We work to ensure good implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and look for other strategic ways to reinstate common sense rules in U.S. commodity markets.
Watch Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and formerly a lawyer at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), talk about the need for a criminal investigation into Wall Street’s activity in oil markets and agricultural commodity markets.
Greenberger believes that if the Oil Speculation Task force “reconstituted” by Obama and led by AG Eric Holder showed that it was serious about its probe into [Read More...]
On Wednesday IHS/CERA, released a report that claims shutting down commercial banks’ ability to “trade” in commodity futures markets will have drastic negative effects on these markets. The report throws around numbers surely meant to scare people away from reform:
The other authors estimate that freezing commercial banks’ ability to trade in oil and gas futures could lead to:
A $7.5 billion reduction in natural gas development and a related loss of 182,000 jobs; A cumulative [Read More...]
Last week CNNMoney ran an op-ed from Better Markets president, Dennis Kelleher, where he laid the argument that excessive speculation is a contributing factor in rising oil and gas prices.
Later in the week CNNMoney ran another op-ed from Craig Pirrong, a finance professor at the Global Energy Management Institute at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, arguing that speculators are not at all responsible for rising oil, gas prices. In doing so, Pirrong [Read More...]
Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, lays out a clear and convincing argument that Wall Street speculators play a significant role in rising gas prices in a CNN op-ed today:
Now, there is broad agreement — from airlines to coffee chains to farmers to President Obama — that excessive speculation in commodity markets is needlessly driving up prices.
So it’s not a question of if, but how much of an effect does this speculation have [Read More...]
Peter Goodman’s article in the Huffington Post last week questioned the substance of President Obama’s “reconstitution” of the Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group, headed up Attorney General Eric Holder:
“Earlier this month, the president called on Holder to “reconstitute” the Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group, the body that the attorney general first convened at Obama’s direction nearly a year ago. “Reconstitute” seemed an odd verb, given how the group by all indications seems [Read More...]
Dennis Kelleher, President of Better Markets, talks about excessive speculation in food and energy markets on the Dylan Ratigan Show. The video is an excellent one to study how to respond to some of the most common objections we hear to the arguments we make on this site.
Two recent articles point out the acute effects of Wall Street’s excessive speculation in commodity markets on both companies and consumers.
A New York Times article describes the extreme volatility that has come to characterize commodity futures markets over the last four years. The article quotes company executives from the heating oil, meat, grain, and cotton industries, who use futures markets as a form of price insurance, about the drastic increase in cost to even [Read More...]
The connection between excessive speculation and oil and gas price spikes continues to garner more media attention. According to a joint letter signed by 68 members of Congress excessive speculation could be costing you 15 percent more at the pump, and playing a “significant” role in rising gas prices.
The letter, which cites a recently updated St. Louis Federal Reserve study that concluded excessive speculation is a main contributing factor to rising gas prices, urges [Read More...]
A recent Reuters’ article highlights the debate between the Federal Reserve and Wall Street banks over the right to retain the warehouses, storage tanks, and other hard assets that make up the physical commodity trading empire that Wall Street banks built over the last six years. While the battle of proprietary trading and new derivative regulations like position limits has been largely in public view, the Fed’s battle with Wall Street over its physical commodities [Read More...]
