World Crude Oil Prices reached over $80 barrel yesterday. Hopefully, this a momentary spike, and will be if legislation is passed to lower speculation.
But, may be an ominous sign of things to come. My fear, for quite a while, has been that rising oil prices would hurt the economic recovery that is now taking place. The Monthly unemployment numbers probably will not show much, if any, improvement, but most indications are that the economy has finally turned around.
A gallon of gasoline on the New York Mercantile Exchange was over $2.25 yesterday. With additional costs, that places the average price for gas at the pump close to $3 a gallon in the near future..AGAIN. There is no question that these rising energy costs will have devastating results on the recovering economy.
Energy prices need to become more regulated and wild speculation, which has been allowed to go uncontrolled, has to be brought under control too. Anyone can buy Oil Commodity Futures without actually taking the purchase leading to wild swings in prices. Anyone buying oil Should have to actually take pocession of the commodity. With most speculators having no where to store the purchse, speculation would diminish!