$4 Gasoline? Who Sets the Price Anyway? Does He Have A FAce?

Has it ever occurred to anyone here that the price for oil we pay is largely SET by non oil industry SPECULATORS? Smart guys who have taken advantage of an open system devised in Holland the 18th century. The futures market. BUT it is OUR futures they are buying and selling! See Note 1.

Consider: Even though consumption is going down here, and stockpiles are going up, the price of gasoline rises almost daily setting new records. Even Adam Smith as old and slow as he is, will eventually take effect if we wait long enough. But in the meantime, SOMEONE is skinning us alive!

Cause: SPECULATORS. Well, you know those big Union pension funds, those HEDGE funds, those Sovereign Wealth Funds. Those BIG stock firms with more money than they are willing to invest WISELY in America’s FUTURE when there is 1) quick bucks to be made and 2) the US Govt ready to pick you up should it all crash! It’s the FREE MARKET made risk free, with the MARKET part removed leaving just the FREE part to the Big Boys.

Conclusion. So smarty-pants how do you stop those pernicious speculators? EASY. The No Re-Sale Rule. No entity can re-sell crude oil for sixty days. You can’t buy today and sell tomorrow making good money at a dime or a quarter rise in the PPB. Price per barrel. You have to HOLD your buy for 60 days, before you can resell it. That makes it a whole different ball game. This same 60 days to hold rule will CURE the periodic sharp rises in food prices too. It could spell the death knell to SPECULATORS before they KILL us. Let us STOP a couple hundred PRICE MONGERS around the world setting the price for our necessities.

Vote YES for the 60 days HOLD!


Note 1. A Futures Market. The Chicago Board of Trade is the oldest and largest futures market in the US. Other cities like St. Paul and Duluth also sell futures. So what’s a future? Suppose you are a farmer in the Dakotas who grows wheat. You put 1,000 acres into wheat every year. Your land generally produces 50 bushels to the acre so you can reliably expect to harvest 50,000 bushels of wheat in late October or early November. You invest about $0.50 per bushel in seed, fertilizer and labor. The water is free. It’s from GOD. When GOD’s willing.

History. Your daughter, apple of your eye, wants to marry on the last day in June. This is 1890 and you want to give her and the new son in law the Grand Tour for their wedding gift. They ride a train to NYC then take a steamer to London. He’ll buy suits on Seville Row and she’ll buy flatware. After stopping at St. Paul's and Westminster, it’s on to Paris. He’ll buy shirts and she’ll buy china and porcelain. They stop at the Musée du Louvre and dine in the Eiffel Tower.

Then on to Rome where they will buy Italian shoes and stop as St. Peters. They will stop at Venice and Florence, said by many to be the 2 greatest cities in the world. Thence to Athens to see the Parthenon and down to Cairo to see the pyramids. On to Istanbul to see Santa Sophia and buy carpets.

Going overland to Persia for more carpets. Down to India to buy cotton and to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for several100 pound blocks of various teas. Then to China for silk and jade. Finally it’s to Japan for the finest hand worked enameled furniture anywhere. A steamer across the Pacific to the US and back to a boring life on the great flat windswept plains of the Dakotas. A new child comes every autumn. The product of LONG winter nights? They typically keep that pattern until the mother dies in childbirth or the father becomes impotent. Hey that’s life on the high plains.

To make all that possible, Dad goes to the local banker and asks for $50,000 for the Grand Tour. The banker - knowing the farmers reputation - loans him the money, and takes a CONTRACT for November delivery of 50,000 bushels of wheat. The banker loans the farmer $50,000 on the contract. A FUTURE promise to deliver a yet to be planted farm commodity. It could have been on pork bellies, soy beans or corn.

The banker sends the contract for future delivery to Chicago and has it posted on the "for sale" board at the Board of Trade. There’s an auction held every Friday. Flour millers bid for wheat for milling into flour. If the weather looks good, the price they pay will be low. If the weather looks bad, then the price will be more on the theory wheat will be scarce. But look. Over in the corner lurks a guy with a lot of money but nowhere to put it. A gambler at heart he decides to take a “flyer” on the price of wheat. He bids against the millers and wins the contract. Now he owns 50,000 bushels of wheat to be delivered in November. He can sell anytime he runs low on money and he might take a loss, or he might get lucky and see the price rise. Futures contracts fluctuate wildly, often on rumors, resulting in unprecedented profits (or huge losses) on short term investments. And SPECULATORS are born! Our price paid for gasoline and bread seems to only GO UP all the time! So who needs speculators in the futures market?

