In the mad rush to blame speculators for high oil prices, our solons in Washington have inadvertently revealed a U.S.-centric, 20th century mindset.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced yesterday that they are looking very hard at possibly closing a regulatory loophole that allowed some extremely large commodity index funds to get around position limits.

Congress has threatened to take action against speculative commodities traders, as food and energy prices break fresh records.

A desperate Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, warned during a Senate hearing on commodities speculators that “the American people are about to take out pitchforks” because of the cost of groceries and gasoline.

McCaskill then told an official from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission: “If you don’t do something, Congress will,” according to a report in the LA Times.

Of course, it doesn’t appear to have struck the outraged Senator to consider mere market forces such as supply and demand or, in the case of oil prices, increased demand from emerging markets and decreased supply because of bad weather or geopolitical events.

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I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a lot more of this as the worldwide commodities boom goes on. A day after a run on rice in California prompted Costco and other chains to limit buyers to only a bag or two at a time.