In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks. The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available. Banks’ influence over this market, and over clearinghouses like the one this select group advises, has costly implications for businesses large and small,
According to the Times, the marketplace as it functions now “adds up to higher costs to all Americans,” said Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates most derivatives. More oversight of the banks in this market is needed, he said. Big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups. The banks’ latest point of influence are clearinghouses like ICE Trust, which holds the monthly meetings with the nine bankers in New York.
Really? Gosh, I had no idea. The ICE people told me that wasn’t true at all. I have many, many pages of correspondence to that effect… “When you limit participation in the governance of an entity to a few like-minded institutions or individuals who have an interest in keeping competitors out, you have the potential for bad things to happen. It’s antitrust 101,” said Robert E. Litan, who helped oversee the Justice Department’s Nasdaq investigation as deputy assistant attorney general. Better say goodbye to Grandma, Mr. Litan…
Critics have called these banks the “derivatives dealers club,” and they warn that the club is unlikely to give up ground easily. The Times points out "Perhaps no business in finance is as profitable today as derivatives. Not making loans. Not offering credit cards. Not advising on mergers and acquisitions. Not managing money for the wealthy."
The secrecy surrounding derivatives trading is a key factor enabling banks to make such large profits and the banks guard that secrecy very closely. In theory, the Dodd-Frank bill will eliminate much of the abuse that is going on in the derivatives market but already, the newly-elected House and Senate Republicans are looking to turn back to clock, which is apropos because, as Barry Ritholtz points out: it was the dreaded Commodity Futures Modernization Act that allowed the rampant shadow banking system to develop.
Source: A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives by LOUISE STORY, NY Times
See also: Michael Snyder's Derivatives: The Quadrillion Dollar Financial Casino Completely Dominated By The Big International Banks and Trillions In Secret Fed Bailouts For Global Corporations And Foreign Banks – Has The Federal Reserve Become A Completely Unaccountable Global Bailout Machine?.
Phil explains how the oil markets are a colossal scam, once again enriching the big bankers and energy sellers at the expense of everyone else. And of course, our propaganda machine mainstream media is making matters worse rather than engaging in objective reporting. - Ilene
Fake-Out Thursday – Oil Scam Continues Unabated
By Phil of Phil's Stock World
What a joke the oil market is!
First of all, the NYMEX contracts for January delivery close on Tuesday and there are still 132,168 open contracts or 1,000 barrels each (132M) scheduled for delivery to Cushing, OK, a facility that can handle at most, 45Mb of crude and is, at the moment, full. The price of those barrels surged from $86.82 all the way back to our shorting target of $89 yesterday, where we once again had a nice ride down. Now, in pre markets, it is back over $89 again and we'll short it again so I'm not complaining about the action but I am upset that this blatant rip-off of the American consumer can go on right under our "leadership's" noses.
Logic alone dictates that if 132M barrels are on order for delivery to a storage facility that can only handle 45M barrels that the orders are mostly bogus. You can track the open interest every day right here so don't take my word for it, watch what happens over the next few days as the people who are currently pretending to demand oil in January, roll their contracts to pretend demand for February (already at a ridiculous 268M barrels), March (172Mb) and April (60Mb). Like the great Carnac, I will put the envelope to my head and predict that, by Tuesday, the January barrel count will fall to under 30,000 contracts, while the new front three months will rise by close to 100,000 contacts.
This is scam #1 in the energy market and it goes on every month since the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" of 2000 made it possible for thieves to run the energy markets with virtually no regulations. I've been speaking out on this for years and just this weekend, the NYTimes picked up the ball I tossed up over a year ago (better late than never!), when I pointed out that the Global oil scam was costing us 50 times more than the Madoff scandal EVERY YEAR! We're not going to go into all that again as I want to highlight scam #2 in the energy markets and that is the weekly manipulation of the oil inventory reports.
