oil prices, which neared $140 a barrel Friday.
In the measured tones of high finance, Soros, whose hedge fund by some accounts made $3 billion last year, talked about a ''speculative excess'' and warned that the run-up in oil prices could drag the United States into a recession.
''It is intellectually dishonest, potentially destabilizing and distinctly harmful in its economic consequences,'' he said.
Ramm, the president of the Inland Oil Co. of Ephrata, Wash., was a bit more plain-spoken.
''Excessive speculation on energy trading is the fuel that is driving this runaway train in crude oil prices.''
Others testifying said speculation by investment banks, hedge funds, institutional investors and others may be responsible for more than half of the skyrocketing price of crude oil. The Federal Trade Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, they said, have failed to investigate.
Gasoline should cost about $2.25 a gallon, and everything above that is ''funny money'' largely tacked on by speculation and manipulation, testified Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America.
(Continued here.)
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