Free Republic

[UPDATE: Lambeth Palace has denied reports that there is to be an emergency meeting of Church of England bishops to discuss the Pope's offer tomorrow.] Here’s what I think Dr Rowan Williams is most worried about as the reality of the Pope’s offer sinks in: the prospect of the Bishop of Chichester and many of his clergy signing up to the new Ordinariate. Bishop John Hind put out a statement today which denies that he is about to become a Roman Catholic. Read between the lines, though. It doesn’t mean that he won’t join the new Papal structure in the...

Wall Street is up to its old tricks again. One year later, one of the key excesses that led our consumer-based economy into an historic downturn is being abused in the exact same way that got us $147-a-barrel oil last summer. Worse, many in the media are again getting the facts wrong on oil prices and demand— Forget what Cambridge Energy Research Associates reported on Oct. 13. By its calculations oil demand actually peaked in 2005 among the industrialized members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation, while in the U.S. alone oil usage has dropped by 2 million barrels a...

<p>ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- It's hardly earth-shattering news that the last six months have been a speculative period for the stock market.</p> <p>Nor is that a big surprise: The initial thrusts upward of a brand new bull market are always speculative.</p>

Back in 2002 and in the aftermath of the Enron and Worldcom implosions, former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., and former Rep. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, created the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, meant to curb allegedly funny accounting and business practices. As President George W. Bush asserted in signing the bill, "There will not be a different ethical standard for corporate America than the standard that applies to everyone else." Nice political theater for sure, but then reality set in. Fast-forward four years, and the joke was on politicians naïve enough to believe that corporations with aspirations of going public would lie prostrate before...

Do you have to be a power-plant owner to really understand the natural gas market? Should makers of aluminum siding being the only ones allowed to buy aluminum? These are the kinds of questions being raised in many commodities markets today. The issue is speculators versus users of fuels, metals and agricultural products. Both of these groups are big investors in commodities. Users buy these goods to consume them. Speculators buy without any intention of ever using them. A speculator looks purely to make a profit by buying and selling the rights to a pound of copper or a barrel...

The staggered phase out of energy-wasting light bulbs begins on Sept. 1 in Germany. The unpopularity of the energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs that will replace them is leading consumers and retailers to start hoarding the traditional bulbs. As the Sept. 1 deadline for the implementation of the first phase of the EU's ban on incandescent light bulbs approaches, shoppers, retailers and even museums are hoarding the precious wares -- and helping the manufacturers make a bundle. The EU ban, adopted in March, calls for the gradual replacement of traditional light bulbs with supposedly more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). The...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahZl9asR.GX8

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is planning to issue a report next month that suggests that wild swings in oil prices were significantly driven by speculators, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Tuesday. A 2008 report by the main U.S. futures-market regulator that attributed oil-price swings primarily on supply and demand was based on "deeply flawed data," Bart Chilton, one of four CFTC commissioners, told the paper in an interview on Monday. The CFTC did not reveal preliminary figures from the report to the paper and declined to discuss the previous data. Reuters attempts to...

Big speculators such as hedge funds and investment banks have sharply reduced their buying positions in oil futures in recent weeks, just as regulators are considering setting limits in energy speculation. The drop in speculative positions likely contributed to last week's 10% slump in oil prices -- the biggest weekly loss in six months, analysts said. Long, or buying, positions held by non-commercial traders, a category the regulator uses to classify big speculators, dropped by 16,382 contracts in the week ended July 7, according to the weekly Commitments of Traders report released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission late Friday....

‘Rogue broker’ blamed for oil spike By Javier Blas and Izabella Kaminska in London Published: July 2 2009 12:07 | Last updated: July 2 2009 20:26 The startling spike in oil prices to their highest level this year on Tuesday was caused by a rogue broker who placed a massive bet in the Brent oil market, triggering almost $10m (€7m) of losses for his company. PVM Oil Associates, the world’s largest over-the-counter oil brokerage, said on Thursday it had been the “victim of unauthorised trading”. The privately owned company said that as a result of the unauthorised trades it had...