[edit on 4/20/2008 by donwhite]

I do know that this part of the stock market is NOT regulated. All the others like stocks and bonds are. I think if it where regulated by law then all this price fixing would stop on a dime.

Here's what I can't figure out.

Price in my city: $1.17445/liter (Canadian)

117.445 CAD=116.67 USD (as of the time of this post)

1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liters

$3.3 USD/gal = typical low-end American price according to this

Doing the math gives that American gas costs (in Canadian terms) 86.6 cents per liter. We are paying $1.17/liter and that is for Edmonton, which according to that link, has the cheapest gas in Canada. Can anyone explain to me why my family pays 30% more for gas in Canada than in the USA, when we have more oil than probably any other country in the world? I'd like to know how that works, too.

reply to post by DragonsDemesne

Here's what I can't figure out. American gas costs (in Canadian terms) 86.6 cents per liter. We are paying $1.17/liter and that is for Edmonton, which has the cheapest gas in Canada. Can anyone explain why my family pays 30% more for gas in Canada than in the USA, when we have more oil than probably any other country in the world? I'd like to know how that works, too.

No. But I like a challenge, so I’ll try the impossible. Canadian tar sands are filled with 1 trillion barrels of oil. The largest single deposit ever discovered! But, I’ve read it costs less than $1 per bbl to extract crude from the Arabian peninsula. That same source said it cost $7 to $15 per bbl to obtain crude from Texas or the Gulf of Mexico. It also said it cost $3 a bbl to ship from Arabia to the US. I am under the real impression that it costs much more to extract oil from the tars - $30- $40 per bbl - and therefore, it is not yet economic. Return versus risk is still not appealing. Today's $116 per bbl may fall suddenly to $75 or even lower. Then your multi-billion dollar tar sands extraction process plant stands idle!

Taxes on gasoline in America run about 55-60 cents Federal and varying amounts added from state to state. In my experience, states tax at about half the rate of the Federal tax, so I’m of the opinion our gasoline pump price includes about 90 cents per gallon in road taxes. Most if not all fuel tax is dedicated to various Federal and state highway trust funds exclusively for maintenance or construction of roads.

In Europe (and maybe Canada?) where gas is double our price, the excess cost is a tax first laid on back when cars first appeared and was part of the General Fund to run the government. In the 1890 - 1920 period, only rich people had cars. The tax was not felt by everyone as is the case today.

I’m from KY. The largest retailer - Thornton's - is an independent operator who buys his gasoline in barge load lots. The Marathon Oil Company of Ohio and the Ashland Oil Company of Kentucky have small refineries and ship their product via barge on the Ohio River. A barge holds from 300,000 to 600,000 gallons or more.

Thornton's owner explained how he uses the following method to price his gasoline: He divided Kentucky into 17 price zones. The base is what price he paid that morning for a barge load of gasoline or diesel fuel. The delivery costs and profit margin are added. The nearness of a competitor goes into the calculation. The price is sent by internet to his 200+ gas stations which fixes the pumps electronically. Attendants post the prices on signs. Sometimes you can see one Thornton station with Price A and not more than a couple miles away, another Thornton station will have Price B. The stations may be in different price zones, or may have competitors sited closer.

Finally, in America the EPA requires about 15 different blends. Going north out of Louisville across the Ohio into southern Indiana, a different blend is used than the blend for Louisville. 2 or 3 cents per gallon price difference is always found in those otherwise very close places.

That’s the best I can do, Mr D/D.

[edit on 4/21/2008 by donwhite]

nice thread. I recently came across the price in other countries here

money.cnn.com...

It's pretty interesting

reply to post by 4thefight

nice thread. I recently came across the price in other countries here. It's pretty interesting

Great Link! Thanks.

So maybe Hugo Chavez is not such a bad guy after all? How would you like to fill up today in Caracas at 12 cents a gallon? Socialism is not so bad when it’s directed towards the common man, is it?

