finally tonight on the ed show, as promised, or exclusive interview now with one of the people on the front lines with the battle between wall street and working americans. bart chilton of the commodities futures trading commission, or cftc as it s known, good to have you here on the ed show. i know our audience appreciates your time. let s start with the basics if we can. your office gave us a chart that shows the number of oil futures contracts rose from 617,000 back in the summer of 2008 to more than 1 million last month. i m curious, can you prove that that s the cause of high gas prices? well, obviously there s some things going on in the middle east that you ve covered. we also have some transportation issues, ed, with oil pipelines. i m worried that the speculative interest is being masked by these obvious things that you and neighbors around the country talk about. and that they are having an influence on prices.
i know our audience appreciates your time. let s start with the basics if we can. your office gave us a chart that shows the number of oil futures contracts rose from 617,000 back in the summer of 2008 to more than 1 million last month. i m curious, can you prove that that s the cause of high gas prices? well, obviously there s some things going on in the middle east that you ve covered. we also have some transportation issues, ed, with oil pipelines. i m worried that the speculative interest is being masked by these obvious things that you and neighbors around the country talk about. and that they are having an influence on prices. i m not suggesting that speculators are the cruise control on gas and oil prices, but i think they re tapping the gas pedal. well, what about the middle east? the united states of america does not get much oil from libya. so why would that affect our price at the gas pump?