However, what came through loud and clear, is that the global oil market is NOT quite the innocent Economics 101 concept of an ideal market, the only example of which I can think being a large crowded outdoor flea market. Evidently, the intermediaries are not merely neutral facilitators, but are powerful entitities in their own right who also have great leverage on what happens in the market.

The question of why can't we largely do away with the middle man is a very good one.

 I picture this situation to be somewhat analogous to how the real estate market works in the US. In my view it is a rigged game controlled by a powerful alliance of parasites consisting of real estate agents, attorneys, mortgage companies, and lesser players like land surveyors, etc., all conspiring to take their generous nibble out of the sale price of a house.

 In this day and age of instant electronic communications and vast instantly undateable data  basis, do we really need all these parasitic itermediaries?  In the state where I live, a house has to be resurveyed each time it is sold. So, if a house changes hands 5 times over a 15-year period, it gets surveyed 5 times.  Is this to check and see if the property somehow mysteriously moved? Does this same house need to have 5 manual title searches at the Hall of Records each time the house is sold? No, of course not. It is merely featherbedding of the worst kind.

Getting back to oil, the more we can directly link buyers and sellers, and the more we can restrain speculators and intermediaries, I think the better off we will all be. Oil is pretty vital stuff, and we can't let a bunch of opportunists wank around with the markets.