I am proud of Hillary for attacking the Energy Traders this Morning

[JCMach1]

She was very sharp and savvy during her interview with Matt Lauer...



Clinton, sounding a populist tone throughout the day, leveled a sharp blast at energy traders, OPEC nations and the energy industry. She called for a federal investigation of possible market manipulation and urged a much tougher stance toward the energy-producing nations, including possible action before the World Trade Organization... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/02/AR2008050203920.html?hpid=topnews



Sorry, left off,,,, cue the snarks

[cliffordu]

1. How much oil stock does she have, again??

[Double T]

2. The free market criminal energy traders need to be taken to task........

and HRC is the ONLY ONE that says she is willing to do it. BO is once again 'present'. Anyone see a pattern with BO doing NOTHING?
'Nice' guy finishes LAST; TOUGH woman kicks some ASS!

[JCMach1]

3. I also LOVED how she cut off Matt Lauer (repug whore) to get her point in

:)

[Ikonoklast]

7. There is nothing criminal about trading oil, gas, or any other futures

This as all grandstanding by Hillary as she knows that exactly nothing will be gained or changed by whatever nonsense she spouts about it, except garnering silly headlines and grandstanding for a gullible audience that thinks she has any legal power to change reality.

Unless you are willing to completely eliminate futures trading and speculation of all kinds, you might as well say nothing.

Futures trading performs a valid function on volatile commodity markets by providing price stabilization for raw materials, or hedging against supply interruption.

I never read a peep about Hillary complaining about the huge run-up in gold on the futures market. Shouldn't that be just as illegal?

[Double T]

8. BIGGEST criminals in the world.

Futures Trading of ANY KIND/TYPE SHOULD BE ELIMINATED as it is IMO criminal activity.

[anigbrowl]

14. Actually, futures trading does a great deal of good

allows farmers to insulate against possible losses due to bad harvests etc., or companies to lock in prices for raw materials ahead of time so manufacturing isn't disrupted. Some folk seem to think it's solely the province of speculators, but the bulk of futures trading takes place as a precautionary measure. Without it we would see more severe and frequent booms and busts. It's a form of insurance.

[Double T]

17. Energy and commodity traders are INSURING the TOTAL demise of..........

of the middle class and the poor.

[anigbrowl]

23. Sez you, without offering any actual reasons for your opinion. Next!

[frickaline]

20. Hedging in the futures market would be a pretty risky form of insurance

[Ikonoklast]

24. Actually, it is the best way to insure profits for farmers

Markets do fall, and if you can hedge your projected crop against falling prices you can use that as price insurance.

They do it all the time.

Small price to pay if you end up out of the money, but considering, say, hedging one hundred thousand bushels of soybeans against a market decline because Brazil just reported a bumper crop and your beans at harvest are suddenly worth a lot less than they were two months ago.

But you hedged against that possibility and locked in your price earlier, for a guaranteed profit.

[anigbrowl]

25. Not in the least, that's what it's there for

Say you are a producer of wheat, and you feel confident of a good price at harvest time later this year. BUT you know that a lot of other farmers are thinking along the same lines, and if too many of them do so there might be an excess of wheat on the market and price will go down, taking your profits with it. You buy an option to sell your wheat consignment at a certain price. If the spot price remains high or goes up, well, you wasted the option money but it didn't cost you much, and the waste is offset by your increased return.

but if there turns out to be a wheat glut and the spot price falls, then that option is gold, because it lets you sell your wheat at the price named on your option and so the investment in your crop is safe.

Correspondingly, if you are a producer of some product and you know you are going to need a certain raw material in a certain quantity, but you fear that the price may go up later this year, an option allows you to lock in your future purchase at a set price, insulating from the potential cash-flow problems of a sudden price rise.

[frickaline]

19. Its a bit evil to speculate on a market with inelastic demand, you have to admit

The gold market isn't inelastic as its not something required for daily life, so it should rightfully be excluded from this discussion. She was right to bring up Enron as an example of what can happen in a speculation-gone-wrong scenario.

Now having said that, these traders have always been there and I'm not sure I follow her reasoning behind why they are more of a problem today than previously. I personally find this to be a smokescreen response to the real problem at hand: worldwide diminishing oil supply.