Aside: I followed the link to the 100 best places to begin a new business and found Buford GA to be #3. It’s in Gwinnett County, one of 5 making up the Atlanta metro area. I have relatives living in Atlanta. The region gets its water from 2 lakes. Those lakes normally hold a 2 years supply. The region is in year 2 of a 100 years drought. The water supply is down to 9 months. Rains so far this year have only kept pace with usage, about 2 billion gallons per day.

Reflecting on New Orleans and Katrina, can you imagine the humongous task in getting 3 million people out of the greater Atlanta area? 6 times the population of NO. Maybe permanently? And how low must the water supply go before the evacuation order is given? Surely it would take 6 months to get every one out. Maybe Buford is not such a great place after all!

WATER may end costing more than OIL!

money.cnn.com...

[edit on 4/21/2008 by donwhite]

Yeah, I thought it might have something to do with perhaps slightly higher taxes or production costs, but I didn't think that could account for all of it, especially when the provincial government gives big oil all kinds of tax breaks and other free stuff. Where does the USA buy most of its oil? Does it come from Canada, the Mideast, or what? Some of it is local, I'm sure, but I doubt you have enough reserves to supply the whole nation.

Originally posted by donwhite
Conclusion. So smarty-pants how do you stop those pernicious speculators? EASY. The No Re-Sale Rule. No entity can re-sell crude oil for sixty days. You can’t buy today and sell tomorrow making good money at a dime or a quarter rise in the PPB. Price per barrel. You have to HOLD your buy for 60 days, before you can resell it. That makes it a whole different ball game. This same 60 days to hold rule will CURE the periodic sharp rises in food prices too. It could spell the death knell to SPECULATORS before they KILL us. Let us STOP a couple hundred PRICE MONGERS around the world setting the price for our necessities.

Vote YES for the 60 days HOLD!

What about wholesalers? Most well owners in the US are mom and pop operations, many with fewer that 20 wells. Someone has to buy their crude, store it in a tank, and then sell it via a pipeline, to one of the majors.

See, speculators CONNECT buyers and sellers. Middle men live in the middle, holding oil when there are no immediate buyers.

IF you force them to hold a contract for 60 days, they are going to EXACT price insurance from their customers---in other words, they will demand a guaranteed price in 60 days, or they won't hold it at all.

Middlemen deal in "risk management." Buyer or seller, you pay them to take the risk of the market going the other direction. Being a speculator is hard, dangerous work, and lots of them get ruined every market day, buy making a wrong move, and paying for it.

If you FORBID them to take risk, who do you think will take it? The only time oil will then be bought and sold will be when someone sees a "guaranteed" profit.

Do you honestly think that will lower the cost you pay for gasoline???

Speculators are the price of a smooth market. Each of them, in a tiny way, is a supplier of reserves when there is a sudden market change. Do you honestly think REDUCING the number of market players will lower prices?

Most speculators are tiny in comparison to the petrol giants. Taking out the little guys is not going to give you cheaper gas.


Not by a long shot.

.

[edit on 21-4-2008 by dr_strangecraft]

reply to post by donwhite


That is why DonWhite we are bursting all over with all the bubbles speculators had created to made themselves filthy rich.

This nation needs a revolution NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, or is no going to be any future of America to be pass on to our future generations.

There are free markets, with lots of competition.

And there are monopolies, with no competition.

But there is also a middle ground, where a small group of people get together and agree to work as a unit to artificially inflate prices.


It's called a cartel.


Now, if there really was free flowing competition to try and get sales and markets for oil, do you think prices would be this high?

The first clue to look at would be the profit margins.

Last year, oil companies made $123 billion, a record for any industry.

compare that profit to capital outlays, and oil falls well behind pharmeceuticals and entertainment.



Tell me again how NYMEX is a cartel. Thousands of brokers, and anyone who can wire money to any of the member brokers is allowed to buy and sell oil (among other commodities) on the open market.

The fact is, there is not enough oil to satisfy the market's psychological need.

Outlawing open-outcry auctions is hardly a way to let buyers and sellers sort out the best price.

.

Just like a Cat on Heat, these Oil Thugs just do not have the stomach to come in front and say that they are on a Frenzy for Money. Oil Business is like the Diamond Business, fully controlled by a few who own the Global Stock Markets to play poker with the Dummies who were born to be Suckers. This thing is soon going to explode, as it just cannot sustain itself for any longer, check out this link for who's fooling who in the human zoo.

www.iamthewitness.com...

