Most people with half a brain already instinctively knew this, but for those who want just the facts, here ya go. Trading futures is a risky business on a huge scale. Instead of all the fun you might have going to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, you could just lose your money sitting at your desk.

Of course betting on commodities strikes me as perverse, since peoples' lives depend on food and energy.

Study links oil prices to investor speculation

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 10, 1:03 PM ET

Speculation by large investors — and not supply and demand for oil — were a primary reason for the surge in oil prices during the first half of the year and the more recent price declines, an independent study concluded Wednesday.

The report by Masters Capital Management said investors poured $60 billion into oil futures markets during the first five months of the year as oil prices soared from $95 a barrel in January to $145 a barrel by July.

Since then, these investors have withdrawn $39 billion from those markets as prices have retreated dramatically, the report said. Oil traded at about $102 a barrel Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"We have clear evidence the fund flow pushed prices up and the fund flow pushed prices down," said Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management, calling the amount of money moving into oil futures markets by large institutional investors in the early part of the year "way off the scale."

Masters said its analysis shows investors "began a massive stampede for the exits" on July 15 and that this caused the price decline.

"These large financial players have become the primary source of the dramatic and damaging volatility seen in oil prices," concluded the report.

The report was released Wednesday by House and Senate sponsors of bills to put additional curbs on oil market speculation and comes in advance of a report on oil market speculation expected possibly this week by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The commission regulates commodity markets.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a sponsor of an anti-speculation bill, said the Masters report challenges CFTC claims to date that supply and demand forces — and not excessive speculation — has driven up oil prices.

"This analysis illustrates that when oil speculators poured large amounts of speculative money into oil markets, prices skyrocketed just as they were hoping ... And when the speculative money got pulled out, prices tumbled," she said.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he wants to know "how oil speculators were able to drive prices up and down while the CFTC was asleep at the switch."

An interagency task force, led by the CFTC, concluded in an interim report last July that "fundamental supply and demand factors" influence the oil markets and that the data "does not support the proposition that speculative activity has systematically driven changes in oil prices."

Senate critics of the regulatory agency charged that report was based in flawed evidence.

"The CFTC has its head in the sand," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee.

Stupak said the Masters report shows that that oil prices soared when speculators poured money into future markets even as the federal Energy Information Administration was forecasting supply would exceed demand.

Congress for months has been considering various measures aimed at curbing oil market speculation, but those efforts have been thwarted amid disputes over other energy issues from taxing oil companies to new offshore drilling.

Legislation before the Senate would put limits on the amount of oil certain traders, interested only in speculation, would be allowed to purchase in futures markets and give new authorities and staff to the CFTC to regulate oil markets.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS 3rd graf to correct price, $102 sted $1.02. Moving on general news and financial services.)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_on_go_co/oil_speculation

SPOILER ALERT

A friend and I went to see No Country For Old Men on Saturday. I would certainly rank it among the best Coen Bros. movies. It may even be their best. Javier Bardem (evil), Tommy Lee Jones (good), and Josh Brolin (greed) all shine in their performances. Of course working from a great script and with the Coens certainly enhanced their work. Javier Bardem excels at being the ultimate homicidal, psychopathic evil killer. Even his weapon of choice is unique and evil. Fortunately it gets explained in the film, so we know what it is.

Set in a grim west Texas landscape in 1980, this film is a morality piece about good and evil, but more about evil. Drugs, two million dollars, greed, and horrible violence are the ways evil is manifested in the film. In this film, evil wins over good, or at least evil walks away undefeated. Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff is the only real force of good in the film, and he immediately realizes that he is in a situation that he cannot win or control, and wittingly I think avoids any conflict in which he may get hurt and is therefore always one step behind the evil. Even when he "catches up" and he knowingly sits in the room where the psychopath is hiding behind the door, he does nothing. Evil wins by default. Even coin toss in the form of a car wreck cannot stop the evil. It walks away.

This film is very violent does not glorify violence. In fact, you sit for two hours dreading what you may see next, yet you can't take your eyes off the screen. The film will not make all moviegoers happy. It does not tie up all the loose ends. It does not answer all the questions. It is confounding at times. In those ways and more, art mimics life. There are always loose ends, always questions, always confoundment, always evil. The conversation at the end of the film between the sheriff (Jones) and his ex-wife confirms it. Evil can win for all he cares. He is done with his career in law enforcement. It is no country for old men.

IMHO, this is the movie to beat for the Oscar nod for Best Picture.

Just watched Syriana and watched one of the DVD extras that points to http://participate.net. The movie is fantastic, although you have to see it through to the climax and denouement to see how all the many threads join at the end.

Paramount Classics has committed 5% of the domestic theatrical gross for An Inconvenient Truth to be donated to a new bipartisan climate effort, Alliance for Climate Protection! Read more in our Press section.We've launched our new website for the film An Inconvenient Truth! Pledge to see the film and to find out what you can do to help curb global warming. [http://participate.net]

Like it or not, all of us are complicit in exploiting other people and nations to get low-cost energy. After all, what would we do with gas at $20/gallon at the pump? We think $3/gallon is highway robbery now. We must each pledge to make real changes in how we live and make a smaller footprint in the world. How we do it is up to our individual conscious.

The greed of corporate capitalists never ceases to amaze me. Yet most Katrina victims are still without housing, Bush is again trying to kill Social Security, global warming continues, the price of gas is forcing price inflation while most worker bee wages are frozen, and we don't have universal healthcare. And I bet some of these folks attend a church as pretend Christians.

I once worked for Phonezilla (AT&T) and am glad I work for a tiny company where people are treated well. I pray for all the people that suffer from corporate capitalist greed.

CBS News has reported that in 2006, more than 100 of the Fortune 1,000 biggest companies have terminated or frozen pension plans, complaining of the costs.  But in many cases the companies' leaders' benefits are getting bigger.  For example, AT&T's CEO, Edward Whitacre, will be entitled in November to a yearly pension of $5.4 million for life.  The Wall Street Journal found that 45 percent of AT&T's pension expenses go to just 1,500 top executives - less than 1% of the total number of AT&T workers.  The rest covers the other 189,000 employees. [Source]