A Future Witch
Put on your mixed-economy goggles for this one…
The impending conclusion is that price fluctuation is not due to supply and demand. Note the mindset of these economically ignorant cannibals confused individuals. What distinguishes real consumers (according to their mindset) from speculators? The difference is need. They use need as their qualifying attribute of a consumer. The extent of ones need determines their position on the right-trumping social totem pole. In the mind of an altruist, speculators don’t need the commodities the way Bob the gas station owner does, and Bob doesn’t need it the way Joe the truck-driver does. Mr. Speculator is a greedy crook trying to make a profit. He doesn’t need oil therefore he’s not deemed a proper consumer and shouldn’t be considered in the supply/demand equation. Speculators are merely moochers feeding off the market and pursuing their selfish ends, while driving up the price for average Joe. What the market needs, according to the spirit of this video, is Government force via regulation.
What exactly do they think Bob and Jo are using fuel for - charity?
The underlying premise here is that Altruism considers profit as selfish, so speculators are demonized for seeking a profit on commodities futures. Profit seeking is unjustly denigrated as a flaw in the “free” market which should be corrected by Government force. Who’s right to what are they violating? None, but in our age of subjective-law it doesn’t matter. They aren’t adhering to the altruist-collectivist playbook, so they must be led to the sacrificial altar. This of course leads to the fundamental error, or evasion, with this story - the implication that oil price fluctuation is not due to supply and demand, but as a distortion by those greedy speculators buying up all the futures. Speculators bid (purchase) a particular quantity of stuff. That stuff is no longer available, .i.e., supply is reduced. When supply lowers independently of demand, the price goes up. Demand means consumption, regardless of what a consumer does with a product after consuming it. Speculators, even though they don’t actually obtain the product in tangible form, are qualified as consumers just as an individual purchasing gas for and automobile. The price fluctuation is due to supply and demand, and speculators are a component of such demand.
If principles matter, we should remind these clowns who moan about the evil speculators the next time they purchase real-estate, stocks, bonds or any other investment, that doing such is no different in principle than speculating futures.
Unless one can identify whose specific right to what is being forcefully violated by speculators then there’s no legitimate justification for regulating anyone.
This is the exact pattern and nature by which every market suffers erosion and inevitable destruction courtesy of Government meddling. The speculation market is surely on the government lynching radar.
