According to Ralph Nader we are getting ripped off by oil speculators. Will we ever get our money back?

According to Ralph Nader, speculators have been controlling the price of oil for a few years now. Also, oil corporations have kept the amount drilling down and kept the refinery capacity down on purpose to reap more profits. So if the oil industry or financial speculators are ever found guilty of tampering with the natural forces of supply and demand, will the consumer ever get their money back from the 5 years when they got ripped off at the pump?

No, you will not "get your money back". First, oil speculators are like any other commodity speculator. They buy a commodity in the hopes that the price goes up. Then they sell it for a profit. They never see the commodity, usually. If the price goes down, they may take a loss, so it is a very risky business. Where it gets interesting is if there are interests that can "manipulate the market". Say a "rumor" surfaces that a Nigerian pipeline has just been blown up. This usually ticks up the price of oil. The speculator who started the rumor cashes in when the price is up, then buys back when the price falls back down again. Or a speculator can hear of some disaster through his/her own network before it becomes common knowledge. If this affects the price of oil, he/she buys or sells accordingly.

Now take the oil companies and Nader's charge that they are keeping oil drilling down as well as refinery capacity. New wells cost money to drill, and the chance that they may be "dry" holes is a significant risk. Most of the known oil reserves in the continental United States have already been drilled and a large percentage of their contents have already been taken. What is left are small oil fields, oil fields that need more expensive extraction methods, and oil fields that are currently off limits because of the US Congress at the urging of "environmentalists", such as ANWAR and off-shore. Refineries are also not cheap to build, are expensive to maintain, and, when they need to be extensively overhauled, may run into "environmental" laws that keep that overhaul from occurring. New refineries face a large number of "environmental" hurdles as well which is why we haven't seen many new refineries in the last forty years. The red tape is too expensive. Add to this the US Congress' mandate for reformulated gasoline for "environmental" reasons which requires a certain portion of our existing refining capacity to create fuels for a small portion of the country such as major urban areas such as LA and St. Louis, and you see why the supply is as restricted as it is. So if you wish to find who is "tampering" with the "natural forces of supply and demand" you only have to go as far as the US Congress and the environmental lobby that has the Democrat party in their hip pocket.

Ralph Nader may be partially correct about the speculators, and I wish someone would step in and curtail their activity. I'm sure that would help. Very simply, If you can't take delivery, then you can't bid on oil. That would solve the problem.
But Ralphiboy is a fruitcake, and he's been anti free enterprise for his lifetime. He's a "greenie" and he would shut down our economy as we know it. That's for sure.
So Ralphi Boy you ain't gonna do it to us this time, or ever, so get over it. Get a harmless hobby. I would suggest ancient Egyptian basket weaving. Can you did it?