Without offering any firm conclusions of her own, the author gives an impartial and fairly encylopedic coverage of the commentary others on both sides of the political aisle have made on a complex and important issue that far too often, sees only soundbite answers. While some reviewers might refer to the discussion of the impact of commodities speculation on the price of gasoline as being "pathetic conspiracy (expletitive deleted)" the reader will no doubt remember the recent national experience of the housing bubble, which followed the tech bubble of the 1990s, and perhaps will recall Santayana's warning about the fate of those who forget history, as stories of overpriced tulips start coming to mind. The presence of irrational exhuberance is demonstrably a fact of life, even if it is not a fact that fits in well with idealized pictures of perfectly rational markets. What happens when that exhuberance is coupled to the outsized buying power of a relatively few people, and the object of their fascination is not a luxury like tulips, but something economically essential, like oil? To ask such questions is not politically correct, but it is necessary; to see somebody daring to do so for a change was a pleasure.