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I can’t begin to tell you all what a monumentally stupid idea this is.
what stops speculators from speculating in London,Paris,Dubai or where ever?
will Congress stop them too?
Aaaaaaaaand as the speculators are losing their shirt the brave and couragous Republicans dropped to their knees once more for their superiors. Throw them out!
Sounds like they might be finally ironing out the loophole whereby investment banks could masquerade as "commercials". This is the sort of thing SAJ is so knowledgeable on, so pinged.
Badly needed. This time, oil barrels full of Congress-critters and dumped in the Potomac.
At this point I have no confidence at all that our “leaders” will do anything effective or even sane to put an energy policy in place. That there is not an outcry of utter rage over how the leftists are deliberately putting the nation at grave (and obvious) risk is mind-boggling. We live in not just interesting but insane times. The electorate is likely to reward those doing the most damage to the nation with larger majorities and control of the executive branch come November.
I just call McConnels office...202 225 3121 and told the cowards off...again.
Yeppers, that’ll do it. Free gas for everyone!
Any Republican who votes for this is too stupid to be in office.
It increases regulation of the market, but that isn't going to drive down prices.
Speculation causes short term highs and lows. Oil is reaching these high prices because it is becoming more and more obvious that as supply increases slower than demand, our government will do all it can to stop us from increasing domestic oil supply.
At the same time, much of the rest of the world is taking steps that will significantly increase taxes on oil production raising production costs among our more reliable trading partners.
The democrats in congress have absolutely no intention of taking steps that will actually increase production and reduce the real market pressures driving up the cost of oil. None.
They will make either pointless laws that do nothing, or use the high price of oil to justify grabbing more regulatory power and increasing taxes. Some are determined to do nothing but make a show of trying to address the problem, others are actively working to make matters worse.
However it should be glaringly obvious to anyone with half a brain that they have no intention of undoing the things they have done to cause this problem in the first place.
They did those things intentionally. They have actively worked to drive up the price of oil over the years to appease the environmental lobby. This was not some accidental happening. Most of the democrats are on the record at some point or another saying as much.
The only way they will back down is if a large number of them start getting tossed out of office.
As long as voters remain stupid enough to believe that this is all the fault of rich oil executives and speculators rather than being primarily the fault of legislators, things are just going to keep getting worse.
As I understand it, US investment banks technically own more than 1.1 billion barrels of crude at a high price on a rolling-forwards basis.
A CFTC reclassification or clarification of the banks as speculators rather than (apparently) as thirsty oil-refineries would force the banks to disgorge 600+ million barrels, dropping the price of crude accordingly.
So Reid is technically correct. Assuming the Bill says what it ought to say, the price of oil would drop.
But President Bush accomplished a $14 drop with a single speech. An enlarged future supply is the real key to a lower price, not slapping the Banks’ pudgy, oil-stained fingers.
I thought the oil companies were to blame. Now the speculators. WHich is it Dems?
Let’s see. Congress in a futile attempt to crush oil speculators next day turns around and bails out housing speculators. Makes sense to me.
The Democrats forced a freeze on SPR. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats passed a farm bill with Ethanol. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats pushed a bill threatening to sue OPEC. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats said “no drilling”. The oil prices went up.
The Democrats held hearings decrying speculators, and pushed regulatory changes about speculation. The oil prices went up.
Democrats pushed for windfall profits on oil companies. Oil prices went up.
Democrats begged Saudi Arabia to pump more oil. Oil prices went up.
Democrats passed measure increasing “renewable fuel” investments. Oil prices went up.
The Democrats went on vacation (4th of July). Oil prices went down.
Bush announced the end of the executive ban on drilling. Oil prices plummeted, biggest 2-day drop ever.
Bush administration cleared regulatory hurdles to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Oil prices went down.
A new well was brought online. Oil prices went down.
Administration published new relaxed rules for shale oil. Oil prices went down.
We made it through hurricane season so far; Latest storm didn’t bother gulf — oil prices went down.
So far, it looks like everything the Democrats said would lower prices actually raised prices.
Meanwhile, everything that happened that looked like it would INCREASE SUPPLY caused the oil prices to DROP.
This legislation won’t help much. It might actually hurt, by curtailing fluidity in the market at a time when the market is high, and thus keeping it from dropping as quickly as it should.
But it won’t pass. The headline is misleading — this was no “test vote”. The Republicans decided that they have enough votes for what they want that it will be better to debate the bill and force Reid to block their amendments (or better, to ACCEPT their amendments and actually ACCOMPLISH something). The Republicans won’t vote for the bill as-is (although the core idea of fixing up the reporting requirements for “speculation sales” is a good thing).
What could do more to put the U.S. in a position that war for oil or
complete economic collapse were our only choices?
I'm not seeing any other result from these policies.
How does this work out for us?
Either the Democrats have a plan or this is all one huge coincidence.
The futures market operators in London must be laughing their socks off. The oil market is an international market. This has to be one of the stupidest things that Congress has ever proposed and it faces stiff competition. It’s a wonderful demonstration of the economic ignorance of our political “leaders”.
Who says oil traders have to trade in America? Stupid ideas like this will move more stock and commodity trading off shore where congress will have NO authority to make laws.
this idea ranks just about as stupid as suing OPEC.