Joe Lieberman

Guess who wants to implement cap-and-trade?

Just about every day, I continue to get letters and emails from readers, about this column from a few weeks ago, in which I argued that speculators are not really to blame for the soaring price of energy. Whatever role they play in the market tends to be positive, eliminating pricing inefficiencies and generally smoothing the rise and fall of futures contracts. The price increase is due to high demand, stretched supply and a shortage of refinery capacity.

My most recent column isn’t online as yet… but I can tell you it’s all about the nonsense coming out of congress and elsewhere, blaming “speculators” for the run-up in oil prices. I confess, I have been susceptible to this thinking in the past too. But the evidence is mounting that speculators have little or nothing to do with soaring energy costs. Here”s yet another new story in which the industry’s biggest minds keep telling us to ignore Joe Lieberman and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ben Smith suggests.