international oil speculation as a cause for spikes in oil prices last year

Both India and China are growing economies with populations of over a billion people each.

There are only 300 million Americans,each of them have over three times the population of the U.S. Which means together, they told a combined total of over 6 times the population of the U.S.

The U.S. has been the world's main consumer of oil. Regardless of how much they conserve, neither India or China will be able to keep the prices down.

So last year investors in Dubai and Hong Kong were speculating on oil.

We were blamed because margins were lowered, however the increase in oil speculation in the U.S. was actually less than the margins. And probably because real estate was the hot commodity at the time.

I'm calling this a red herring:
http://www.1440wallstreet.com/index.php/site/comments/crude_oil_rips_after_regulators_show_their_hand/
The lending is krap. But stop bailing out people who knew they were selling krap, let free market discipline take it's course.