Letter to the editor: Letter ignores the dangers of too little regulation

Talk about it

Eugene Graner’s letter to the editor in The Jamestown Sun on July 21 was filled with complete nonsense. Apparently, in Graner’s world, anyone who thinks we need to deal with the forces that have made fuel prices so volatile in the last few years should be described by words like “socialism,” “stealing,” and “Karl Marx.”

It must be easy for Graner to complain about Sen. Byron Dorgan’s efforts to tamp down the excess speculation in the oil futures market, because his opinion doesn’t seem to be burdened by any facts. But let me share a few:

First, the price of oil went from $60 to almost $150 a barrel last year at a time when supply was up and demand was down.

Graner might want to blame that on government or on Dorgan, but that is a patently foolish notion. All the evidence suggests that it was excess speculation that drove that market both up and down.

Although Dorgan was taking aim at any manipulation in the oil futures market, he’s done nothing with respect to any other commodities markets, so I don’t know what has prompted Graner’s absurd charge there.

In fact, it is exactly the kind of deregulation that Graner seems to support that has caused these markets to be manipulated. It is his philosophy, and those who share it, that deserve the blame for the wild speculation that has caused such chaos in our economy.

Dorgan’s efforts have been joined by many business groups and others to try to rein in excess speculation in oil futures markets. It’s something that I know most North Dakotans appreciate, even if Graner is blind to the facts.

Pat Schulz

Bismarck

Tags: opinionletters, regulation, government, northland, agriculture, opinion