Yesterday, Criminal Narrators Boosting Crude were very excited to report that we had a 9.9Mb draw in oil inventories. WOW! That sounds like a lot of oil demand doesn't it? Of course, any real news people would mention that the report clearly indicated that "U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.7 million barrels per day last week, down by 1.4 million barrels per day from the previous week" but CNBC is not news, is it? As I pointed out two weeks ago today, they are nothing more than PROPAGANDA as a station owned by a company that makes a good portion of it's income selling energy-related products and makes much more money when oil prices are high than when they are low. 1.4M barrels a day times 7 days is 9.8 Million barrels that the US was shorted in order to keep the price of oil high - WHY IS NO ONE BEING ARRESTED?!?
It's not just American Citizens who are paying the extra $60M per day that the $3 pop in oil costs us, the rest of the World consumes another 70M barrels a day and they are stuck with a $210M per day bill as well for each $3 gain in price. And that, of course, is before the refining mark-ups. Just the $270M a day they screwed us out of this week is a very nice $98.5Bn annual rip-off of the global population or, what I pointed out last year is a Double Madoff!
Now consider that the real price of oil, when measured as global output vs. global demand on a historic basis should be closer to $60 a barrel than $90 and you have a TRILLION DOLLAR annual scam going on and our joke of a government does NOTHING to prevent it. Oh wait, I'm sorry, they do something, they accept massive campaign contributions from the Energy industry to block any legislation meant to put a stop to this on-going crime. Perhaps if it were "just" a Trillion Dollars that was being stolen we could just laugh it off and accept it but the artificially inflated price of oil impacts food and many other products plus, as I mentioned, the refining mark-up alone almost doubles the net cost to consumers so, Globally, we're paying close to $5Tn in inflated prices just so the Energy Cartel can screw us out of $1Tn. It would be much cheaper to just hand them the cash in exchange for charging a fair price for the oil, wouldn't it?
By the way, I apologize to my Republican friends for the above cartoon - the Democrats have had two years to do something about this and have proven themselves to be just as big a bunch of sleazeballs as the Republican's ever were. How's that for fair and balanced. This is a GLOBAL problem and it's obviously not going to be fixed by the voters or the people in power so I'm going to reach out to the business community.
The Global Corporations who do not sell energy products who are also suffering as $5Tn of consumer money is being diverted away from their companies in order for consumers to overpay for food, energy and other related products. That's 10% of global GDP that could be spent on assets, rather than going up in smoke every year! The non-energy companies need to get their own lobby together - one that calls for oversight and regulation of this industry and they'd better do it soon as our friends at Goldman Sachs are already pimping for the next $5Tn rise in energy-related spending as they raise their forecasts over the $100 per barrel mark - something that will, once again, collapse the global economy while Lloyd and Co line their pockets with record bonuses and Government bail-outs.
Meanwhile, has anyone noticed that the Hang Seng has dropped 800 points in 2 days? I know that doesn't fit into the Global growth narrative the MSM is shoving down our throats but surely someone is paying attention to China's rapidly declining market? Things were looking so bad this morning that Goldman Sachs tried to manipulate the market by announcing a new China-based hedge fund (2:30 am) and then the S&P jumped in at 3am and hiked China's credit rating which halted the decline for about a half hour but then they dropped another 100 points into the close.
I like to play a game in the morning called "Let's see how long I can listen to CNBC and not hear a word about this" - it's lots of fun as you watch them tap-dance around mentioning any news that goes against their narrative and China falling is a big one for them to ignore but, so far today, they are batting 1,000!
Copper is also in it's 3rd consecutive day of decline as expanding Global inventories can no longer be swept under the rug. 7,050 tons of copper made their way onto LME inventory yesterday and now there are 357,950 tons in storage as it appears that Shanghai is once again reaching their storage limit of 200,000 tons. We shorted FCX in Monday's Member Chat, so a little disclosure here but it's nice to see we seem to have caught that wave.
Nonetheless, commodity assets have expanded to a record $345Bn as of the end of November, led by index-led investments. In other words, the relentless targeted manipulation of the markets in this low-volume rally has gotten index funds to push heavily into commodities. This allows the Goldman's of the World to turn ordinary 401K investors into commodity bag-holders right at the top of the market while retail investors are also drawn in, plopping another $6.1Bn into ETFs, a 10% increase in a single month!
