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Thursday, August 18, 2011

Why are you paying more for gas? Speculators from Bill Gates to the Yale endowment are buying oil futures



What a joke. As people struggle to pay their bills and put food on their table we allow rich individuals and university endowments to buy oil futures, adding to upward price pressures. Meanwhile, nothing is done. Then, when people demand to know why this is happening, they are given bogus excuses about China and not allowing offshore drilling.


"A range of investors were in the market, too. Yale University, Singapore's government, hedge funds Brevan Howard and D.E. Shaw & Co., as well as pension funds for Texas teachers and Danish workers all held positions, according to the list.

Also featured were a handful of individuals, including Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK - News), one of the nation's largest producers of natural gas. Cascade Investment LLC, the investment arm for Microsoft Corp. (MSFT - News) co-founder Bill Gates, appeared."

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5 comments:

  1. Matt FrankoAugust 18, 2011 at 11:14 AM

    Dont worry Mike, Bachmann is on the case: "Bachmann: I'll get gas under $2"

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61566.html

    Yeah sure! ;)

    Resp,

    PS Bond shorts have to be getting CRUSHED today...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ryan HarrisAugust 18, 2011 at 11:18 AM

    I'm sure they are merely hedging for their vehicle fleet consumption!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tom HickeyAugust 18, 2011 at 12:12 PM

    I can't wait until it is food and then water, too. :(

    That is the way this is headed without regulation, and it can only end badly, very badly.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LeverageAugust 18, 2011 at 3:19 PM

    Related: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/08/18/656651/a-name-and-shame-policy-from-the-cftc/

    How the hell can a single firm hold such a big market hostage is beyong comprehension.

    ReplyDelete
  5. beowulfAugust 19, 2011 at 10:44 PM

    "How the hell can a single firm hold such a big market hostage is beyond comprehension."

    Matt Taibbi touched on this in his Vampire Squid piece... Bubble #4.

    So what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help — there were other players in the physical commodities market — but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures... Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent.
    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405?print=true

    ReplyDelete