http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2009/June09/062209/062509-02.htm http://www.infrastructurist.com/200...reet-aholes-foot-the-bill-for-infrastructure/ http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/06/25/afx6587763.html
So I guess Defazio decided to move on after his proposal to tax stock transactions hasn't gone anywhere (thank goodness). It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. This is a proposal that would have large populist appeal. I'm sure liquidity would dry up here but volume would just rotate to other markets that trade crude across the globe. -Guru
The tax on trading oil futures "will raise $190 billion over six years...." More like less than zero. How do you get a congressman committed to a mental hospital? Any of the pictures I have seen of him and the outrageous comments and claims that he makes clearly indicate that he is crying out for help.
I called into his office a few times in the past year . . . his junior "analysts" and assistants that he surrounds himself are all drinking from the same "Kool-Aid". Just absurd. Not an economic bone in this guys body.
Oil price should be based on market supply and market demand, period. Speculators, especially when they control institutional-sized pools of funds, and work in collaboration with each other, can easily dramatically distort true free market pricing of any commodity, whether silver or oil, and severely cripple economies and long term growth prospects. The run-up to $148 per barrel oil was one of the largest and larcenous manipulations of a necessary and nearly inflexible good, which acted as a massive tax that stole trillions from consumers all over the world, and acted in concert with other forces to bring about many of the economic problems we face in the U.S. right now (as well as other nations). If you believe in free market capitalism, there is no room for manipulation of markets. Supply and demand rules all. Speculators should never be allowed to interfere with this mechanism. (The same is true of governments; the only exception that should ever be considered is when there are large and very adverse externalities that are occurring, whereby one country is benefiting from the 'free rider' principle, not suffering negative consequences, but benefiting from their production, and another nation is only absorbing the adverse consequences yet no benefits - a good example of this is toxic contamination of a river emanating from production in one nation, with the effluent flowing 'downstream,' adversely affecting people in an adjoining nation).
Manipulation, conspiracy, collaboration as the price crashed or when they found out how much it was really needed and valued? They acted in concert for decades keeping this commodity as inexpensive as commodities nearly always are most of the time.
Your commentary is far too simplistic for the current global industrialized reality. The United States consumes 25% of the daily global supply/production of oil, yet only has 5% of the world's population. As far as the oil markets are concerned, it's difficult to say that they were FAIR given the lack of regulation and oversight on the ICE in Dubai and London, not too mention all of the swap relationships that the I-Banks were able to enter into. We can all thank Texas Republican Phil "Enron" Gramm for that due to his lovely piece of legislation . . . "The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000". Came complete with total lack of oversight and transparency in the CDS "market" too! I have no problem with "speculators" in markets like crude oil. I just have a problem when the players are playing on different "fields" .