15 Children; Chavez sucks; and a defence of speculators

• This local woman I was talking to, told me her grandfather died in 1946.  From what I could make out of her story telling, her grandfather was rich and was murdered by kidnappers.  At the time in China, there was little law and order.  So, her grandfather being rich, had land, and so was kidnapped on many occasions by these men demanding ransom.  Finally, the grandmother had nothing to give....
• If wasn't interesting enough, the woman then told me that her grandmother had fifteen children!  Four of them survived to adulthood, including the woman's mother.  The others died because of childhood diseases and war (some had been soldiers).  One of the grandmother's sons, the woman's uncle, fled to Taiwan in 1949, and it wasn't till 1989 till the grandmother and the uncle saw each other again.  The pleasure of seeing her son after all those years, however, killed the grandmother.  A jaw-dropping set of circumstances for this blogger. 
• What's Tony like at school?  We had one of his teachers over for supper on Monday evening and she gave us details.
• This teacher was from South America.  She was from Columbia, moved to Venezuela, but then had to flee Hugo Chavez.  Chavez, from what she says, is trying to turn Venezuela into North Korea.  He is closing the country off to the world, and the thugs rule.  She found it mind-boggling, that in this day and age, where Communism has been proven to not work, that Chavez wants to bring it back.  Meanwhile, gullible lefties that I have meet in China have expressed admiration for him.  Anyone who picks on a Texas evangelical has to be good right?  Actually -- good left -- that last question was left-wing logic.
• Meanwhile, I also hear this talk of getting "the oil speculators who are driving up the price of oil." or so they say.  Speculators serve an economic purpose that isn't fully appreciated.  First off, as I remember Milton Friedman saying, speculators take on risks.  Every economic decision made is a risk -- a gamble as it were.  The idea that if we just get rid of the gambling in the economy, that all prices would be cheaper is logically impossible.  Secondly, speculators allocate goods over time.  If there weren't speculators, people would consume all they have right away -- there would be  continual cycles of feast and famine.  Speculators in trying to determine future prices of goods are doing us a big favour -- they are ensuring goods are allocated properly over time.  This kind of speculation in food markets have been shown to prevent starvation.  This second point must be stressed.  I hear this talk of how oil inventory levels are the same now as they were last year and how the price now is so much more expensive.  How can this be? some ask.  And many answer saying it is the speculators gambling, driving up the price.  Well, a lot has happened in the last year, to indicate to speculators that future oil supplies won't be so abundant.  For instance, the Obama administration, because of the BP accident, had declared a moratorium on more drilling in the U.S.A.  (Obama's talk about having his Justice department investigate oil speculation is classic demagoguery -- no sane person should vote for him because of this).  And China and India are needing  more oil than ever for their economies.  Combine this with the fact that supply of oil, in economic parlance, is very inelastic, and the price of oil is explained and one can't help conclude that in this day and age, witch hunts still exist.  The witches are now called speculators.  If we consumed this oil now, which is what would be happening if prices were lowered, we would been facing shortages in the immediate future.