We have all heard that China is having inflation issues and we've all heard that the PBOC will be hiking rates next year to combat it and we all know that the average Chinese worker makes $2,000 a year yet people continue to "invest" in the China/Commodity story as if we're at the beginning and not the end.
While you are BUYBUYBUYing, keep in mind that Corporate Insiders are SELLSELLSELLing, at a pace not seen since 2007! This, of course, comes as not surprise to Phil's Stock World readers, as we have a section called the "Insider Zone" that keeps us on top of what's going on inside Corporate America and you can click on that link and see lots of fun charts so I won't try to paint a picture here other than to say - Be careful out there!
See also: Bankers Secretly Meeting to Destroy the World, Yawn...
robert shumake
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
<b>News</b> - Lindsay Lohan Moving Next Door to Ex Sam Ronson - Celebrity <b>...</b>
Even fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
New Edition of Huckleberry Finn to Drop N-Word: Instant Reactions
Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, along with NewSouth Books, plans to release a newly edited edition of the Mark Twain classic, with every instance of the N-word replaced with the word.
robert shumake
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
<b>News</b> - Lindsay Lohan Moving Next Door to Ex Sam Ronson - Celebrity <b>...</b>
Even fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
New Edition of Huckleberry Finn to Drop N-Word: Instant Reactions
Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, along with NewSouth Books, plans to release a newly edited edition of the Mark Twain classic, with every instance of the N-word replaced with the word.
robert shumake detroit
In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks. The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available. Banks’ influence over this market, and over clearinghouses like the one this select group advises, has costly implications for businesses large and small,
According to the Times, the marketplace as it functions now “adds up to higher costs to all Americans,” said Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates most derivatives. More oversight of the banks in this market is needed, he said. Big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups. The banks’ latest point of influence are clearinghouses like ICE Trust, which holds the monthly meetings with the nine bankers in New York.
Really? Gosh, I had no idea. The ICE people told me that wasn’t true at all. I have many, many pages of correspondence to that effect… “When you limit participation in the governance of an entity to a few like-minded institutions or individuals who have an interest in keeping competitors out, you have the potential for bad things to happen. It’s antitrust 101,” said Robert E. Litan, who helped oversee the Justice Department’s Nasdaq investigation as deputy assistant attorney general. Better say goodbye to Grandma, Mr. Litan…
Critics have called these banks the “derivatives dealers club,” and they warn that the club is unlikely to give up ground easily. The Times points out "Perhaps no business in finance is as profitable today as derivatives. Not making loans. Not offering credit cards. Not advising on mergers and acquisitions. Not managing money for the wealthy."
The secrecy surrounding derivatives trading is a key factor enabling banks to make such large profits and the banks guard that secrecy very closely. In theory, the Dodd-Frank bill will eliminate much of the abuse that is going on in the derivatives market but already, the newly-elected House and Senate Republicans are looking to turn back to clock, which is apropos because, as Barry Ritholtz points out: it was the dreaded Commodity Futures Modernization Act that allowed the rampant shadow banking system to develop.
Source: A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives by LOUISE STORY, NY Times
See also: Michael Snyder's Derivatives: The Quadrillion Dollar Financial Casino Completely Dominated By The Big International Banks and Trillions In Secret Fed Bailouts For Global Corporations And Foreign Banks – Has The Federal Reserve Become A Completely Unaccountable Global Bailout Machine?.
Phil explains how the oil markets are a colossal scam, once again enriching the big bankers and energy sellers at the expense of everyone else. And of course, our propaganda machine mainstream media is making matters worse rather than engaging in objective reporting. - Ilene
Fake-Out Thursday – Oil Scam Continues Unabated
By Phil of Phil's Stock World
What a joke the oil market is!
First of all, the NYMEX contracts for January delivery close on Tuesday and there are still 132,168 open contracts or 1,000 barrels each (132M) scheduled for delivery to Cushing, OK, a facility that can handle at most, 45Mb of crude and is, at the moment, full. The price of those barrels surged from $86.82 all the way back to our shorting target of $89 yesterday, where we once again had a nice ride down. Now, in pre markets, it is back over $89 again and we'll short it again so I'm not complaining about the action but I am upset that this blatant rip-off of the American consumer can go on right under our "leadership's" noses.