Air France pilots battled for up to 15 minutes to save the doomed flight that went missing over the Atlantic this week, electronic messages emitted by the aircraft have revealed. Details have emerged of the moments leading up to the disappearance of flight AF 447 with 228 people on-board, with error messages reportedly suggesting the plane was flying too slowly and that two key computers malfunctioned. Flight data messages provided by an Air France source show the precise chronology of events of flight AF 447 before it plummeted into the sea 400 miles off Brazil on Monday. These indicate that...

Florida-based radio station KissFM reports that Patrick Swayze has died. So sad if its true

Although the CDC has not explained whether the current swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the United States is bioterrorism, influenza can be very readily manipulated and may be one of the best candidates for weaponization for several reasons: 1) Terrorists can prepare a vaccine to protect themselves and their host populations in advance of its release. 2) Influenza is airborne, it is transmitted through either solid or lipid aerosol, therefore it’s easy to spread. 3) There is a normal period of incubation during which time the carrier displays no symptoms, but can infect others. Therefore, dispersion is very efficient....

In a discussion this morning with a cell biologist and medical doctor working at Johns Hopkins, my friend thought this 4-part flu combination is highly unusual and looks like it could be man-made. Especially because it has an avian strain. My doctor friend (he's Taiwanese) explained that in Asia, it's common for a avian-swine-human flu to happen naturally, but this virus first showed up in Mexico, where pigs and ducks are not usually raised together. Also, recombination of more than 2-different flu viruses is extremely rare. I'm just repeating what he said as an expert in the field. He says...

The recently released Department of Homeland Security assessment of rightwing extremism represents an alarming politicization of that huge federal agency. The 10-pages document is entitled: "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." Its source is the Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis Assessment, of the Department of Homeland Security. (Imagine the size of their security badges.) Read it here. American Thinker Jim Byrd's article entitled "Is Texas A Terror State?" provides a catalogue of transgressions that cumulatively define rightwing extremism. Byrd concludes that, when measured against Governor Rick Perry...

As state budgeters look toward another multi-billion dollar budget deficit this summer, attorneys for the Legislature and Gov. Schwarzenegger have issued a new opinion reaffirming the legality of a plan passed by Democrats last December that raised revenues without requiring a two-thirds vote. The March 9 opinion from Legislative Counsel Diane Boyer-Vine, addressed to Gov. Schwarzenegger, reaffirms a 2003 opinion by her office that finds a bill that raises one tax and lowers another by an equal or greater amount only needs simple majority votes in each legislative house. “We think that a tax bill is not subject to the...

How Goldman Sachs was at the center of the oil trading fiasco that bankrupted pipeline giant Semgroup. When oil prices spiked last summer to $147 a barrel, the biggest corporate casualty was oil pipeline giant Semgroup Holdings, a $14 billion (sales) private firm in Tulsa, Okla. It had racked up $2.4 billion in trading losses betting that oil prices would go down, including $290 million in accounts personally managed by then chief executive Thomas Kivisto. Its short positions amounted to the equivalent of 20% of the nation's crude oil inventories. With the credit crunch eliminating any hope of meeting a...

Details remain vague, but The Juice has just learned that authorities believe they have found the body of Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old from Clinton, Miss., who vanished in the Caribbean island in May 2005. A Miami-based flight attendant for American Airlines tells The Juice that a cadaver dog was aboard a Miami-to-Aruba flight. The officer with the dog was going to search for the remains of Holloway. "They think they've found where Natalee Holloway's remains are, and they're taking the dog down to confirm that," said the flight attendant, who lives in Fort Lauderdale. "They're not telling anybody because Aruba...

The sudden crash in oil prices might be the smoking gun that shows speculation, rather than supply and demand, drove the huge run-up in oil futures last year. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology’s Center for Energy Policy told participants at a forum in Albuquerque Jan. 16 that massive, speculative trading by investment banks like Lehman Brothers, hedge funds and others is what drove oil above $140 per barrel.

