Sanders to fight oil speculators, accuses chief regulator of breaking the law

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday he will introduce legislation to force federal regulators to curb unbridled speculation in crude oil markets that experts blame for driving up gasoline prices.

"We cannot allow Wall Street speculators to continue to rip off the American people at the gas pump any longer," Sanders told a press conference at his Senate office. Sanders accused the Commodity Futures Trading Commission of flouting a law that required the regulators to impose new limits on speculators by January.

"In other words," the senator said, "the chief regulator on oil speculation, in my view is breaking the law."

Sanders cited mounting evidence that the sky-high price of gasoline - $3.88 a gallon in Vermont, a dime more than the national average - has nothing to do with the fundamentals of supply and demand and everything to do with speculators.

He noted that the supply of crude oil in this country is higher today than two years ago while demand for gasoline is lower.

He cited recent testimony by Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson and a report by the investment firm Goldman Sachs that speculation is responsible for 20 percent to 40 percent of the recent spike in oil prices. The senator also pointed to a report today that credited the booming oil market as a money maker for big banks.

link for this report is here:www.abovetopsecret.com...

"The skyrocketing cost of gasoline is causing severe economic pain to Vermonters and millions of Americans who have already suffered through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression," Sanders said. "Increased gas prices are taking a serious bite out of the paychecks of middle-class Vermont families, many of whom are already working longer hours for lower wages. We have a responsibility to do everything we can to lower gas prices so that they reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand and bring needed relief to Vermonters at the gas pump."

sanders.senate.gov...

Pretty amazing that the man who is supposed to be keeping tabs on oil speculators is doing basically NOTHING....which means he is not following the law. Nothing has changed from the bailout era. The same BS is going on....speculators able to manipulate the market to make billions at the cost of the rest of us.

thank you !!!!! I've been telling anyone who will listen that the oil companies bear some of the burden, but the speculators are the real crooks

Talk is cheap, nothing will occur.

Sanders has been the voice of controlled opposition for many years.

Ron Paul is taking on the Fed, and nothing is happening.
Bernie Sanders is taking on Big Oil, and nothing will happen.

Just another melodrama to distract the masses and make them think
someone is on their side.

reply to post by Version100

Ron Paul is taking on the Fed, and nothing is happening. Bernie Sanders is taking on Big Oil, and nothing will happen.

Actually Sanders worked with Ron Paul to get an audit on the Fed done...the first one ever...although it was severely watered down because the Senate simply didn't have enough votes for a full audit. Sanders is no friend of the Fed.

Not much will change. This has been going on since the stock market first came into existence. At least they are going after those guys in appearance anyways.

Even though sanders is the only actually labeled and self described socialists in congress, he seems to be very much against big business. Great find op.

I completely agree.
The price of gas has nothing to do with actual supply and demand.
It is based on what speculators, who never take possession of the product, believe it will be worth in the future.
Of course, they can just sell their position if they're wrong.
Same is true of many of our food products.
People are starving because wall street adjusts the price of wheat, oranges, etc....

On another note, that's what cap and trade is all about, turning the air we breath into a commodity, as well.

This deserved more flags. I was reading your posts on a thread about Obama drawing the line in the sand for no more tax breaks for the rich, and i have to say i had to star all of your comments..lol. Some people will never listen to a voice of reason. They either can't or refuse to connect the dots. I find it funny that some people think that the super wealthy get that way just because they work hard. They refuse to see the fact that most of them already came from super wealth, while working hard, or working period has little to nothing to do with it.

The only thing that you get when you try to predict the future with graphs and speculation is a projection into insanity.

reply to post by dwmjr1985

was reading your posts on a thread about Obama drawing the line in the sand for no more tax breaks for the rich, and i have to say i had to star all of your comments..lol.

Thank you...much appreciated.

Was a bit emotional in those posts...had a bad day and a long week and didn't hold back.

We deserve better. The American people deserve better.

reply to post by David9176


Indeed we do deserve better. What we are fighting is brainwashing from corporations and the super rich. "If you work hard and put your nose to the grindstone you can be rich like me." Even though, many studies show that the reality of that happening are now dead in this country. They ignore the fact that when we where an economic powerhouse in the 50's, and the pellgrant covered 95% of all college expenses and the riches one percent was paying 90+% in taxes, the poor working class could pull themselves up and make it to real middle class. All studies have also showed that giving tax breaks to the middle and lower class stimulates the economy because they are the ones that need to buy things, its only common sense that the rich will only save because thats what they can do because they don't need anything. I for one wish that mister Sanders would run for president, although in reality i realize his ideas are to radical for anyone on the right to stomach, he happens to be my favorite senator at the moment. Something very good is in the water up there in Vermont, or perhaps their cheese and dairy products, andt i wish the rest of the country would get a good taste of it.

Yep, it's all speculators alright. Has absolutely nothing to do with commodity price ramps created by the Fed. It's not the no drilling policy instituted by the Obama administration.

It's those evil speculators and it can't be anything else, nothing else at all. Because anything else is not a convenient political bash 'em tool.

reply to post by projectvxn


Because they always tell the truth, just like the bankers, the actual oil companies, the politicians, and everyone else on wall street huh?

reply to post by dwmjr1985


Do you even know what speculators do outside of the political bashing talking points?

