Oil is 4 times more expensive now than 15 years ago (wholesale price). You say there's war in Iraq/Afganistan/Lebanon? I say, when was there not war and unrest in the Middle East? Lebanon and Afganistan aren't even major oil producers.

You say China is growing? China has been growing for years. Before that it was South Korea, Thailand and the other "Little Asian Tiger" economies. Before that it was Japan.

I think that trading and speculation make up a significant part of the current price of oil.

Remember how, in the late 1990's, there was an electricity shortage on the West Coast of the US? Remember how it eventually came out that certain Enron electricity futures traders had a lot to do with the high prices associated with that shortage?

As I recall, recordings of internal conversations between traders became public. They were joking about "scr*wing grandmothers out of their pensions". I'll wager that something similar is going on now, somewhere on a trading exchange. Think London, Chicago, Houston, New York, that kind of thing.

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