The CFTC Can't Stop Wild Commodity Speculation Alone

Those money/blood suckers fool everyone about the fairy tale that capital can create new value by itself. Is that true? Without productive process, where does new value come from? Do you believe that a pile of money simple flowing among financial tycoons can increase value? No! We need much tighter regulation not only on CFTC, but all other financial markets. They have cheated U.S. for 20 years. We should stop those cheaters and go back to the right path.

this is another timely piece. Now manipulation has overtaken the green shoots as the focal point. You see, green shoots are nothing without the manipulation. We have defeated the green shoots, we have ridiculed the inflation notion. Now, we are focusing on the closest layer to the core of the "onion ". The core is our Federal Reserve, the mother of all cheating. The next layer is the GS, the hit man. GS must be abolished like the Fed. The money moving business has absolutely zero value to our economy and civilization. Please keep the subject for a while as we will dissect the GS. This is huge. Market manipulation in such a magnitude is huge. It will overshadow the "Water Gate" as the single biggest scandal both politically and financially. Stay tuned as pressure is building up. There is no way out. The exit door has been closed. One can almost feel it. All it takes is a small opening.

Regulation should be imposed is upon the federal reserve and federal government. Without their creation of excess credit, this nonsense wouldn't happen. Why applaud regulators for making nonsensical, ineffective regulation?

One thing that I would like to see at least on the oil markets is to make sure that anyone who buys a oil futures contract has to be able to take possession of the oil. In other words that trader needs to have a great big oil tank to store his contract in. Overnight you would lose 75-80% of all of the speculators in the market. The market would quickly return to the fundamentals supply and demand. For a while there would be a big drop in prices and a steady increase until stasis was established. This would help everyone as this incredible volatility has hurt almost every industry and person except the speculators. Four dollar gas and five dollar diesel last summer combined with the stock collapse and really whacked the economy just when it didn't need it.

Just change the margin requirements, up them to 50% That will knock out more then half of the speculators. But the big guys will always be able to play the game.

This is another timely piece. Now manipulation has overtaken the green shoots as the focal point. You see, green shoots are nothing without the manipulation. We have defeated the green shoots, we have ridiculed the inflation notion. Now, we are focusing on the closest layer to the core of the "onion ". The core is our Federal Reserve, the mother of all cheating. The next layer is the GS, the hit man. GS must be abolished like the Fed. The money moving business has absolutely zero value to our economy and civilization. Please keep the subject for a while as we will dissect the GS. This is huge. Market manipulation in such a magnitude is huge. It will overshadow the "Watergate" as the single biggest scandal both politically and financially. Stay tuned as pressure is building up. There is no way out. The exit door has been closed. One can almost feel it. All it takes is a small opening. By the way, is the civil rights lawyer turned politician a natural born US citizen? Where is the original birth certificate with a seal on it? Is live birth certificate same as the Birth Certificate? Where are the school records? Why seal the records? Why not answer this question straightforward? Why spent almost a million to NOT answer this simple question ? These two are seemingly unrelated subjects. But they reflect a certain ethical and legal standard we have in our nation at this point in history. I am certain we will see more than just an economic melt down.

Pork will move to the up side on the futures market.

Just raise the margin requirements from what they are presently. This will cut down speculation and will make people cut their risk automatically. Hedge funds may try to circumvent this, but the bank which sets up the hedge or whomever goes into the public markets will have to cover that extra margin and so it will be priced into the deal.

It is amazing Bernstein has totally missed the role of the U.S. dollar in what is going on in the commodity markets. Are the speculators devaluing the dollar or is it the U.S. government that is engaging in quatitative easing and running a $1.8 trillion dollar budget deficit this year alone? All commodities are priced in U.S. dollars. If the worth of the dollar declines commodity prices go up. If the U.S. government manipulates the dollar market, commodity prices are effected. Speculators have always been blamed for inflation througout history, whereas it is always the government that is at fault by creating more currency that the economy can handle. Governments NEVER blame themselves for creating inflation however. They always find scapegoats and speculators are at the top of the list. Price controls are next on the agenda and that is what the CTFC is trying to institute. History shows they never work, but only make matters worse. -Organizer, New York Investing meetup (http://investing.meetup.com/21)

No. manipulation is WAY more than a margin requirement, which is highly necessary nevertheless. Manipulation ultimately is to influence the market in a way that is not market driven. It is about the power, the undue power or the power of abuse. We have a "game" where everyone is cheating, i.e. the players, the coaches and the referees. If everybody is cheating, does anybody cheat?? Or Who is to judge the judges? Who is to regulate the regulators? We have a "systemic corruption" followed by a "systemic outrage" and then by a "systemic upheaval". ****************************** We are being tested. The score shows up in the market EVERYDAY. "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." —Abraham Lincoln, 1860s

Get rid of Capitalism, free markets, and open-free trade. Replace it with Socialism, Communism & Police State.

