Check out this video on YouTube:
From the 30 minute mark is her explanation of how the futures exchange ICE which has been set up by the oil industry and Goldman Sachs as an unregulated exchange, manipulates the price of oil.
It is very relevant to the price escalation we are seeing now.
http://www.youtube.com/...
The author of the book The Tyranny of Oil does a great job of explaining how the major oil companies have built profits through market manipulation of many kinds for the past 100 years but in particular how since 2000 the formation of an unregulated futures exchange has exceeded the trading volume of the regulated exchanges and through this unregulated market the industry has been able to spike prices at will.
If Obama wishes to help us all and the world to combat this anti-free market behavior on the part of the oil industry they should assign the Justice Department to investigate the markets and the manipulation. Then use the Antitrust laws for their specifically intended and original purpose, which was to break up the oil industry, once again, to ensure real competition.
It is hard work and requires eternal vigilence.
In addition, the oil industry should be charged for the protection of their supply lines which is being paid for at US taxpayer expense. Hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
That the market place way to ensure alternative fuels will emerge.
The US military have worked out that it was costing $400/gallon of gasoline to get fuel to their front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. This started them down a very Green policy path. The US consumer will not need anything crazy like that in pricing before they seek alternatives.