Logic alone dictates that if 132M barrels are on order for delivery to a storage facility that can only handle 45M barrels that the orders are mostly bogus. You can track the open interest every day right here so don't take my word for it, watch what happens over the next few days as the people who are currently pretending to demand oil in January, roll their contracts to pretend demand for February (already at a ridiculous 268M barrels), March (172Mb) and April (60Mb). Like the great Carnac, I will put the envelope to my head and predict that, by Tuesday, the January barrel count will fall to under 30,000 contracts, while the new front three months will rise by close to 100,000 contacts.
This is scam #1 in the energy market and it goes on every month since the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" of 2000 made it possible for thieves to run the energy markets with virtually no regulations. I've been speaking out on this for years and just this weekend, the NYTimes picked up the ball I tossed up over a year ago (better late than never!), when I pointed out that the Global oil scam was costing us 50 times more than the Madoff scandal EVERY YEAR! We're not going to go into all that again as I want to highlight scam #2 in the energy markets and that is the weekly manipulation of the oil inventory reports.
Yesterday, Criminal Narrators Boosting Crude were very excited to report that we had a 9.9Mb draw in oil inventories. WOW! That sounds like a lot of oil demand doesn't it? Of course, any real news people would mention that the report clearly indicated that "U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.7 million barrels per day last week, down by 1.4 million barrels per day from the previous week" but CNBC is not news, is it? As I pointed out two weeks ago today, they are nothing more than PROPAGANDA as a station owned by a company that makes a good portion of it's income selling energy-related products and makes much more money when oil prices are high than when they are low. 1.4M barrels a day times 7 days is 9.8 Million barrels that the US was shorted in order to keep the price of oil high - WHY IS NO ONE BEING ARRESTED?!?
It's not just American Citizens who are paying the extra $60M per day that the $3 pop in oil costs us, the rest of the World consumes another 70M barrels a day and they are stuck with a $210M per day bill as well for each $3 gain in price. And that, of course, is before the refining mark-ups. Just the $270M a day they screwed us out of this week is a very nice $98.5Bn annual rip-off of the global population or, what I pointed out last year is a Double Madoff!
Now consider that the real price of oil, when measured as global output vs. global demand on a historic basis should be closer to $60 a barrel than $90 and you have a TRILLION DOLLAR annual scam going on and our joke of a government does NOTHING to prevent it. Oh wait, I'm sorry, they do something, they accept massive campaign contributions from the Energy industry to block any legislation meant to put a stop to this on-going crime. Perhaps if it were "just" a Trillion Dollars that was being stolen we could just laugh it off and accept it but the artificially inflated price of oil impacts food and many other products plus, as I mentioned, the refining mark-up alone almost doubles the net cost to consumers so, Globally, we're paying close to $5Tn in inflated prices just so the Energy Cartel can screw us out of $1Tn. It would be much cheaper to just hand them the cash in exchange for charging a fair price for the oil, wouldn't it?
By the way, I apologize to my Republican friends for the above cartoon - the Democrats have had two years to do something about this and have proven themselves to be just as big a bunch of sleazeballs as the Republican's ever were. How's that for fair and balanced. This is a GLOBAL problem and it's obviously not going to be fixed by the voters or the people in power so I'm going to reach out to the business community.
The Global Corporations who do not sell energy products who are also suffering as $5Tn of consumer money is being diverted away from their companies in order for consumers to overpay for food, energy and other related products. That's 10% of global GDP that could be spent on assets, rather than going up in smoke every year! The non-energy companies need to get their own lobby together - one that calls for oversight and regulation of this industry and they'd better do it soon as our friends at Goldman Sachs are already pimping for the next $5Tn rise in energy-related spending as they raise their forecasts over the $100 per barrel mark - something that will, once again, collapse the global economy while Lloyd and Co line their pockets with record bonuses and Government bail-outs.
