A reader emailed this Guardian link. The title to this post is from it. Read it.
It fits an earlier comment in an earlier post: "Oil is oil. Price is price. Demand is demand. Manipulation is manipulation."
Is a "free market" one insufficiently regulated that it can be manipulated? What then is meant by "free" beyond free from manipulation, free from shaping via government policy, or other non-market forces?
A market wholly controlled by wealth/stealth manipulation is not "free" in any sense except "free for the taking if wealthy and sneaky enough practices and practitioners are able to get away with borderline crime." And who are our friends doing such stuff?
Scum buckets.
The Guardian item names some names.
__________UPDATE_________
Another dimension of interest in considering price at the pump, AND price at the grocery check-out counter, touches upon a post by Dan Burns last weekend,
Facts about the food price crisis
Dan's insight is that concentrated production and distribution of basic agricultural products allows any player in such a concentrated situation to have a heavy thumb on the scale, as well as the even greater point - there being vulnerability when major producers are upset by war. Add to that the fact that industrialized agriculture, mega-farming, is highly dependent on energy input. Ammonia synthesis takes energy. Mining and transport of other fertilizer takes energy. Machinery concentrated agriculture is subject to impact of changes in energy prices. RoundUp is a petrochemical. Hence, agriculture as done today cannot be independent of oil prices.
It is a brief post, primarily a quote/link Dan published. Worth a look.
And worth remembering, price at the pump and price at the grocery store move in lockstep, not in contrary directions.