President Obama said today his Justice Department is creating a team to "root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices."To which I say: "Really?"
"That includes the role of traders and speculators," Obama said at a town hall-style meeting in Reno, Nev. "We are going to make sure that no one is taking advantage of American consumers for their own short-term gain."
Let's see.
Six months before you were elected, oil was at $147 a barrel, even above the $110 now. While Peak Oil and a surging (pre-crash) global economy were partial reasons, many analysts thought commodities speculators, hedge funds, etc., were adding $20 a barrel, or more, to oil's price.
Let's see, part 2.
During what passed for financial regulation reform, commodities and derivatives regulation (along with regulations of CDOs and other speculative alphabet soup from the mortgage world) got token discussion ...
And zero action.
So, again, why should we believe you now, Mr. President? You're the man with all the Goldman Sachs/Robert Rubin acolyte financial advisers. You're the man who took more Wall Street money than John McCain.
So, no, I'll pass on believing you now.
Beyond that, Obama knows that daily pump prices, as opposed to actual per-barrel prices, have little to nothing to do with speculators.
Shockingly, Obama did mention the word "conservation" in the town hall.
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