Meanwhile, has anyone noticed that the Hang Seng has dropped 800 points in 2 days? I know that doesn't fit into the Global growth narrative the MSM is shoving down our throats but surely someone is paying attention to China's rapidly declining market? Things were looking so bad this morning that Goldman Sachs tried to manipulate the market by announcing a new China-based hedge fund (2:30 am) and then the S&P jumped in at 3am and hiked China's credit rating which halted the decline for about a half hour but then they dropped another 100 points into the close.
I like to play a game in the morning called "Let's see how long I can listen to CNBC and not hear a word about this" - it's lots of fun as you watch them tap-dance around mentioning any news that goes against their narrative and China falling is a big one for them to ignore but, so far today, they are batting 1,000!
Copper is also in it's 3rd consecutive day of decline as expanding Global inventories can no longer be swept under the rug. 7,050 tons of copper made their way onto LME inventory yesterday and now there are 357,950 tons in storage as it appears that Shanghai is once again reaching their storage limit of 200,000 tons. We shorted FCX in Monday's Member Chat, so a little disclosure here but it's nice to see we seem to have caught that wave.
Nonetheless, commodity assets have expanded to a record $345Bn as of the end of November, led by index-led investments. In other words, the relentless targeted manipulation of the markets in this low-volume rally has gotten index funds to push heavily into commodities. This allows the Goldman's of the World to turn ordinary 401K investors into commodity bag-holders right at the top of the market while retail investors are also drawn in, plopping another $6.1Bn into ETFs, a 10% increase in a single month!
We have all heard that China is having inflation issues and we've all heard that the PBOC will be hiking rates next year to combat it and we all know that the average Chinese worker makes $2,000 a year yet people continue to "invest" in the China/Commodity story as if we're at the beginning and not the end.
While you are BUYBUYBUYing, keep in mind that Corporate Insiders are SELLSELLSELLing, at a pace not seen since 2007! This, of course, comes as not surprise to Phil's Stock World readers, as we have a section called the "Insider Zone" that keeps us on top of what's going on inside Corporate America and you can click on that link and see lots of fun charts so I won't try to paint a picture here other than to say - Be careful out there!
See also: Bankers Secretly Meeting to Destroy the World, Yawn...
robert shumake detroit
robert shumake
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
<b>News</b> - Lindsay Lohan Moving Next Door to Ex Sam Ronson - Celebrity <b>...</b>
Even fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
New Edition of Huckleberry Finn to Drop N-Word: Instant Reactions
Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, along with NewSouth Books, plans to release a newly edited edition of the Mark Twain classic, with every instance of the N-word replaced with the word.
robert shumake
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
<b>News</b> - Lindsay Lohan Moving Next Door to Ex Sam Ronson - Celebrity <b>...</b>
Even fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
New Edition of Huckleberry Finn to Drop N-Word: Instant Reactions
Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, along with NewSouth Books, plans to release a newly edited edition of the Mark Twain classic, with every instance of the N-word replaced with the word.
robert shumake
Over the last few months, I have tried about every stupid thing on the internet to make money. I have found only a select few that really pay. I am writing this to give everyone a simple guide to making money online without all the BS. Oh, and make sure to check out the links within the text. They offer you detailed information on specific websites.
What Not To Do
The don't section of this article is more important than the do section. I have spent countless hours on the don't section and only a select few on the do section. Most websites that promise you money don't work. Here are a few sites that don't work.
1. Any site that asks you to give money in order to use their site is a scam. Stay away. Run and never turn back.
2. 99.9% of the paid survey sites are bad. Making money on a site like this takes a long time and you have to give away almost all of your private information. Even when you find a site that let's you actually take a survey, most of the time you don't qualify. This means they will put you in some stupid monthly drawing and chances are you will never receive any money. I started to get spammed a lot after signing up for these sites. And don't even think about asking them to not send you emails anymore. Once they have your information they will not stop contacting you. I guess you could make a few dollars every few months if you are lucky enough to qualify, but you have to give away your soul to do it. Plus, the money you make is minimal. There are much better sites to make money. These sites are just not worth it.
