How's about we play an imaginary game of what if's. I'll give you a list of  what if's and you say true, false or maybe. Are you ready...Lets Play.

The year is in the 1960s ...
What if a group of countries got together and tried to manipulate the price of tin to unrealistic values, on the London Metal Exchange ... Could they get away with it for many years before the bottom fell out of the tin market?

The year is in the 1980s ...
What if a very rich Texas family tried to manipulate the price of silver for many months. Could they get away with it before the bottom fell out of the silver market?

The year is in the 2000s ...
What if a major oil producing county had an extreme ideology and they hated the Western worlds way of life, particularly the USA. How could they inflict the greatest harm to the worlds only super power?

They could not do anything on the military scale, but maybe they could devise a plan to manipulate the price of oil to unheard of levels by using clever propaganda that would be interpreted as truths by experts who are easily duped  and a few who may be planted in the media to spin their propaganda...WHAT IF they could turn tight oil supplies into imminent shortages by the use of fear &  greed in sensationalized articles to help propel the futures markets ... so why not use oil as a weapon for Western economic mayhem?

Of course, there has to be some grains of truth, but this can be stretched----out, so that other speculators will join in the play on the mercantile exchanges in New York and Chicago.

The bogus country sets up many trading companies with hard to find trails, to  trade oil futures and when demand for oil gets tight they buy up many future months, sending prices rocketing more than normal trading. The other regular traders spot a trend and follow suit for they are in it to earn money.  Also, high priced oil is in the interest of groups who want congress to vote --yes, to drill for oil in conservation areas of Alaska. If oil prices stay high the chances of a yes vote is greater ...

Greed makes for strange trading bedfellows.

Before long the bogus country or countries are in control of the price of oil and send it up as high as $70 a barrel because of weather related issues that aids their plan. There is also talk of oil reaching $100 a barrel, so the seeds are being planted for the future, that will feed the next panic buying spree.

When demand slackens off a few weeks later, they allow the price to come down to $60. But they do not let it go any lower for more than one day. Even though supplies are now plentiful and even though there was never any real shortage in the first place ... they still manipulate the price to stay high waiting for the next world crisis to send the price higher. The experts say technical factors are sending the price back up, which is jargon for the words...Nobody knows why the price is rising.

The bogus country has elected a super extremist as president and he recalls all ambassadors who have friendly relationships with western countries. He then brings in hard liners who start to talk about nuclear proliferation. What effect will this have on future oil prices?

Of course this is only a pretend game of ...
What if's, because the super power government would not be negligent enough not to check out who it is that is buying all the future oil contracts, or did they not think to check it out because it is "free market forces"?. Now, just imagine what can happen in the future if this is not a ... What IF's pretend game?