Cantor Sweettalks the Oil Speculators

[Howey]

Fresh off the statement made yesterday by the Republican Party ("We don't care about the deficit"), good ol' Mr. Cantor meets with the oil company speculators and promises them freedom from regulation.

Although the Dodd-Frank reforms passed last year included a new mandate for regulators to curb rampant oil speculation, these regulations have not yet been implemented. Republicans, under Cantor’s leadership, are working furiously to ensure that they never will be. For instance, Cantor’s caucus has proposed massive budget cuts to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the regulatory body charged with overseeing oil speculators at the CME Group. As the New York Times has reported, CFTC regulators literally do not have enough money even for staplers, and can barely enforce laws on the books before even getting to new Dodd-Frank rules. In addition, Republicans are also pushing a separate bill to delay Dodd-Frank derivatives reforms for at least eighteen months.

[uselesslegs]

Doesn't the "speculation" add as much as 10 to 20 (I heard 30 as well in some cases) dollars to a barrel of oil?

[Howey]

Doesn't the "speculation" add as much as 10 to 20 (I heard 30 as well in some cases) dollars to a barrel of oil?

You bet your sweet bippy! Not only that, but guess who's in bed with the speculators? How about the Koch Brothers?

While much of the attention on oil speculators has rested on the backs of investors and commodity traders, the petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries occupies a unique role in manipulating the oil market. Koch has little business in the extraction process. Instead, Koch focuses on shipping crude oil, refining it, distributing it to retailers — then speculating on the future price. With control of every part of the market, Koch is able to bet on future prices with superior information. As Yasha Levine notes, Koch along with Enron pioneered a number of complex financial products to leverage its privileged position in the energy industry.

and...as Mr. Cantor has shown, where's there's Koch, there's Republicans! doing all they can to stop Dodd-Frank and/or defund it if possible:

Currently, the public knows very little about the oil speculation industry because a conservative majority on the CFTC has refused to implement a mandate from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill to curb abuses. Meanwhile, Republicans are pushing steep cuts to the CFTC, hampering any new rules on oil speculation that may be released later this summer.

Naturally, FOX is right there ready to defend the speculators. der...

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/05/04/defense-greedy-oil-companies-speculators/

[Howey]

I'd be remiss if I didn't include Cantor's quote:

And you’ve managed to be able to serve that function in the CME Group for so much of this country and the world, and you’ve also managed to position as a true world leader. We want that in every arena. We want to help you continue to lead for America, that means we gotta do our part when you see the implementation of Dodd-Frank coming at you like a barreling train. We want to help control that so that we can get some sensible, sensible follow up to that legislation. [...] Whether it’s the EPA, the FDA, the FCC, the SEC, the CFTC, you name it, there is an acronym for a federal agency causing harm right now. We’re trying to pull that in.

[44nutman]

I'd be remiss if I didn't include Cantor's quote:

I am suprised he was able to say all that while sucklling  up to a Koch!

[44nutman]

We need to face the facts as Americans, big business run this country. The government will make them do an occasional perp walk, just for show but ultimately they are in office to serve their biggest donors.

They cry capitalism all the time while handing out subsidies and bail-outs. They are only capitalists when they make money and socialists when we have to bail them out. Capitalize proift and socialize the losses.

Just for the record, the FDIC has got a bunch of lawsuits on some of these banks. Watch all will settle for a fine for less than they stole and the government will fool the masses like the give a shit. Basically as long as the government gets there cut all will stay out of jail.