3. Any site that you have to sign up for offers is dangerous. These sites redirect you to other unreliable sites and you have to give away more personal information. I am just not comfortable doing that. It really isn't worth the few dollars you get for signing up for an offer.
4. Sites that offer you money for posting in forums are not good money makers. I am thinking of a site like MyLot. Content Producer Jennifer does a great job breaking down this website. Just click on the MyLot link for a quality non-bias look.
What Works
The good news is that there are a few sites that do actually pay you for some hard work. Notice I said hard work. Most people want to make money online and have it just fall on their lap. In order to make some legitimate money, a lot has to be done. Here are a few sites that can work if you put the effort into them.
1. Associated Content is a great site and the best one I have found. AC gives writers everything they need to be successful. They give you sites to promote on, your own profile and web space, a great community, and money up front. With the Associated Content Performance Bonus a writer can make as much money as they want. The downsides are few and far between. If you are a talented writer and a good self promoter than you can make a few hundred a month on this site.
2. Helium and Constant Content are the second-tier pay for writing sites. In order to make money on Helium, you have to write a ton of articles and by a ton I mean a ton. Generating a good stream of cash is possible if you write a bunch and you get lucky. The great thing about this site is you don't have to spend as much time on each thing you write. Typically, a 100 word response is good for the category. A person really has to think long term when they write for Helium. Constant Content offers big money for big articles. Serious writers need only apply. The problem is it takes forever to get an offer on an article and even then you don't make a lot of money. This site can be a lot of fun if you are a serious writer and you like to write extensively.
3. Moola is a fun gaming website that gives you a chance to win big. The games here are simple but they are a lot of fun and people are always looking to play. There are a number of ways to make money and my research shows this site to be legit. No one is going to have a huge pile of money from this site but getting paid to play games is pretty cool. They have a neat referral system and I imagine if you want to make money from this site then referring people is the way to do it. I have invitations if anyone is looking for them.
4. If you are a talented promoter and can offer people something new, then blogging is a great way to make some money. Most blogging sites like Blogger use Google Adsense to make money and this is usually a tough way to make income. There is some hope though. If you find some good ways to promote then the possibilities are endless. If you are really feeling ambitious then invest in your own website. If you are starting your own website to make money make sure you have some unique material to offer.
5. This one is pure speculation but I have done my research and AGLOCO sounds legitimate. Back in the late 90's, AllAdvantage was a success. It paid over 120 million dollars to its member who got money from referring people and surfing the web. AllAdvantage was known for its privacy protection and for its payout. The new incarnation is AGLOCO (AGlobal Community). The Toolbar service is not quite out yet but people are referring like mad. Some people have referred upwards of 20000+ people!. Make sure to check it out and if you want more information contact me.
Good luck!
Make sure to protect yourself out there. A lot of sites are trying to get your personal information and have little in the way of making you money. If you find any more legit sites please contact me. Hope this guide was helpful!
robert shumake detroit
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
<b>News</b> - Lindsay Lohan Moving Next Door to Ex Sam Ronson - Celebrity <b>...</b>
Even fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
New Edition of Huckleberry Finn to Drop N-Word: Instant Reactions
Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, along with NewSouth Books, plans to release a newly edited edition of the Mark Twain classic, with every instance of the N-word replaced with the word.
robert shumake
robert shumake
In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks. The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available. Banks’ influence over this market, and over clearinghouses like the one this select group advises, has costly implications for businesses large and small,
According to the Times, the marketplace as it functions now “adds up to higher costs to all Americans,” said Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates most derivatives. More oversight of the banks in this market is needed, he said. Big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups. The banks’ latest point of influence are clearinghouses like ICE Trust, which holds the monthly meetings with the nine bankers in New York.
Really? Gosh, I had no idea. The ICE people told me that wasn’t true at all. I have many, many pages of correspondence to that effect… “When you limit participation in the governance of an entity to a few like-minded institutions or individuals who have an interest in keeping competitors out, you have the potential for bad things to happen. It’s antitrust 101,” said Robert E. Litan, who helped oversee the Justice Department’s Nasdaq investigation as deputy assistant attorney general. Better say goodbye to Grandma, Mr. Litan…
Critics have called these banks the “derivatives dealers club,” and they warn that the club is unlikely to give up ground easily. The Times points out "Perhaps no business in finance is as profitable today as derivatives. Not making loans. Not offering credit cards. Not advising on mergers and acquisitions. Not managing money for the wealthy."
