Great Idea! ... Call to take Speculators out of Oil Markets...On Fox News, no less ...Go Oscar

[masmdu]

http://vimeo.com/21417309

Take the speculators out of the Oil market and oil would be at about half the current price.

When it is driven higher by speculators it kills economic recoveries around the world.

Oscar Carboni, a trader himself, is spear-heading this call to take speculators out of the oil market.

Great idea. I hope it happens.

[icnorth]

1. Great idea, not a chance. n/t

[masmdu]

2. Won't happen without first raising the subject....This is how it starts

[Javaman]

3. Since oil is traded on the open market, how do you expect it to be traded

with out speculators?

All oil is sold on the open market. All oil is extracted by corporations (with the exception of the few nations with nationalized energy, even then it is still subject to the speculations since they can't set their own price), corporations seek the best price for their product.

When you base a commodity on a system that fluctuates via emotions and greed, what do you expect?

Find a way to decouple the finite resource from the open market then try and figure out how then to price it. That's the trick.

but alas, since the US dollar is basically based on the oil standard, trying to separate the two, at this point in time, is like trying to separate the major organ from the body and expect both of them to live independently without each other.

The world has been painted into a corner with how oil is priced and traded.

I also suspect that OPEC would have a few things to say about your proposal.

[Rage for Order]

5. Force traders to take physical delivery of the oil they buy

Rather than buying oil futures or contracts, mandate that oil traders have the oil they buy delivered to them in a supertanker, 18 wheeler, whatever, and have it unloaded at their storage facility. Conversely, we would also have to mandate that you cannot sell oil that you don't physically possess - and oil in the ground that has not yet been pumped out does not count.

[Javaman]

6. Fine. you want that?

great.

Then be prepared for very long lines and outrageous prices at the stations.

Inserting a middle man in the process solves nothing except slowing down distribution.

If that is your logic to trying to end speculation, you can have it. I don't.

What would be better is a governing body that give accurate accounting of what oil is left in the world. Then set a price based on that.

Speculation exists because no one has an accurate representation of how much oil is left in the world.

As long as the saudi's and several other nations refuse to allow an independent accounting of their oil reserves, all speculation will continue, no matter how you wish to slice and dice it.

[happyslug]

4. The real issue is HOW???

License oil buyers? Have the Government buy the oil from the producers, and then re-sell it once it hits the US? Go back to the 90% tax rate for non-long term profits for rich people (i.e. increase the top tax rate to 90% for anyone making over $100,000 a year, $200,000 for a couple). You have problems getting any of the three passed.

The best and most effective would to be to return to the 90% top tax rate that the Democratic Congress under FDR passed in the early 1930s. Long term capital gains were defined as any asset held for five or more years, any held less then five years was a regular income. Thus if you invested in a factory and then sold the factory as a huge profit after five years (or received dividends after five years) the income was subject to a 50% disregard (i.e. Only 1/2 of the PROFITS were treated as regular income, with tax rate at 90%, the effective tax rate for long term investments for those people in the top 3% of Income was only 45% on such investments NOT the top rate of 90% for short term investments).

Furthermore, given that the Federal income Tax is a graduated tax system (The more you earn, the higher you tax rate), the only people affected by the top rate were about the top 3% of income earners in the US. Thus this top 3% of income earners had a choice, invest in something like the stock market or speculate in the oil market, and make a quick killing, but the Government get 90% of the profits OR take the same money and invest it in some long term investment (Stocks held for five years for example, or a new factory etc) and the Government only took 45% of the profits. During the time period of 90% tax rate (1930s till the early 1960s) and the subsequent 70% top tax rate (Long term rate was thus 35% effective rate, the tax from the 1960s till Reagan in the 1980s), speculation, while done, was no where near what it is today. The reason was the tax rate made it less profitable then long term investments.

As you can see, the best solution would be a return to the 90% tax rate, but no one is proposing that and thus not a way to end this speculation.

As to Government licensing of buyers of oil, you are in effect putting a cap on who can bid, but the reach of the US Government is restricted to the US, thus speculators in other countries can still bid up the price. If the oil was sold in the US, subject to US income tax, but again no one is even mentioning increasing the tax rate.

No one is asking the Government to buy the oil directly from producers either, for the same reason, the US Government can NOT prevent citizens from other countries bidding on the same oil. Thus of limited effectiveness. A bad plan compared to just raising the Income Tax level AND put pressure on our allies to do the same for high income people.

In effect the 90% top tax rate only applied