I normally leave it to folks like Dean Baker to beat up on the press. But I can't resist shining a bright light on today's story about oil speculators in the Washington Post, which has also been discussed by Mark Thoma and Tyler Cowen.

David Cho opens his story in the Washington Post with this bombshell:

Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses.

But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel.

Let's start with some background. The CFTC issues a report each week that summarizes the number of open futures contracts in

...

Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135. Imposing limits on speculation and other regulatory changes could reduce prices back down to the marginal costs of oil production,and the price of retail gasoline could fall by half, to around $2 a gallon, within 30 days of passage of a law to limit speculation in energy-futures markets, four energy analysts told Congress on Monday. More from MarketWatch.com: Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co., Edward Krapels of Energy ...

By Keith Fitz-Gerald Investment Director Money Morning/The Money Map Report Congress is talking about going after oil speculators in an effort to lower prices by limiting the amount of money flowing into oil contracts. We realize that they’re upset, but they’re going about this the wrong way. What’s more, they’re demonstrating a near complete ignorance as to how financial markets actually work. It doesn’t help that they’ve got energy analysts from some of the top firms telling them the price of oil could drop as low as $65 to $75 per barrel, bringing gas down to around $2 per gallon within 30 days of legislation that puts limits on speculation. While we normally wouldn’t give a darn about the ignorance of elected officials, the bad news is that, judging from the solutions on the table, Congress is just crazy enough, and the vast majority of ...