Well, we're not "arguing."

I stated clearly that I hadn't made up my mind about this, and this wasn't a traditional Bund "New Deal" argument. I try not to dismiss plausible positions out of hand, and certainly not those of Ronald Wilson Reagan's (although his amnesty for 1.5 million illegals sticks in my crawl, but those were different times, the issue has evolved).

First, yes a currency market, not speculation.

Look I understand what you are saying, he wanted supply-demand to dictate price, not speculation. I get that. What I don't get is why speculation wasn't prevented prior, yet we saw no wild swings? You attempted to answer that by noting that less then 5% of our oil needs were from foreign sources. Ok, but "speculation" was on oil itself, not where it came from.

Now I'm trying to work this through as I type - let me see if I can piece together your OPEC short history and Reagan's motives speculation (ha): between the gimmick of choke/release that OPEC engaged in after their formation in 75', and the fact that the new crude sources were increasingly coming from "unstable" nations, rather than the US, the oil speculation market itself took on a new, unpredictable, gun slinger culture of highs and lows (one coup attempt and whammo - $10 spike). In other words the new, cheap crude all flourishing economies (especially the US as the chief petro consumer) were importing were increasingly from unstable, even unfriendly, governments, making speculation a real game, a real roller coaster whereas before it was rather a mundane, safe even, commodity given solid, predictable production from Western nations (most notably the US) were the source. Is that what you were getting at? That Ronnie saw that our oil resources were increasingly coming from a thug in a dark alley, and to at least help stabilize the damage they could do he restricted futures speculation in order to make the new, unstable source as predictable as was possible?

Now that I think I can get behind. But let me add something obvious here - restricting speculation on oil futures is a bandaid under this presentation. Maybe a solid well wrapped tourniquet even, but it appears to me that the real solution to curbing wild swings and maintaining a steady, predictable price, is for us to use a steady, predictable source - the US needs to reassert itself as an oil EXPORTER, which we were until the 50's.

Think about that - what if im the US we were to make it our mission to become an exporter again? Everything from national security to economic boom times would be unleashed. Instead rig wells sit capped off shore and remote tundra remains undisturbed.

You know I never really understood the "anti-domestic drilling" crowd. And I realize fully that I say this in the shadow of that historic Gulf spill. But these people by default trust these shadowy, little, mostly despotic regimes to be more "environmentally friendly" in their oil recovery endeavours than the US. Seriously. In the years before this spill (and surely after) more oil hit the waters around the US from leaky importing tankers and seepage then did domestic "accidents." I mean to tell these folks, we're getting the oil one way or another, we might as well recover it in our own backyard where we can at least supervise the process and perhaps defund the Jihadi's.

So ok, concession offered on speculation restriction, but with a caveat - it is a bandaid. The true cure is US domestic recovery so the world can take a collective breath knowing that Iran could no longer throw the economies of the world into a wood chipper on an Imam's whim.