Of Onions & Oil

I got a lot of hope and a little bit of change. I will donate my change to McCain and hope to hell Obama does not become president. http://www.blockbarack.com

A market is nothing but speculation. Whining about it, won't do anything to help lower prices. T. Boone Pickens has a plan and has already put his money where his mouth is. Gramm of Texas said it best... We have become a nation of whiners. What happened to actually doing something about our problems? (instead of whining!)

dear brian, Let's see, onions, soybeans and "grains" equal how many billion dollar trading markets, and they are not pegged to the old buckaro(and they don't impact all other goods). Then we have oil, currently a 260 billion dollar contract market expanded from a 13 billion dollar market, and this mega contract spec. market is underpinned with massive computer trading models that have nothing to do with supply or demand, a trading market that drives "grains",soybeans, fertilizers, tractor/combine fuel, and every other goods delivery cost we can think of. And here we have a free market guy who uses onions and govt. intervention as a basis for believing we need to continue to let nonproducers, and noncommercial interests(pension funds and index folk) continue to trade paper with paper(95%) loans(margin money) on the basis of the slightest whiff of a negative rumor about any and all imaginary threats to supply. All this in the name of good old speculation. The simple point is its no longer a pure spec. market,no matter the worlds consumption bla bla. If these traders really had to take possession of product and had to hedge as producers do, and they had to cough up say 30% of their own money to "trade" "with",then there would be room in the "market" for those who have a legit stake to hedge and take the real risk, and enter the world of hi- risk production(drilling and refining) without every fast buck investor on their backs, with hair trigger computers on either hip...... Speculation needs some degree of true risk beyond the contract position exposure, no matter how much we love "free" markets, otherwise risk/reward have no bond.

Economic illiteracy and the human bias to look for a scapegoat conspire to single out speculators in oil futures as the reason for high oil prices. Exploiting this ignorance about economics, airline executives call on Congress to curb excessive speculation in one of the most blatant examples of corporate socialism in recent history: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/07/09/baron-munchausen-airline-executives-and-oil-speculators/

Pathetic comparison - onion speculators versus OIL speculators - please. No one needs onions to survive. You can use cooking oil to fuel some cars but onions - that is a new one. Market forces - what a JOKE!!! Even your lovely Liz Macdonald, related not long ago that legislation is now written by the industry impacted by THAT legislation. How can the 'market' not be skewed with crap like THAT going on??? Congress has repeatedly given the banking system whatever it wanted in terms of ability to enter various lines of business and be free from the "shackles" of regulation, yet it has continued to stand behind these institutions with billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts every single time the bets have gone bad. Government policies favor multinationals and central bankers. The fractional reserve system makes things far worse by allowing gthe worst instincts of bankers and certain preferred industries what it does not allow the average American struggling with stagnant wages and outsourcing -- NOT to mention suicidal deindustrialization. {NOT talking buggy whips and hula hoops here.] The LAST time the banking industry and Federal Reserve got involved in creating more money and more crazy 'instruments' benefitting the banking class and financials and for s short time Wall Street - we had a Great Depression. Ben Bernanke admitted only a month or two ago that the Federal Reserve WAS the cause of the last Great Depression. So did free market guru Milton Friedman in his tome on the monetary history of the United States and for which he won the Nobel Prize in economics] Add trade treaties that concentrate on 'fixing' things for one commercial or financial interest over another. Read the 'agreement' we have with India - the only American industries that benefit in that mess were financials, real estate, insurance, et al. For access to their money system WE got mangoes - great. Congress was explicitly warned before it repealed Glass-Steagall that doing so would lead to both asset and credit bubbles, not to mention rampant fraud. Specifically, Stephen Pizzo and Mary Fricker, two individuals involved in the forensic analysis of S&Ls who immolated themselves playing the precise games that the banks are now falling victim to, wrote: "If Congress again opens up banking to Wall Street speculation, as it opened up S&Ls and banks to real estate speculation, regulators will quickly lose control over the complex series of events that a pervasive marketplace will immediately set in motion. Insider abuse, self-dealing, and back scratching relationships between institutions will run rampant. The list goes on but markets manipulated by the powers-that-be in favor of one interest OVER another is not the free market. Or are you into what Alexander Pope said about God Almighty - "it is whatever he says it is.' If that is the case - you have a mighty high opinion of Wall Street, market theory, government and central banks. Frankly, if 'free markets' mean whatever some goober with a huge economic or political stake in lining their own pockets says it is .. count me out. Additionally, when markets impinge on national security - economic or political - to hell with them and the fools who choose them over everything else. I have more faith in Alabama snake handlers who believe the snakes won't bite them than some dope who swoons in cultlike fashion at a theory that takes on the importance of the Ten Commandments.