The secrecy surrounding derivatives trading is a key factor enabling banks to make such large profits and the banks guard that secrecy very closely. In theory, the Dodd-Frank bill will eliminate much of the abuse that is going on in the derivatives market but already, the newly-elected House and Senate Republicans are looking to turn back to clock, which is apropos because, as Barry Ritholtz points out: it was the dreaded Commodity Futures Modernization Act that allowed the rampant shadow banking system to develop.
Source: A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives by LOUISE STORY, NY Times
See also: Michael Snyder's Derivatives: The Quadrillion Dollar Financial Casino Completely Dominated By The Big International Banks and Trillions In Secret Fed Bailouts For Global Corporations And Foreign Banks – Has The Federal Reserve Become A Completely Unaccountable Global Bailout Machine?.
Phil explains how the oil markets are a colossal scam, once again enriching the big bankers and energy sellers at the expense of everyone else. And of course, our propaganda machine mainstream media is making matters worse rather than engaging in objective reporting. - Ilene
Fake-Out Thursday – Oil Scam Continues Unabated
By Phil of Phil's Stock World
What a joke the oil market is!
First of all, the NYMEX contracts for January delivery close on Tuesday and there are still 132,168 open contracts or 1,000 barrels each (132M) scheduled for delivery to Cushing, OK, a facility that can handle at most, 45Mb of crude and is, at the moment, full. The price of those barrels surged from $86.82 all the way back to our shorting target of $89 yesterday, where we once again had a nice ride down. Now, in pre markets, it is back over $89 again and we'll short it again so I'm not complaining about the action but I am upset that this blatant rip-off of the American consumer can go on right under our "leadership's" noses.
Logic alone dictates that if 132M barrels are on order for delivery to a storage facility that can only handle 45M barrels that the orders are mostly bogus. You can track the open interest every day right here so don't take my word for it, watch what happens over the next few days as the people who are currently pretending to demand oil in January, roll their contracts to pretend demand for February (already at a ridiculous 268M barrels), March (172Mb) and April (60Mb). Like the great Carnac, I will put the envelope to my head and predict that, by Tuesday, the January barrel count will fall to under 30,000 contracts, while the new front three months will rise by close to 100,000 contacts.
This is scam #1 in the energy market and it goes on every month since the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" of 2000 made it possible for thieves to run the energy markets with virtually no regulations. I've been speaking out on this for years and just this weekend, the NYTimes picked up the ball I tossed up over a year ago (better late than never!), when I pointed out that the Global oil scam was costing us 50 times more than the Madoff scandal EVERY YEAR! We're not going to go into all that again as I want to highlight scam #2 in the energy markets and that is the weekly manipulation of the oil inventory reports.
Yesterday, Criminal Narrators Boosting Crude were very excited to report that we had a 9.9Mb draw in oil inventories. WOW! That sounds like a lot of oil demand doesn't it? Of course, any real news people would mention that the report clearly indicated that "U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.7 million barrels per day last week, down by 1.4 million barrels per day from the previous week" but CNBC is not news, is it? As I pointed out two weeks ago today, they are nothing more than PROPAGANDA as a station owned by a company that makes a good portion of it's income selling energy-related products and makes much more money when oil prices are high than when they are low. 1.4M barrels a day times 7 days is 9.8 Million barrels that the US was shorted in order to keep the price of oil high - WHY IS NO ONE BEING ARRESTED?!?
It's not just American Citizens who are paying the extra $60M per day that the $3 pop in oil costs us, the rest of the World consumes another 70M barrels a day and they are stuck with a $210M per day bill as well for each $3 gain in price. And that, of course, is before the refining mark-ups. Just the $270M a day they screwed us out of this week is a very nice $98.5Bn annual rip-off of the global population or, what I pointed out last year is a Double Madoff!
