Feds Probe Possible Oil Price Manipulation

Gas Pump Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics Turned Freakohnomics gone berserk? Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life? The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor is it Nature's Law nor a scientific law

Freedumb: an extremely precise & efficient self killing tool on a massive scale - as the outcomes of Global Warming and resource wars are beginning to demonstrate

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization."

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



Feds Probe Possible Oil Price Manipulation
WASHINGTON, May 29, 2008

US Treasury Chief: No 'Quick Fix' on Oil
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says he sees 'no quick fix' to high oil prices
5/31/08 CBS The Associated Press
DOHA, Qatar
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says there is "no quick fix" to high oil prices because it is an issue of supply and demand.
"I don't see a lot of short-term answers" on high oil prices, he told reporters Sunday during a visit to the tiny Gulf nation of Qatar. There is "no quick fix."
On other issues, Paulson said it was up to Gulf countries currently struggling with high inflation whether they wanted to de-peg their currencies from the dollar. He called it a "sovereign decision."
2008 The Associated Press. 2008 ABC News

(AP) Federal regulators are six months into a wide-ranging investigation of U.S. oil markets, with a focus on possible price manipulation. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday said it started the probe in December and took the unusual step of publicizing it "because of today's unprecedented market conditions." Crude prices, which on Thursday hovered around $127 a barrel, have risen more than 42 percent since early December. Gasoline prices are nearing a national average of $4 a gallon, up from about $3.20 a year ago. The commission said details of the investigation remain confidential, but announced a handful of other initiatives designed to increase transparency of U.S. and international energy futures markets. For example, the CFTC said it will immediately require monthly reports from institutional investors who manage funds designed to mimic the price of crude oil and other energy futures. The goal, the agency said, is to identify the amount of such index trading and to "ensure that this type of trading activity is not adversely impacting the price discovery process." The CFTC also said it has reached an agreement with its British counterpart and InterContinental Exchange Inc.'s Futures Europe to expand surveillance of energy futures contracts with U.S. delivery points, including the benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude, which trades on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "The implementation of today's measures will improve oversight of the energy futures markets to ensure they reflect fundamental economic forces of supply and demand, free of manipulation and fraud," the CFTC said in a statement. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, chairman of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, earlier this week asked the CFTC to provide the committee with more information about its oversight of energy commodity markets. The New Mexico Democrat said he was concerned about increasing trading activity in U.S. crude oil taking place overseas and in over-the-counter markets. He also questioned the CFTC practice of classifying so-called "swap dealers," including large investment banks, as "commercial" market participants alongside traditional buyers and sellers, such as oil companies and airlines. "The practice of including investment banks in the commercial participant category calls into question the CFTC's continued assertion that noncommercial participants, or speculators, follow rather than lead oil price movements," Bingaman wrote in a letter Tuesday. Congress earlier this month voted to give the CFTC greater oversight of unregulated electronic exchanges, such as ICE, as a way to protect consumers and deter price distortion and manipulation. A Senate subcommittee investigation last year found that hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC, which collapsed in 2006 after losing more than $6 billion in natural-gas trades, had shifted its activities to ICE from the regulated Nymex to avoid trading limits, and that the "excessive speculation" raised homeowners' heating bills. Speculation has been cited as one on many factors contributing to surging petroleum prices, along with assumptions about new supplies, limited demand growth, possible supply disruptions overseas and the dollar's depressed value against other currencies.

The Wonders of Gambling for the rich – This same hedge fund design occurred in the financial and housing sector

Comment - The price of oil is traded in the U.S. dollar. I know and understand that the dollar has devalued so in the price of oil is some adjustment to reflect the lower trading currency value. But that is only part of the story.The futures contracts in oil are being purchased by hedge funds that have no intention nor the capacity to take delivery of that oil when the contract ends. Their purchase of the contracts is creating an artificial demand for oil that is totally unnecessary and actually subversive to the public interest. It is similar to what the Hunt brothers tried to do in the silver market in the late 1980"s. I am surprised the media has not picked up on that analogy.Futures contracts are just that. If the price of a futures contract currently trades at $133.00 per barrel that means the price of that oil shouldn't really reach the market until September or October. Yet, we are seeing an immediate increase at the pump. The oil companies need to be held accountable for taking advantage of the public as much as they are doing the same thing to their franchise dealers. Exxon recently raised the rent at their dealerships 30%. There is a saying "Pigs get butchered but Hogs should get slaughtered."The SEC stopped trading in sesecuritiesike Enron when the volatility went through the roof. I believe that the New York Mercantile Exchange and similar entities should be required to do the same thing in these oil futures to restore stability to that market.Pillsyman 9:08 AM