Originally posted by Dubyakadubla
Just like a Cat on Heat, these Oil Thugs just do not have the stomach to come in front and say that they are on a Frenzy for Money.

Oh my.

Like a lovesick mule, you mistake name-calling for biting social analysis.

Actually, "Oil Thugs" do "come in front." They hold annual festivals with names like "shareholder meetings," where they explain what they have done to improve the wealth of their employers, the shareholders. The people they answer to.

Oil Business is like the Diamond Business, fully controlled by a few . . .

Really? Which ones? Do you mean Hugo Chavez, who siezed american oil assests in his country? Or do you mean Achmadinejad? Who's he taking orders from? Or maybe you were thinking of Gazprom, the largest extractor of natural gas on the planet, owned by the Russian Government. Maybe you think Putin takes his orders from Saudi Aramco. But so far, your hyperventilated rhetoric isn't doing a lot to convince the rest of us.

This thing is soon going to explode, as it just cannot sustain itself for any longer, check out this link for who's fooling who in the human zoo.

www.iamthewitness.com...

Oh, of course, it's the Jews. I should have known. Now to clarify, the zionists mentioned on your link are not really "all Jews." It just hates the "bad Jews," right?

And which Jews are the bad jews? The ones in Isreal, which is basically the only middle eastern state with . . . no oil.

Maybe that site thinks the only bad Jews are the rich ones.

Is Chavez in bed with them? Or Achmadinejad? Or Putin?


The grand conspiracy theory begins to deflate a bit, once you start talking about facts and actual people and their actions, instead of, . . . um.

"cats in heat."


hey, good luck with that.

.
(edit for spelling)

[edit on 22-4-2008 by dr_strangecraft]

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft
Oh, of course, it's the Jews. I should have known.

Everyone knows that the Evil Zionist Jews siezed the most oil rich land in the world and have dominated the petroleum market since the Six Day War. Once they captured Jerusalem the rest of the world had to beg them for oil. They bathe in the stuff over there. Partly to wash off all the blood on their hands after they eat little children, but mostly because they have so much of it in Israel.

The stuff (oil) runs out of the Wailing wall like a river, seeps underground, and is recovered elsewhere. The Jews can shut off the supply anytime they wish to. All they have to do is push the "off" button on their "Pump Jack of the Covenant". What do you think the Dome of the Rock is covering? It's the cap for the world's largest oil exploration project.

What's even more scary? Did you know that the Jews control 90% of the world's fresh water too? Don't even get me started with that.

[edit on 22-4-2008 by dbates]

Yes, I found a picture. Here are a few faces...





hehe...



[edit on 22-4-2008 by ianr5741]

reply to post by 4thefight

Yeah, I thought it might have something to do with perhaps slightly higher taxes or production costs, but I didn't think that could account for all of it, especially when the provincial government gives big oil all kinds of tax breaks and other free stuff. Where does the USA buy most of its oil? Does it come from Canada, the Mideast, or what? Some of it is local, I'm sure, but I doubt you have enough reserves to supply the whole nation.

Because your price in Canada is so close to our price, I do not think Canada gets much general revenue from that tax, if any at all. Production costs excluding getting the crude to and product from the refinery ought to be about equal anywhere.

A long time ago the US Tax Code gave a “depletion” allowance to anyone involved in recovering natural resources. Oil got the most as you’d expect. 24.5%. This meant that 24.5% of oil revenues were excluded from profit-loss calculations to find the taxes owed. The depletion allowance declined to the lowest and last one, rock quarries at 1%. We did not have earmarks back then, so I’d guess if we knew who got that 1% allowance inserted, we’d see a man with his hands deep into concrete or gravestones. Hey, one hand washes the other.

Numbers that follow are from my memory. US consumption is about 22 mbd. Million barrels per day. The US produces 7 mbd. Obviously we import about 15 mbd. I recall we get in the high 2s from Venezuela. About the same amount from Saudi Arabia. About half that amount from Nigeria. We may get some from the North Sea field operated by the UK. We probably get some from Mexico. We probably get 2X the Saudi quantity from the other Persian Gulf states, especially Kuwait. The UAE. Aside: Halliburton moved its HQ from Houston to Dubia. I say to avoid subpoenas sure to follow January 20, 2009.

