Your analysis with speculation in the oil futures market really puts a name to the influx of capital, and shows how they can take advantage of inflexible supply and an inflexible demand curve.

Limiting the capital available to the speculators in the futures market by increasing their margin requirements may cause demand shifts back to a lower price, but ultimately we need to do something about that darn inflexible demand curve!

Not important, but have you considered using www.scribd.com or www.slideshare.com to share yor slides.

You could then embed the doc in the post, etc.

More on point, I think I’m torn here. I’d hate to hinder folks ability to make money… even if they are just acting as middle men. However, when so much is at stake, maybe it is better to have regulation here. I like the idea that the speculators would have to (or might want to) invest in the companies working with the comodities rather than the comodities themselves. This would have a net benefit to the economy as a whole compared to what we have now.

It’s also hard (for me) to say what the downsides would be for comodity providers/sellers if they didn’t have that increased demand/shelter from speculators. Is it worth ripping off the comodity users to ensure that the comodity providers can have consistant profits. In the case of oil, those providers are the most profitable comanies in the world, so I’d say no. But maybe we do need to preserve other comodities?

Thanks for putting this together and sharing.