TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says it's a farce when a $10 million investment from one rogue trader can move oil up relatively easily.

Here are things that the commodities traders' lobby always stops: margin increases and any sort of regulation against manipulation. They always claim that the markets are too "deep" and they always have stats that back it up. We saw this in the commoditization of stock sectors that are now dominated and manipulated by power ultra futures.

The "deepness" of any sector is, of course, an illusion if you actually trade, but if you don't trade you are tempted to attribute anything to the rise and fall of a sector except manipulation, because manipulation means common-sense margin regulation, which cuts down on fees and therefore ruins the business. No one ever allows a cut in fees -- too much money at stake, too many politicians that can be easily bought, too many agency regulators that can easily be captured.

Manipulation's just part of the game -- a sanctioned part.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) announced today that it would not challenge the ruling of an appeals court stating that it was to pay $470 million in interest on the $507.5 million judgment related to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill took place back in 1989, and victims have been trying to get some money from Exxon ever since. In 1994 the victims won a $5 billion judgment, but Exxon has fought that ruling for the past 15 years.

The interest in using natural gas as an alternative to crude has helped natural gas-based companies appreciate in value. Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) has benefited from that interest, with a gain of more than 20% this year.

CHK is an interesting story in that during the craze in energy prices in 2008, the CEO of the company was forced to liquidate his entire position. That forced selling created an opportunity to buy the stock at an incredibly cheap price, even beyond the artificially low energy prices reached earlier this year.

The first half of 2009 has whizzed by in what seems like a macroeconomic eye-blink. Wasn't President Obama inaugurated just a few weeks ago? It's a cliché but it's true: time flies.

The nation has made strides to recover from its near-decade of policy errors, but much work remains. Accordingly, then, here are three economic wishes for the United States for the second half of the year:

Did commodities get ahead of themselves? And specifically, did one commodity -- the world's most important commodity -- get ahead of itself?

In macroeconomic terms, oil raced ahead about 100% in less than five months -- an eye-blink in macroeconomic terms -- to $72, all on the belief that the U.S. and global recessions were bottoming. Other pivotal commodities, such as copper, followed suit.

Oil moved up above $70 early in the session, but was unable to hold that momentum through the day. After its strong start to the day, prices dropped $2.19 to $67.83.

A major reason for the drop in prices can be attributed to the World Bank. The World Bank slashed its forecast for this year's global economic growth, and reported that the current recession is deepening.

The Iranian government hand counted tens of millions of presidential election ballots in a couple of hours; less time than we count ours by computer -- an Ayatollahs' miracle for sure!

These results indicated that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was able to garner two-thirds of the vote. Given the Ayatollahs miracle, the public viewed this result as anything but.

Protesters expressing their extreme objection to the election results then created a miracle of their own when up to one million marchers hit the streets forming a 5 to 6 mile parade of discontent, claims of fraud, and in some cases calling the government a dictatorship.

Meanwhile Ahmadinejad who made references to disgruntled fans after a football game in slighting the protesters, hung around for a couple of days before appearing a day late for a conference in Moscow. He missed some of the key events but he did get a chance to mention how bad the US economy was doing, neglecting to mention that Iran's economy is showing signs of falling off a cliff. If he remains president that is a real possibility.

Meanwhile the pragmatist in me knows that the greatest miracle of all would be a recanting of the election results and the president stepping down. The Ayatollahs have asked for an investigation of the election results to appease the fuming population.

The results of this investigation being conducted by the same folks that created the fraud in the first place are easier to determine than any of my stock picks. Look for the results of the investigation to acknowledge that the vote count was off by some meaningless percentage, not affecting the outcome and leaving the results as they stand.

The Ayatollahs are all for democracy as long as they get to choose who wins. Perhaps in the future they will simply default to the patterns of authoritarian rulers before them -- massive election rhetoric, with only one candidate on the ballot.

Related stories:
Iran's great potential and its challenges!
Iran will waste four more years

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money.

The landslide victory of current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the announcement of same, only hours after the voting polls closed, even though paper ballots had to be hand counted, has cast serious doubts about the election results.

Last week I wrote of Iran's great potential but today much of that potential has evaporated for the time being, and perhaps for another four years. The rulers of Iran have decided that the devil they know is better than the one they don't. Unfortunately, as far as politicians go, they may have gotten exactly that.

Some of you may have heard this before if you have been in the stock market for a long time: The cheapest place to find oil is on the floor of the New York Stock exchange!

With the price of oil moving up faster than the price of oil stocks, and the high cost of exploration and developing new sources, I have been surprised that there have not been any mergers or acquisitions by the major oil companies. I would think now would be a good time to add to their proven reserves with far less risk than looking for new sources.

It also seems to me that the risks associated with exploration and developing new product would be easier to absorb by larger entities.

A bit of good news to go with the bad. New unemployment claims are down in the past few months, with the moving average for monthly claims dropping to just over 600,000, about 37,000 below the all-time high reached in the early spring of 2009. That doesn't mean they aren't high, but at least we're not in a screaming nosedive.

For the first time in 10 months, the International Energy Association raised its oil demand forecast. That helped send oil prices higher, true, but it also is a clear sign that the global industrial production machine has bottomed and could reverse in the near term, if it has not already done so.

Iran's flawed democracy is still better than most of the political systems among other countries in the region. For the past few decades the morality police, prodded by religious literalism, have mandated women to cover themselves when they are out in public. This same religious literalism has impeded the potential of a country that has a large population, in a key geographic region, with oil and other natural resources.

Iran is in the midst of a presidential election that has stimulated much heated debate among the population about the failures of the current government in economic and political terms, and that has created a feeling of isolation. The isolation is more than a feeling, and it has limited the growth of the nation to something far less than its capabilities.

Despite the U.S. stock market's recent run up, the decline in the U.S. dollar and inflation fears have investors searching for safety in these uncertain times. A popular strategy that has emerged is to hedge market and currency risk with commodities, namely gold, oil, and uranium. What specific stocks and investments in these sectors are likely to outperform?

ETFs like the US Oil Fund (NYSE: USO) and the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) will obviously track any rise or fall in these commodities to a T, but perhaps individual companies in these sectors are a better fit for you. Below are some industry giants, as well as speculative plays that are also drawing attention from investors.

Here we go again! Remember last year when gas cost over $4 per gallon? Would you believe that soon we'll be pushing $3 per gallon?

What's happening in the oil patch to cause this rapid jump? US oil traded up $2 per barrel to $70.09 per barrel. London Brent crude rose $1.80 per barrel to $69.68. Prices are as of 2:27 pm EDT.

The price driver was a forecast by the US Energy Information Administration forecasting a jump of 10,000 barrels per day for 2009. This is the first time that the EIA has raised its estimates since last September.

It goes without saying that natural gas/oil plays are favored in this neck of the woods.

And with good reason: natural gas and oil, which, by the way, was down (but only briefly), and never out -- will represent preferred U.S. energy sources for at least the next decade. And with the aforementioned in mind Southwestern Energy Co. (NYSE: SWN) is worth a review.