On oil being fungible. One bbl is equal to any other bbl. Not altogether true. The light sweet crude of Nigeria and East Texas is easier to refine and gives more of the gasoline and kerosene for jet fuel than heavy crudes. You may notice the only price quoted for crude is BRENT, the North Sea field. Also light and sweet. In the West all other crudes are rated against that standard. Venezuela crude may be rated as worth 87.5% of Bent, for example. (The name "Brent" comes from the naming policy of Shell UK, in this case the Brent Goose).

I’m pretty sure the US does not get as much as 3 mbd from any single source. Obviously we do not get any from Iran or Russia or Georgia and I doubt we’d risk the backtalk if we got any from Iraq.


Foot Note. Oil production from Europe, Africa and the Middle East flowing West tends to be priced relative to this oil, i.e., Brent. It forms a benchmark. However, large parts of Europe now receive their oil from the former Soviet Union, especially through Russia. see en.wikipedia.org...

Post Script. The US has about 800 million barrels of crude oil in what is called the National Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is stored in huge deep underground but empty salt pits just off the Louisiana shoreline. Shades of Tea Pot Dome! Tea Pot Dome was a similar type site for reserve oil storage ran by the US Navy during the Warren G. Harding presidency. A crook allied with the Navy Secretary arranged for a slant drilled - new then - oil well from a neighboring but low producing field into the Tea Pot Dome. From then until caught, production was high and costs were low.

[edit on 4/22/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by dr_strangecraft

Actually, "Oil Thugs" do "come in front." They hold annual festivals with names like "shareholder meetings," where they explain what they have done to improve the wealth of their employers, the shareholders. The people they answer to.

Long on theory short on reality. Once upon a time long, long ago, it was true that the shareholders elected wise experienced independent and honest directors. Who in their turn, choose men of like character traits and of good report to be the leaders of their company. In small and medium size businesses, directors were often successful small business men, bankers, sometimes lawyers and other respected professional people well known in the community.

Directors of such businesses considered their appointment as a director as equal to a soldier earning the Distinguish Service Cross in live ammo combat. Directorships were more honorary than compensated as is the case today. The Board usually met quarterly for a half day, maybe got a free lunch, and $20 to $50 to cover any travel expenses. That was then.

But alas, along came the Harvard School of Business and set that paradigm on its ear.

Attack 1. Somebody had discovered the proxy! A legal document where a shareholder authorizes another person to vote his shares at the next meeting of shareholders. Proxy solicitations are mailed to each shareholder along with a recommendation of the current management how to vote. Like Ivory Soap, 99.44% of the little shareholders do not know anything about the company but if it is “doing well” then they accept the current management’s recommendations, check the appropriate blocks, sign the form, and put it into the mail. All done till next year!

Your 50 cents quarterly dividend continues. How were you to know it could have been $1.50 but for? But for the CEO collecting a humongous bonus!

Attack 2. Board of directors. In corporate eschatology it is the directors who are in charge of the company. They held the ultimate power over their managerial appointees. It did not take long for ambitious managers to grasp if they had THEIR men on the Board, things could be a lot better for them. Suddenly or by gradual means, the managers of many if not most American corporation took over their Boards. First, they raised the honorarium from a token payment to a real useful sum of money.

High profile directors today are paid six figure and maybe seven figure salaries. Any objectivity they ever had, any felt obligation either moral or legal to the shareholders long since went by the board - no pun intended. Former judges, senators, cabinet secretaries, presidents, and so on get more money for a half days work than 10 people earn in a year! So are they going to challenge the CEO who put therm where they are?

Attack 3. Before the proxy was MISUSED so much that MISUSE is now considered normal usage, the company paid for the preparation and mailing both ways of the proxy statement. It was considered a valid expense item to keep shareholders informed. A large corporation like GE may have 2-3 billion shares of common stock. I’d guess more than 50% of shareholders hold 100 shares or fewer. Not even a drop in the ocean, but a droplet!

