Stop Oil Speculation (SOS)
from the site of Senator Bernie Sanders:
August 23, 2011
[...]
Secret data collected by the commission showed that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other banks and hedge funds dominated oil markets in 2008 when prices rose sharply and to more than $140 a barrel.
[...]
The average price for a gallon of gasoline is now $3.57, still 87-cents more than gas cost two years ago when oil supplies were lower and demand for gasoline was higher. Sanders also noted that the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that the price of heating oil in the northeast will be about 33 percent higher than last winter.
The Wall Street reform law enacted last year gave the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] CFTC until Jan. 17 to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that speculators could trade in the energy futures market. Seven months later, the commission is still breaking the law.
The commission says it lacks enough information, a claim Sanders called "laughable." In the letter to Gensler, Sanders said the CFTC has been collecting this data for at least three years and called for an emergency meeting "to eliminate excessive oil speculation as soon as possible."
Guess they'll need to collect about 10 years more worth of speculator trading data, before they figure out what the hell those Phantom Futures players are doing ...
(besides robbing us blind.)
Letter to the Regulator who is befuddled and "unable" to Stop Oil Speculation, on Wall Street (and its ripple effects in your Wallet). SOS-DD.
August 22, 2011
Dear Chairman Gensler (CFTC Chairman)
[...]
As you well know, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) required the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that speculators could trade in the energy futures market no later than January 17th of this year. Over seven months later, your agency still has not imposed those speculation limits required by law. In other words, the CFTC is breaking the law.
[...]
It is my understanding that the CFTC is still claiming that it cannot impose strict speculation limits on oil trading because it does not have enough information. Quite frankly, that is laughable. [...]
Therefore, I urge you to hold an emergency meeting of the CFTC to impose stron position limits that would eliminate excessive oil speculation as soon as possible.
Imposing strong speculation limits would provide needed relief to Americans filling up their gas tanks this summer, it will also help Americans in cold-weather states this winter who heat their homes with heating oil. The Energy Information Administration is predicting the price of heating oil in the northeast will be 33 percent higher this winter than last. [...]
Sincerely
Bernard Sanders, United States Senator
Funny the Commodity Futures Trading Commission "used to be all over it" ... They even framed this no-touch Commodity Trading, as the "Wall Street Premium".
What Happened?
Obama and CFTC lash out at speculators
by Will Henley, gfsnews.com -- 20 April 2011
[...]
As Obama promised to monitor the markets at a campaign rally near Washington DC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Bart Chilton weighed in with a sideswipe against the "Wall Street premium".
The commissioner suggested there may be "too much speculation" and called for the regulator to use powers given to it by Congress to bring an end to "excessive" activities.
Chilton said: "There is a Wall Street premium on gas prices today. Every time folks fill up their tanks, they can expect that several dollars are due to speculation.
Next time you fill it up, and are digging deep for that extra Twenty -- ask yourself:
Who needs that "Wall Street Premium" more?
Your family OR
The shell-shocked, uncertainty-plagued Speculators on Wall Street?
S.O.S. = Stop Oil Speculation
NOW! ... or more like Stop them Last January! (Psst! It's the Law.)