Now consider that the real price of oil, when measured as global output vs. global demand on a historic basis should be closer to $60 a barrel than $90 and you have a TRILLION DOLLAR annual scam going on and our joke of a government does NOTHING to prevent it. Oh wait, I'm sorry, they do something, they accept massive campaign contributions from the Energy industry to block any legislation meant to put a stop to this on-going crime. Perhaps if it were "just" a Trillion Dollars that was being stolen we could just laugh it off and accept it but the artificially inflated price of oil impacts food and many other products plus, as I mentioned, the refining mark-up alone almost doubles the net cost to consumers so, Globally, we're paying close to $5Tn in inflated prices just so the Energy Cartel can screw us out of $1Tn. It would be much cheaper to just hand them the cash in exchange for charging a fair price for the oil, wouldn't it?
By the way, I apologize to my Republican friends for the above cartoon - the Democrats have had two years to do something about this and have proven themselves to be just as big a bunch of sleazeballs as the Republican's ever were. How's that for fair and balanced. This is a GLOBAL problem and it's obviously not going to be fixed by the voters or the people in power so I'm going to reach out to the business community.
The Global Corporations who do not sell energy products who are also suffering as $5Tn of consumer money is being diverted away from their companies in order for consumers to overpay for food, energy and other related products. That's 10% of global GDP that could be spent on assets, rather than going up in smoke every year! The non-energy companies need to get their own lobby together - one that calls for oversight and regulation of this industry and they'd better do it soon as our friends at Goldman Sachs are already pimping for the next $5Tn rise in energy-related spending as they raise their forecasts over the $100 per barrel mark - something that will, once again, collapse the global economy while Lloyd and Co line their pockets with record bonuses and Government bail-outs.
Meanwhile, has anyone noticed that the Hang Seng has dropped 800 points in 2 days? I know that doesn't fit into the Global growth narrative the MSM is shoving down our throats but surely someone is paying attention to China's rapidly declining market? Things were looking so bad this morning that Goldman Sachs tried to manipulate the market by announcing a new China-based hedge fund (2:30 am) and then the S&P jumped in at 3am and hiked China's credit rating which halted the decline for about a half hour but then they dropped another 100 points into the close.
I like to play a game in the morning called "Let's see how long I can listen to CNBC and not hear a word about this" - it's lots of fun as you watch them tap-dance around mentioning any news that goes against their narrative and China falling is a big one for them to ignore but, so far today, they are batting 1,000!
Copper is also in it's 3rd consecutive day of decline as expanding Global inventories can no longer be swept under the rug. 7,050 tons of copper made their way onto LME inventory yesterday and now there are 357,950 tons in storage as it appears that Shanghai is once again reaching their storage limit of 200,000 tons. We shorted FCX in Monday's Member Chat, so a little disclosure here but it's nice to see we seem to have caught that wave.
Nonetheless, commodity assets have expanded to a record $345Bn as of the end of November, led by index-led investments. In other words, the relentless targeted manipulation of the markets in this low-volume rally has gotten index funds to push heavily into commodities. This allows the Goldman's of the World to turn ordinary 401K investors into commodity bag-holders right at the top of the market while retail investors are also drawn in, plopping another $6.1Bn into ETFs, a 10% increase in a single month!
We have all heard that China is having inflation issues and we've all heard that the PBOC will be hiking rates next year to combat it and we all know that the average Chinese worker makes $2,000 a year yet people continue to "invest" in the China/Commodity story as if we're at the beginning and not the end.
While you are BUYBUYBUYing, keep in mind that Corporate Insiders are SELLSELLSELLing, at a pace not seen since 2007! This, of course, comes as not surprise to Phil's Stock World readers, as we have a section called the "Insider Zone" that keeps us on top of what's going on inside Corporate America and you can click on that link and see lots of fun charts so I won't try to paint a picture here other than to say - Be careful out there!
See also: Bankers Secretly Meeting to Destroy the World, Yawn...
robert shumake detroit
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robert shumake
robert shumake detroit
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