The total number of shareholders may be 500,000 or more. You can imagine if you had a grievance you wanted to present to the Board and the by-laws say you need 5% of the shares to get on the speakers list, it could cost you $75,000 just for the mailing to 5%. You cannot count on ALL those you solicit returning their proxy to you. As a practical matter, it is impossible for anyone to have an undeniable right to speak at the Meeting. No one in management has to be ready to respond to valid criticisms. It is this effective lockout that gives rise to the hi-jinks you see at Meetings sometimes.

Attack 4. We learned a couple decades ago when the great CPA firms scandals hit the front pages that having the imprimatur of a famous and well know CPA firm on the Annual Report does not mean ANYTHING but that they got the big bucks for doing what an bookkeeper does. Add and subtract numbers. There is NO ONE looking over the shoulder of the CEO or his team. And now you can add the Board of Directors who have ACCESS to the corporate till. Mountain lodges. Caribbean Oceanside villas. Use of corporate Lear jets. A weekend in Monte Carlo. And etc.

No Dr S/C, we are living in a far different world today than was true in the not too distant past. 2008 America is a SCAM country.

[edit on 4/22/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite


My good friend after reading this post I see why this applies to government also, no wonder the people in America have no voice anymore, or nobody listen or chose no to listen, specially if those that represent us are in bed with corporate America.

Good to see you here again, Marg6043. Here is my reply to your query.

The Chicago Board of Trade was established in 1848, and is the world's oldest futures and options exchange. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board. It merged with the Chicago Board of Trade in July 2007 to become the CME Group Inc.

More than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT/CME members through open outcry and eTrading. Volumes at the exchange in 2003 were a record breaking 454 million contracts. From Wikipedia.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is charged with overseeing and regulating the trading practices on the CME. Employees 435 (2006). The CFTC headquarters is in Washington, DC, and it maintains offices in Chicago, Kansas City, and New York City. From their website.

In 1981 Mchael R. Bloomberg founded what today is known as Bloomberg dot com. The New York-based company employs more than 10,000 people in over 126 offices around the world. Bloomberg is about information: accessing it, reporting it, analyzing it and distributing it, faster and more accurately than any other organization. From their website.

COMMENTARY.
How in the Holy Name of our GOD can can anyone expect 450 Federal CFTC employees to adequately REGULATE the conduct of 3,600 licensed traders who had a volume of business in 2003 of Four Hundred fifty-four MILLION contracts? One million contracts per employee! Sweet Jesus!

COMPARE the number of employees charged with law enforcement and protection of the entire American public, 450, with the 10,000 employees of Bloomberg dot com - yes I know they do more than futures - who do NOT enforce laws, nor REGULATE conduct of the traders or oversee the responsible management of the trading platform?

On it’s face, you can see the Federal government is stymied by its lack of sufficient enforcement personnel to do the job assigned to it. That my friends is the REAGAN REVOLUTION in action! Hey, RR was famous for saying it first: “Government is the problem, not the solution!”

Adage: You get the kind of government you deserve.

[edit on 4/24/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite


The reason the CME doesn't need a "cop" overseeing every single commodity trade is . . . .


The free market takes care of that.

If one broker cheats, then by definition he's cheating a fellow broker. There ARE referees, the settling process, analogous to the NYSE. When two brokers disagree on a closing price, they each bring their receipts to the clearing agency, and meet for ajudication.

No broker at a competing firm is going to 'do favors' for a competing firm. Most clients move their accounts regularly, looking for the sharpest broker. And floor traders have a high turnover too, as the brokerage who owns the "seat" occupied by a trader don't want a rep on the floor that is the focus of complaints.

There's a TON of self policiing on the floor as well. Fist-fights on the floor were a regular event at the CBOT.

So, what is a government bureaucrat going to do to fix any shady deals, that the brokers themselves cannot correct? The whole point of open outcry auction is that it is the ultimate in Caveat Emptor. Like in most professions, competition keeps people for "saving the good deals" for their buddies---you'd better be saving any "deals" for your clients, or you soon don't have any.

And the "board" in the board of trade goes over each day's trading, just to make sure that no one got railroaded.

Of course it's not perfect.

But then neither is the government. Look at all the threads on ATS complaining about crooked cops. Now, would having cops on the trading floor really help anything? More than having a bunch of people betting against each other for a profit margin in the pennies per share or contract range?

The fact is, the only person who can guard your money is you.

.