Oil prices, dark markets, ENRON-like deals

Our young people, can't afford the gas to go to work, and buy groceries. Ask around and you will hear their horror stories. Yet, nobody is protesting in the streets. Why? Ignorance of the facts. I have put a few facts together to get you started on looking up more on the subject. Your next job....support the farm bill, and tell your state and federal legislators that you want something done about oil prices, you want the ENRON loophole closed!

From Oil Watchdog:

If I told you that Venezuela's crackpot leader Hugo Chavez is responsible for crude oil hitting $100 a barrel in futures trading today, would you believe me? I hope not. But the speculators who drove up the price are pointing wildly at Chavez's spat with Exxon, at a refinery fire in Texas and at OPEC. Meantime the hedge fund speculators are hauling in dough, with a big side benefit for oil company profits. You and I and the national economy pay the price.

We'll never know exactly how the trick was pulled off, or by who, because so much energy trading is done in unregulated markets created by the corporate criminals of Enron. Congress has in its hands a partial cure for the speculative excess. If lawmakers don't have the guts to act now, closing the loophole opened by Enron, they should have their heads handed to them by consumers. http://www.oilwatchdog.org/articles/?storyId=18735

There is so much more to read about this....and when you do you will come to the realization that we, the lowly American citizens, the "proles" (you did read 1984 didn't you?), the proletariat, the dumb and mooing masses, are being screwed to the wall by the corporations and their shills in the White House and in our Congress.


The sponsors of the Farm Bill, Democratic Senators Harkin, Stabenow, Baucus, Conrad, Leahy and Lincoln; Republican Senators Chambliss, Grassley, Cochran, Roberts. This farm bill has a provision in it to close the "ENRON loophole."

Regulating the markets... From the Oil and Gas Journal,


Senate to FTC, CFTC: police markets aggressively

Two federal regulatory agencies are moving too timidly in response to record crude oil prices, US Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said during a Senate committee hearing on energy market manipulation and federal regulatory regimes.

Cantwell will press both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to regulate oil and commodity markets more aggressively, Cantwell said following the June 3 Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing, which she chaired.

She wants FTC to issue an interim rule under the oil market investigation and regulation authority it received under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act while it completes its formal regulatory rulemaking process.

She also intends to continue pressuring CFTC to revoke "no action" letters issued by its staff that allow electronic exchanges operating outside US borders to continue trading West Texas Intermediate crude oil and related commodities without being directly regulated, Cantwell said.

"Our oil futures markets were substantially deregulated by CFTC staff decisions that were made behind closed doors," she said in her opening statement.