What Speculators Actually Do

"When you buy a contract of crude, if you buy it for $112, and it goes to $113, you make a thousand dollars," he says. And with prices steadily increasing over the past eight months, plenty of people are making money. Investors do lose money if oil prices fall. So Cohen says it's not the buying and selling of oil contracts that forces prices up, it's the hard cold fact that ultimately there is a limited supply of oil. "We don't really have lots of oil. Because when you go out into the future, it's the big question on whether we'll be able to get the oil," he says. Cohen also believes the decline in the value of the dollar, because the U.S. government and other nations print so much money, increases the value of more finite resources like oil. That he says, then pushes the price up. And he doesn't see it getting any better in the long run. "Unfortunately I'd say get used to it. Because it's going to get worse."

They're actually betting on the USD continuing to lose value creating a commodity price ramp in oil. But it isn't just oil. It's foods, cotton, coffee(second only to oil in trading frequency) gold, silver, copper and other soft and hard commodities. If you listen to all of these blow hard politicos like Sanders, you would be in the erroneous belief that there is no risk to speculating. There is as much risk in that as any other investment vehicle.

It isn't about telling the truth. It's about taking calculated risk based on already existing market data. I recommend further research on how capital markets and trading works before using trading mechanisms to beat someone over the head politically.

Sanders can take his little witch hunt as far as he wants. He can ban all oil speculation if he wants. It won't change a thing. So long as the Federal Reserve keeps printing money and the US government keeps spending it these price ramps will continue. Sanders should know that considering his involvement with Mr. Paul against the Fed. He should know full well how money printing creates these price ramps. But instead he's chosen to go after people that have nothing to do with it.

reply to post by projectvxn


60% of gas hike may be due to Oil Speculators

Oil speculators buy and sell oil futures simply to make a profit, and in many cases, never take delivery or use the oil. Speculators who buy and sell large amounts of oil can artificially cause the per barrel price to climb.

So your saying that there is absolutely no way these people could ever manipulate the system for their own advantage? I just find that hard to believe. The truth is, production was up, prices of crude where sinking yet gasoline remained sky high because speculators. I agree that they shouldn't be the only person to blame but they are another piece to the puzzle. Didn't it use to be that the price of crude oil directly effected the price of gasoline?

reply to post by dwmjr1985


This happened during the Bush years too. And the Bush Administration blamed oil speculators for the price ramps. Never mind that the dollar was hitting all time lows back then as well, not to mention the fact that all other commodities were also seeing price ramps. Price ramps like what we're seeing today cannot be explained simply by blaming trading activities on Wall St. Can speculators manipulate the price of a certain commodity? Yes. Can they do it to all commodities in tandem? NO. So if we're going to blame commodity price ramps this high on speculators we have to blame them for rice, corn, coffee, cocoa, pork, cattle livestock and it's derivative products, cotton, gold and silver.

Never mind that these investment vehicles are far different than oil...but seem to be experiencing similar or even higher price ramps than oil.

Indeed, blame speculators if you want to. The smart money is on the Fed.

reply to post by projectvxn


I tend to agree with you. I think there's a component to these price increases that's largely speculation, but much of it is also inflationary, caused by increasing world demand, a loose money policy by the Fed, and an admistration with no realistic energy policy besides causing energy prices to 'necessarily skyrocket'.

The speculation component would seem to be rather simple to deal with. Just raise the contract sizes of oil and its distillates by a factor of 10. That would run quite a few of the small-time speculators out of the oil markets because they would no longer have the money to buy-in. If that didn't have the desired effect, institute European style options rules on oil and oil products. That would further reduce the incentive to speculate.

The government side of the problem? Hopeless, unfortunately, and they're quite likely the bigger part of it.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by dwmjr1985

 

This happened during the Bush years too. And the Bush Administration blamed oil speculators for the price ramps. Never mind that the dollar was hitting all time lows back then as well, not to mention the fact that all other commodities were also seeing price ramps. Price ramps like what we're seeing today cannot be explained simply by blaming trading activities on Wall St. Can speculators manipulate the price of a certain commodity? Yes. Can they do it to all commodities in tandem? NO. So if we're going to blame commodity price ramps this high on speculators we have to blame them for rice, corn, coffee, cocoa, pork, cattle livestock and it's derivative products, cotton, gold and silver.

Never mind that these investment vehicles are far different than oil...but seem to be experiencing similar or even higher price ramps than oil.

Indeed, blame speculators if you want to. The smart money is on the Fed.

edit on 12-6-2011 by projectvxn because: (no reason given)

But it is really dumb money that bets against actual supply and demand. What the speculators bring up they will also bring down. The dollar weakness only explains about 1/3 of the increase in commodities. The balance is what speculators will be taking away when they move things the other way. We will have $60 oil by end of 2011 IMO.

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical


That's true ONLY if you're betting the Fed won't have a QE3 policy in place.

I'm not foolish enough to think they won't.

From ZeroHedge

In summary, instead of doing everything in its power to stimulate reserve, and thus cash, accumulation at domestic (US) banks which would in turn encourage lending to US borrowers, the Fed has been conducting yet another stealthy foreign bank rescue operation, which rerouted $600 billion in capital from potential borrowers to insolvent foreign financial institutions in the past 7 months. QE2 was nothing more (or less) than another European bank rescue operation!

And where does this money go from there? Bailing out failed governments. And since oil and everything else is priced in dollars, what we're actually doing here is exporting MASSIVE amounts of inflation. I say ban all speculators and you'd still see world wide price ramping on all commodities.

QE3 here we come!