[Ikonoklast]

27. There are always buyers, sellers, and middlemen taking profits

At least on the CBOE they are out in the open and transparent. I would hate to see what petro prices would be if trading was done in secrecy, with no public scrutiny (like diamonds).


And no matter what, the eternal laws of supply and demand will dictate the price of energy.

Less oil + increasing demand = higher prices.

That equation is unbreakable for whatever commodity you use.

[sandnsea]

4. Did she talk about the dollar?

Did she talk about stabilizing the region?

Isn't Bush the one who was going to "jawbone 'em"?

She is so full of shit.

[CanonRay]

5. Wasn't it the Clinton Administration

that got the trading rules relaxed so you could buy commodity futures with a greater margin? Isn't that part of the problem?

[JCMach1]

6. It's a regulatory thing

"The commodities futures markets have become an orgy of speculation, a carnival of greed," said Levin. "I see no justification for oil to be at $100 a barrel."

"The current high oil prices are inflated by as much as 100 percent," said Fadel Gheit, a senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer, an investment firm. "The price surge is the result of excessive speculation."

Caruso said EIA has looked into speculation and said it is hard to say exactly how much it is contributing to high prices. He said it was the role of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to regulate oil trading.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wasn't satisfied.

"You've got hundreds of people, but you can't even put a few people on this role of looking into speculation," Wyden said.

Wyden suggested that EIA disclose in its weekly inventory survey the size of individual company oil stockpiles, a suggestion that Caruso said would violate the confidential nature of the survey.

Gheit, the Oppenheimer analyst, said that lowering the amount of oil traders could buy with borrowed money, requiring investors to hold oil contracts for a certain period of time, and limiting the amount of contracts that could be bought under one name could help reduce the effect of speculative money on prices... http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/11/news/economy/oil_speculation/index.htm?postversion=2007121117

[Texas Hill Country]

9. good for her, she should attack them!

[Armstead]

10. Snark Alert -- Where has she been all these years?

Her husband and her DLC did a lot to work with the GOP to create the deregulated environment that opened the floodgates for this and many other abuses of the system.

To mee this is "too little to late" at best. At worst it is shameless political pandering and deception.

[blm]

12. Yep - and this has been a key issue since 2001 - where has she been? She gave no back up to any Dem

who brought it up. Keeping Bush safe until she could have her race.

[burythehatchet]

11. oops sorry, wrong room. Please continue the circle jerk

[Armstead]

13. Oh, grab your member and join in

[Romulox]

15. The same right-wing "economists" advising BO to support "free trade" and deregulation

The very same right wing economists who are advising BO to support "free trade" and deregulation teach us that any attempt to levy a tax on a multi-national corporation is doomed to fail.

:sarcasm:

Austan Dean Goolsbee is an economist and is currently the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is also a Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation<1>, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts<2>, and a member of the Panel of Economic Advisors to the Congressional Budget Office.<3> He has been Barack Obama's economic advisor since Obama's successful U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois. He is the lead economic advisor to the 2008 Obama presidential campaign <4> and is known as a centrist.<5> Austan Goolsbee is Senior Economist to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). <6>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austan_Goolsbeee

[my2cent]

16. I'm proud of her too

:toast:

[TheDudeAbides]

18. Obama given more money from oil execs over last 3 months than any other candidate

I wonder why Obama is against a gas tax vacation that is to be paid for by oil company profits?

Notice that in the Illinois legislature, Obama not only wanted the gas tax, he wanted to make sure his name was attached and he received credit for it. As usual, he flips when it is politically expedient, and now is opposed to it for all the same reasons he previously favored it in Illinois.

Ok...bring on the Swarm! I have on my beekeeper outfit.

(This post is in the spirit of the "new" DU as announced in another thread)

[BlueIdaho]

21. Obama given more money by EVERYONE over last three months than any other candidate.

[TheDudeAbides]

22. Oh come on...you can do better than that; Give me the Queen bee! n/t

[rhett o rick]

26. Good for her and I mean that. But, what is this bs about summer gas tax relief?

the economists all say that it will not help consumer and may help oil companies. And her plan is very similar to McShame's. Just sayin

[hokies4ever]

28. Yelling at OPEC

great strategy if you want to piss them off. They might just raise the price of oil in spite.