I disagree. Especially in the case of Andrew Hall. I don't think that you have an accurate grasp of the facts. Hall had the foresight and "out-of-the-box" intellect to conclude (back in 2003) that long-term and short-term energy prices would abandon their historical relationship with one another. "He bet on this trend by investing in the extremely long-term market in which traders buy and sell oil to be delivered years in the future. Back in 2003, oil for future delivery was as much as 20% cheaper than oil in the current -- or "spot" -- market. Hall told traders to bet that this relationship would reverse itself. He bet on this by buying all the oil futures he could for delivery three to five years out along with "call" options that gave him the right, but not the obligation, to buy oil at lower prices in the future. . Around 2005, the discount for far-forward oil vanished and it began commanding a premium. That year, his tiny Phibro unit contributed $800 million in pretax revenue to Citigroup. Hall's pay totaled $125 million, around five times that of then CEO Charles Prince." http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/02/28/andrew-hall-citigroups-quarter-billion-dollar-oil-trader/ Hall's money making opportunity only came from his belief that energy prices would dramatically diverge from their historical relationships. It's not like EVERYONE in the trading community was making the same kind of "bets" that Hall was back in 2003. Kudos to Hall for having the prowess and insight into the markets that no one else had. He should get paid for that. Period.
And who do you think it was that kept on PROPOSING the TARP, or the bail-outs for GM and Chrysler? The "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" was Bush's plan as presented and developed by his Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson. Last time I checked, Bush had appointed Hank Paulson. Paulson's initial proposal was presented on September 21st, 2008. The TARP was then presented by Paulson and Bernanke to the Senate Banking Committee, who then rejected it as unacceptable. On September 24th, Bush addressed the nation on PRIME TIME TELEVISON describing how serious the financial crisis could become if action was not taken promptly by Congress. After several revisions, the House voted 263-171 to enact the bill into law. Bush SIGNED the bill into law within hours of its enactment. Given your twisted logic, you probably also think that the Bush Administration did not give GM and Chrysler a $17 BILLION dollar bail-out last December, either. It is you that distorts, knuckle-head.
You right turds stink of shit before getting the boot, your right-turd hero bush jr and paulson lied to congress to mis-appropriate 1 Trillion. Right-turd hero bush passed on 500 billion to paulsons buddies and left obama to shoulder the blame by handing out the balance.
What someone gets paid is a matter for his employer and himself. The rest of us should just shut our mouths, unless we are communists, in which case we get mad at large paychecks and demand a completely arbitrary "equality". If his employer happens to represent the general public, then we are entitled to shout and scream at the fiduciaries who set up the deal in the first place. And the employee should know that in dealing with public institutions, to expect double crossing and socialism.
Learn about calendar spreads, if you're looking to actually trade on this. In this case, you would want to imitate the contango traders, so buy Sep, sell Oct. Not sure of your platform, but there is a very active spread market, so you don't have to actually do the Sep buy and Oct sell one by one. Just as a warning, when the spread got to an unforeseeable 8 bucks back in the winter, I considered going all in. I don't even trade oil futs but it seemed like a great opportunity. When I was thinking of it when it was like 6 bucks. Good thing I did not.
The fact that Citibank was bailed out and is partly owned by the government, hence taxpayers, must have completely evaded you. Noone, except shareholders, would even consider raising the issue had Citi not been bailed out.