Once again, speculators are blamed for high oil prices

Remember last year when we were paying upwards of $4 per gallon for gasoline? There was a lot of talk of why this was happening, with supply and demand receiving the blame for the high per-barrel prices for oil. At the time, I was skeptical and many financial analysts felt this way as well, as oil inventories were rising on a consistent basis.

One of the groups citing basic supply and demand as the cause of high oil and gas prices was the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), but this group now appears to be changing its tune. Bart Chilton, one of the group's four commissioners, told The Wall Street Journal that that this analysis came from "deeply flawed data."