About the only economic break most Americans have gotten in the last six months has been the drastic drop in the price of oil, which has fallen even more precipitously than it rose. In a year's time, a commodity that was theoretically priced according to supply and demand doubled from $69 a barrel to nearly $150, and then, in a period of just three months, crashed along with the stock market. So what happened? It's a complicated question, and there are lots of theories. But as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, many people believe it was a speculative bubble, not unlike...

Last night Ed Hale presented the (heretofore, unseen) divorce decree on Plains Radio between Obama's mother and Obama Sr ( her FIRST marriage). The key bonus in this was the revelation of the specific version of her name in the decree, Stanley Ann D. Obama. Using this precise name variation ( the abbreviated, initial "D" --instead of 'Dunham', was the cipher that broke open the search), they are claiming to have now located a POE (Port of Entry ) document that Obama's mother provided when she returned to the US with her son--soon after Obama's birth, (allegedly in Kenya). The...

Barack Obama's upcoming presidency gives many reasons for conservatives to be concerned. All the more reason that we stick to substantive provable issues, as opposed to chasing such illusive rainbows as his alleged lack of a birth certificate. Such preoccupation adds to the bad name already accorded legitimate "conspiracy theories."

Precious metals markets were quiet on Friday. That is, up until the last few minutes when that little line on Kitco's live gold chart went vertical for what amounted to about a $7 gain for gold. Citigroup's (C) report the other day will certainly add some fuel to the fire when it comes to the debate over the future of gold prices. They figure the yellow metal could rocket as high as $2,000 an ounce sometime within the next two years, possibly before the end of next year, as all the government stimulus money works its way into the system....

Insight: Annihilation on Main Street By Mark Sunshine Published: November 27 2008 15:54 | Last updated: November 27 2008 15:54 Warren Buffett called credit default swaps “financial weapons of mass destruction” and they are about to annihilate Main Street. In a disturbing new trend, international banks are creating syndicated credit facilities that “weaponise” credit default swaps (CDS) by using the trading price of a borrower’s CDS to set the interest rate paid by the borrower. Unfortunately, banks don’t understand that they are arming speculators to ambush and kill unsuspecting and otherwise healthy companies. Regulators are oblivious to this danger as...

I can't give any more details than that, but I GUARANTEE that McCain wins NV by 5-7%...GUARANTEE!!! That should mean good things for many other states on election day, and expose these polls for what they are - tools of the MSM. Please help me with what a 5-7% win in NV means elsewhere...

OPEC left to its own devices Commentary: Hedge fund redemptions lay bare the role in oil speculation By MarketWatch Last update: 2:52 p.m. EDT Oct. 17, 2008 The following First Take is real-time analysis and opinion by the MarketWatch commentary team. SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Nations has called an emergency meeting for Oct. 24 aimed at halting a precipitous drop in oil prices. Crude, despite an uptick Friday, has crumbled to $72 a barrel, half the price it fetched in July. See Futures Movers. Funny how fast things can change. Gone is the steady drone...

NEW YORK - The stunning collapse in oil markets accelerated Friday, sending a barrel of crude plunging below $78 as investors grow more pessimistic about resolving a mushrooming global economic crisis. Oil hasn't been this cheap in 13 months — a rare silver lining for consumers amid a rapidly imploding financial landscape.

Caveat: None of the following is to be relied upon by anyone for anything. Anyother words, I have no idea what is going to happen in the financial markets, and if anyone tries to tell you differently, they are a bloody fool!!! That said, before going to law school, I was a stockbroker (I know, I know, next it is selling used cars). I remember looking at my Quotron in 87 and seeing the Dow drop 25% in one day! Never paid much mind to the charts (was always zeroed in on fundamentals).... BUT, recently, when I looked at the...

No confirmation on this, no tip, no hint. But I know what he's doing. John McCain is waiting until the bill passes. And then he will unleash the dogs of war.

