US commodities market under attack

[NickFitz]

We need $100+ oil to price the Indians and Chinese consumers out of the market.

You cant have consumption at 2007 levels and oil below $50, petrol stations in the UK will run dry.

Speculative trading of commodities derivatives has almost nothing to do with commodities. It can have an adverse effect on the real-world pricing of those commodities, but the speculative traders in derivatives are largely insulated from the real world.

They can win in ways that affect the entire world, but if they lose in ways that affect the entire world they suffer no detriment worthy of note. They gamble with the world's capital, gain if they win, and suffer no loss if they lose. We pay their winnings and absorb their losses.

The price of the real stuff has nothing to do with it: bills for real stuff are on a separate invoice.

[Iron Condor]

We need $100+ oil to price the Indians and Chinese consumers out of the market.

You cant have consumption at 2007 levels and oil below $50, petrol stations in the UK will run dry.

[AtW]

The US commodities market should be freed from "reckless speculation" and abusive trading practices, a leading US senator has urged (AtW's comment: the senator must a commie then?), as she attempts to stop the price of everyday items like petrol and food from being impacted by financial traders.

Senator Maria Cantwell, who is separately trying to revive the Glass-Steagall reforms of the 1930s which would prevent retail and investment banks from operating under the same roof, yesterday called for increased regulation of the commodities and derivatives market.

The Democrat politician is attempting to push regulation of the commodities markets – a hot topic in the summer of 2008 when oil prices topped $140 a barrel – back to the top of the political agenda.

She is calling for stronger powers for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), including the potential to police the unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market, which has worth $25 trillion at the end of June 2009.

Backed by hedge fund manager Michael Masters, of Masters Capital Management, she called for the proposed reforms to take their place alongside wider financial regulatory reforms currently being discussed by the US Congress.

Mr Masters believes that there is a strong correlation between the credit crisis and volatile commodity costs, which have seen a rise not only in oil prices but in basic food staples in recent years.

She made her comments flanked by a number of business lobby groups, including Americans for Financial Reform and the American Trucking Association (ATA).

An ATA spokesman said that "speculative trading that helped create massive bubbles in a range of consumer goods, from gasoline, heating oil and natural gas to wheat, cotton and other commodities" currently "take place with no transparency and without any federal oversight."

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"Use it or lose it" should be the principle - don't buy oil unless you plan to use it, as in refine and sell products of your work. If you buy too much then tough tulip - keep it on your stocks and incur the costs of doing so. If you don't like it then don't buy it - invest money into some businesses that will actually do something customers demand.