Turtle Trader sucks donkeys. Stop posting your stupid spam on every Short Ticker article. I wish the North Koreans would target your stupid website for an attack!

It is relatively simple to fix speculation in commodity markets. You simply require that anyone buying futures, who is not in the direct line of production, put down 100% of the cost of those commodities. This whole problem was created in the late 90s and the first years of Bush by changes in regulations that allowed non-production folks to invest in commodity futures on the same basis as production users. For example, if you are a refinery you need to secure a certain amount of oil coming to your business for the next 6 months to a year. You are allowed to purchase that crude oil for 10% of it value, locking in the price and securing the asset. With the changes to the regulatory scheme, speculators were allowed to do the same thing. What happened, gamblers began betting on the changing price of commodities and they only had to put down 10% or less of the funds to make the bet. They quickly realized they could jack up the prices by buying up futures at higher and higher prices with minimal amounts of money, thus guaranteeing huge profits. This is what caused the last oil bubble. This is also where our bail out money is going. Instead of loaning out money at 5.5% for mortgages or business loans, the bankers are diverting the money to manipulate the commodities market. This can be changed, but it will take some real guts by our Congress in putting in regulations that prohibit this type of speculative trading.

It's called London ICE, the dark market without transparency, set up around 1999 by Goldman and others, where otc derivatives, futures and other commodity prices are set each day under darkness by the world's biggest players, and yes that includes US banks and financials. The CFTC has'nt any jurisdiction here, they oversee the New York Mercantile Exchange. Currently with few good growth prospects, speculation fueled by pump and dump seems to be the order of the day.

"This whole problem was created in the late 90s and the first years of Bush by changes in regulations that allowed non-production folks to invest in commodity futures on the same basis as production users." This is a good example of corruption. The Wall Street is unduly powerful. They have infiltrated our government in a profound way. You see, you can 100% trace these policy changes to special interest lobbying. That is why any financial regulation proposed by Larry Summers/ Hussein Obama/Timmy is a joke. Wall Street has to be downsized by at least 80%. Lobbying/Campaign finance is the ultimate contempt of democracy. Our current "Hussein team" has not done a thing so far. That will change soon. You either change yourself or people will do that for you. When the latter happens late this year, YOU will not be on the people's side. I have no doubt in my mind, there will be severe consequences of the failed governing sooner than later. This is called "we change the false changer who promised but not delivered a change." I will say this again, the man is not a real deal.

Strange that only a while ago the regulators, CFTC included were vehement about the fact that the high crude prices have NOTHING to do with speculation... and NOW they say it is absolutely important to curtail speculation!! Is that so, or were they lying back then? If they were telling us lies, they have to be held accountable!! Or are the GS, MS and other big players so influential that they have even gotten the regulators to talk for them?? Seems like everyone is free to say anything and can get away with it!!

The reason credit is flowing to speculation is because that is exactly what policy makers want to happen. This is the back door recapitalization that has been engineered by the federal reserve and the treasury department over several administrations, both republican and democratic. Of course, if one were to ask the CFTC you would hear that trading by major financial institutions does not constitute speculation. Go figure. Sounds like a trading platform at Goldman Sachs that can manipulate markets is only bad when someone other than Goldman Sachs is running the program and its trades. At least according to the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern district of New York.

"The reason credit is flowing to speculation is because that is exactly what policy makers want to happen." I agree. It is called Dash for Cash. The "RALLY" on all assets classes coincided with the bank recap. ****** History will judge this period harshly. Tim Guietner was out of spotlight for 2-3 weeks before the "Rally". He was seen hanging out with Robert Rubin, who has not been talked about so far. I would not be surprised his name will surface quite a bit. This is a well-orchestrated series of events and maneuvers, from Green Shoots to Happy Talk media, from TARP to market manipulation, from the Stress Test to bank capital raising. Make no mistake about that. There is nothing RANDOM about these. It will overshadow the "Watergate" as the single biggest scandal both politically and financially

The best way to stop anything is to tax it heavily. Tax the speculative gains and don't allow the losses.

Great , good wishes !! Why dont they begin with gold and silver manipulation ??