Bailing Out The Oil Market William Pentland, 09.23.08, 11:35 AM ET While everyone knows the U.S. government is looking to bail Wall Street banks, few people realize that it's also bailing out speculative oil and commodities traders in the process, fueling a sharp rise in energy prices. Lehman Brothers and AIG held enormous trading positions in commodities markets. If those positions had been liquidated suddenly, the price of everything from wheat to oil would have collapsed. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the main regulator of U.S. commodity markets, allowed Wall Street's investment banks and trading companies to take control of...

McCain will play the proactive role. Obama will come to Washington, but will keep one foot outside the Beltway. Even though the president has called both candidates to Washington to save the country, Obama continues to campaign. Politics as usual. He doesn’t want to cancel the debate. He would debate while the markets burn. McCain is going to work while Obama is phoning it in. Oddly, McCain and Obama agree on the bailout package. But it is only McCain who can pass the bill. Only McCain can deliver the administration and the Republicans. McCain will be at the center of...

Commodities ravaged as traders flee risk Leo Lewis, Asia business correspondent Surging fears of Armageddon in the global financial system ravaged a wide selection of commodities across Asia as groups ranging from hedge funds to day traders spent the day in a headlong flight from risk. The shock waves from the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers reverberated through markets for vegetable oil, soy beans, rubber and industrial metals as confidence in the financial system faltered, global growth prospects dimmed and cash became king. Broad baskets of commodities — once seen by speculators as a sure-fire bet because of China and India’s...

Big jump in gold sale spurs manipulation talk Some analysts say only manipulation is government's attempt to take down oil By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch Last update: 7:54 p.m. EDT Aug. 29, 2008 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Recent heat from Congress and regulators, along with public speculation, over whether commodity prices are being manipulated has also reached gold pits, where the debate was stirred by a surge in bets last month that gold prices would fall. "Congress is already investigating allegations of manipulation in the oil market, and it seems likely that it is only a matter of time before a...

A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading By David Cho Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 21, 2008; A01 Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses. But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel. Even more surprising to the commodities markets was the massive...

A few speculators dominate vast oil market Regulators: Swiss energy firm holds 11 percent of contracts on NYMEX Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses. But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel. Even more surprising to the commodities markets was the massive size of Vitol's...

An exhaustive, eight-year Media Research Center study of the Big Three TV networks’ coverage of Barack Obama shows that their favorable spin on the Democrat gave him his margin of victory in the primaries, according to MRC president Brent Bozell. The MRC notes that this year saw the closest nomination contest in a generation, with just one-tenth of a percentage point — 41,622 votes out of more than 35 million cast — separating Obama from Hillary Clinton when the Democratic primaries ended in June. “But Barack Obama had a crucial advantage over his rivals this year: the support of the...

$65 oil is coming (maybe) A top analyst expects crude prices to start plummeting. If you don't believe it, you're not the only one, and a few stocks look good if you're in the skeptics' camp. By Jon Markman If you're frustrated over the high cost of gasoline at the pump, don't trade in your Hummer for a Vespa just yet: A leading energy analyst is telling clients these days to prepare for crude oil to retreat back below $65 per barrel over the next three years. How could it happen? He says conservation, new drilling, efficient new vehicles, alternative...

I'm not much of a believer in conspiracy theories. I've seen up close and personal how wrong they were in the case of my old boss, Richard M. Nixon. He was not a criminal mastermind. He was not paying attention to a bunch of juvenile delinquent aides and they did him dirt. It was a case of an absent minded father, not a KGB plot. But every so often something happens in the world of finance that is at least a bit like a conspiracy. The Drexel-Milken junk bond fraud was a conspiracy, at least as I saw it (though...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass legislation aimed at reining in excessive energy speculation before lawmakers leave for their month-long August recess, a top Senate Democrat said on Monday. The legislation sponsored by Democrats to provide the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with greater oversight of energy futures markets stalled Friday when it failed a key procedural vote. Bingaman said Republicans blocked the bill because they were not allowed to add an unlimited number of amendments to the bill. Democratic and Republican lawmakers seem to be deadlocked on passing energy legislation. Republicans are pushing to lift bans...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Proposals to reign in wallet-draining gasoline prices by curbing speculation in oil markets would likely increase costs at the pump instead of trimming them, a University of Illinois economist says. Scott Irwin argues congressional efforts to curb trading by speculators is a “misguided witch hunt” that ignores the root of America’s energy problem – a finite global oil supply that has been stretched thin by surging demand in China, India and other developing countries. “We need to have a real national debate about issues related to both the demand side and the supply side of our energy...

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - U.S. legislation to rein in excessive energy speculation failed a key procedural vote on Friday to move forward in the Senate, and now lawmakers will set aside the bill to consider other legislation. The House of Representatives may take up its own anti-speculation bill next week, and then lawmakers will get ready to leave for their month-long recess in August. Sixty "yes" votes were required in the 100-member Senate for the bill to move forward, but the measure received only 50 "yes" votes and 43 lawmakers were opposed.

In 15 years the Clintons have never been this far removed from the limelight. Im guessing that Denver will be something special to watch. Here's betting the notorious Michelle tape appears or a super delegate fight breaks out. I don't trust them a one bit! Your thoughts.

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Expecting to lose an estimated $10 billion this year because of skyrocketing fuel costs, chief executives of the country's biggest airlines Wednesday resorted to begging their customers to press Congress for tougher regulation of energy markets.

Without a doubt, crude oil is the most important commodity on our planet. Hypothetically if it vanished overnight, our entire modern world would collapse. No goods could move without the oil-derived transportation fuels, so virtually all trade would implode. Unlike nearly every other major commodity, there is just no economically-viable substitute for oil. And the fundamentals driving oil’s secular bull are unparalleled in their strength. As Asia awakens and enters the modern era, global demand for oil is rising relentlessly. Despite today’s unprecedented prices, demand remains strong all over the world. And of course once oil is burned, it is...

Sen. Obama's plan to attack the "oil speculators" who are "driving" up the price of oil by regulating futures contracts on American oil may not be pandering (America certainly cannot, for example, regulate oil futures on Nigerian crude in Switzerland), but it is sure close, and here is why, and I'm sure all those people who helped him draw up this plan know it.

Limiting speculation would push prices to fundamental level, lawmakers told. WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The price of retail gasoline could fall by half, to around $2 a gallon, within 30 days of passage of a law to limit speculation in energy-futures markets, four energy analysts told Congress on Monday. Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to See full story. There are two kinds of speculators in the futures ma$75 a barrel, about half the current $135....

Every dogma has its day, and so it is with the posturing that blames the run-up in oil prices on "speculators." The new political consensus is that further "common-sense regulation" of the energy futures market is necessary. Let's grant that the sentiment is common, but the sense – like the evidence – is nonexistent. On Sunday, Barack Obama rolled out a proposal that will supposedly thwart market manipulation by "a few energy lobbyists and speculators." John McCain chimed in that Mr. Obama was merely following his lead; The futures market may be a convenient scapegoat, but it's simply a price...

WASHINGTON -- Speculative traders' interest in crude oil has grown to the point that they now account for roughly 70% of all trading in West Texas Intermediate crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared with 37% in 2000, according to an investigation by a congressional subcommittee that forms part of an escalating political assault on Wall Street's role in the run-up in oil prices. The subcommittee's findings, based on data obtained from federal commodity-futures regulators, are the latest sign that Washington is gearing up to try to limit the role of hedge funds, investment banks and other speculative traders...

The chart above shows that open interest (volume) for crude oil futures contracts declined by more than 16% since last November, and yet oil prices kept going up. Less oil futures trading, less speculation, but higher oil prices? Isn't is supposed to be the other way around?

This week, the Associated Press reported that a recent Israeli military exercise may have been intended to show the nation's abilities to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.The International Herald Tribune called it a "major military exercise" that "appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities," with more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighters joining the maneuvers over the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month.The reason for this training mission is Israel's belief that Iran is attempting to build nuclear weapons that could be used against it. Iran – whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has vowed to wipe...