Free Republic

America's leading commodities regulator has launched an unprecedented investigation into possible market manipulation in the US crude oil market amid record prices which continue to cripple various parts of the global economy. The Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC), working closely with other international regulators including the Financial Services Authority in the UK, has begun a series of detailed inquiries over concerns that energy speculators are behind the rising oil price.

Santa Monica, CA - U.S. gasoline prices rose more than 33 cents a gallon to $3.937 in the last month despite driving cutbacks that have steadily reduced demand, said Consumer Watchdog. Oil prices sagged today along with U.S. economic indicators; yet even if they continue to fall, motorists are unlikely to see much relief at the pump -- or at the grocery story, with diesel breaking the $5.00 mark. "Producers who have been making their record profits from drilling and selling oil are now trying to do the same on the refining end by keeping fuel supplies short in the...

The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How? First, the crucial role of the international oil exchanges in London and New York is crucial to the game. Nymex...

China flips switch and stock market bolts Commentary: Manipulation can only end badly By David Callaway, MarketWatch Last update: 4:53 a.m. EDT April 24, 2008 HONG KONG -- Dusk is the best time of day in Hong Kong, as the gray, polluted skies and thick humidity that rule the office hours of this workaholic city give way to a skyline wave of neon lights, pulsing to life seemingly with the flip of a switch. Like everything else in China these days, the change is sudden, and filled with expectation. But when it comes to the country's nascent stock market, investors...

April 3, 2008 Ben Bernanke admits Bear Stearns was hours from collapse Dearbail Jordan US Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, today revealed that Bear Stearns was just one day away from going bust when the central bank stepped in to save the Wall Street bank to prevent chaos and a "severe" impact on confidence. Speaking for a second day in front of US Congress, Mr Bernanke attempted to justify JP Morgan Chase's rescue of Bear Stearns, in a deal that included the US Fed agreeing to back $29 billion of the troubled investment bank's assets. Mr Bernanke said: "... on...

The Bush administration forecasts a $410 billion federal budget deficit for this year, an indication that, as the US saving rate is approximately zero, the US is not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars but also dependent on foreigners to finance part of the US government's domestic expenditures. Foreign borrowing is paying US government salaries--perhaps that of the president himself--or funding the expenditures of the various cabinet departments. Financially, the US is not an independent country. A troubled currency and financial system and large budget and trade deficits do not present an attractive face to creditors. Yet Washington...

Identifying Manipulated Images New tools that analyze the lighting in images help spot tampering. By Erica Naone   True or false? The tool used above spots whether an image has been manipulated by modeling the lighting in the image based on an analysis of visible surfaces. To analyze an image, a user indicates the surfaces to consider using contour lines (shown above in white). The system checks for inconsistencies in the way that those surfaces are lit. Credit: Micah Kimo Johnson, Hany Farid Photo-editing software gets more sophisticated all the time, allowing users to alter pictures in ways both...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Acting quickly to prevent a run on major global financial firms, the Federal Reserve cut its discount rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.25% and offered to lend money to a longer list of firms than ever before. he extraordinary weekend moves came as J.P. Morgan Chase sealed a deal to buy Bear Stearns Cos. for just $2 a share backed by funds borrowed from the Fed. The Fed board gave its approval to that unique funding arrangement, which guarantees JP Morgan against losses from buying Bear. See full story. The Fed board also approved the...

The Vatican has brought up to date the traditional seven deadly sins by adding seven modern mortal sins it claims are becoming prevalent in what it calls an era of "unstoppable globalisation".Those newly risking eternal punishment include drug pushers, the obscenely wealthy, and scientists who manipulate human genes. So "thou shalt not carry out morally dubious scientific experiments" or "thou shalt not pollute the earth" might one day be added to the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell"....

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS February 16, 2008 -- Barack Obama's primary-night results were strikingly underrecorded in several districts around the city - in some cases leaving him with zero votes when, in fact, he had pulled in hundreds, the Board of Elections said yesterday. Unofficial primary results gave Obama no votes in nearly 80 districts, including Harlem's 94th and other historically black areas - but many of those initial tallies proved to be wildly off the mark, the board said. In some districts getting a recount, the senator from Illinois is even closer to defeating Hillary Clinton. Initial results in...

GATA alleges that gold stored in US vaults has not been audited for some time. Further they allege the gold is being used to artificially depress the price of gold. This full page ad appeared in the WSJ today. It can be found: HERE.

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have extended their investigation into alleged oil market manipulation at BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), probing trades going back an additional four years, a spokesman for the oil major said on Friday. BP said in a statement the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice were investigating aspects of BP's commodity trading activities, including crude oil trading and storage activities, in the US since 1999. The spokesman said BP had previously reported that regulators were only looking into crude trades from 2003. Regulators have also investigated BP for alleged propane markets...

The one tyranny that the founders missed!

AUSTIN -- TXU Energy engaged in unfair trading practices and improperly profited through its manipulation of the wholesale electricity market, Texas regulators have concluded.In a blistering report issued today by the Texas Public Utility Commission, the North Texas utility also was found to have improperly driven up wholesale electric prices by 15.5 percent during the summer of 2005 and made about $20 million more as a result.Regulators reviewed a three-month period in 2005 during which some wholesale electricity prices were found to have spiked to unusual levels. A previous consultant’s report commissioned by the PUC had found "substantial competitive concerns,”...

AUSTIN, Texas, March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The cancellation in the past two days of two planned nationally televised debates because of candidates' "scheduling conflicts" and unwillingness to participate smacks of "manipulation by some candidates who would rather run and hide than defend their records and their positions on the war," Ohio Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said today while campaigning in Texas. Widely publicized Presidential debates in New Hampshire in April and in Nevada in August were cancelled after some candidates either backed out after agreeing to participate or declined invitations to attend. "Whatever their excuses, some candidates...

VIENNA, Austria: Oil prices rose Tuesday amid forecasts that U.S. inventory data due this week will show a decline in gasoline and distillate stockpiles. Prices were also supported by worries over tensions between Western powers and Iran, OPEC's No. 2 supplier, and snowy weather in the U.S. Northeast, the country's largest heating oil market. "Cooler temperatures ... returned to the U.S. Northeast," said Vienna's PVM Oil Associates, linking that development to "forecasts for drawdowns in U.S. gasoline and distillate stocks."

Reader Paul S. and several others sent us this letter written by Pauline Klemmer, a passenger on U.S. Airways Flight 300, on which the Six "Flying Imams" caused problems and over which Islamic America is now in hysterics. As you'll note, she details how they were actually doing a dry run and perhaps planning an attack or something of that nature. Also note, her letter is dated more than a week ago. Yet no media interviewed her or reported her story. We've removed her address and phone number from the letter, the second half of which is a must read...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2006 -- The “center of gravity” in the Iraq war is in America with the American people, not on the battlefield, and the media is a powerful tool that influences the people’s will, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Oct. 24 in various radio interviews. “This is the first war that's been conducted in the 21st century with all the new media realities of 24-hour talk radio and Sony cams and digital cameras and news constantly on television,” Rumsfeld said in an interview with Inga Barks on KERN News/Talk Radio in Bakersfield, Calif. “But the American...

Please forgive this vanity, but I don't know where else to go to ask this question. Is there a coordinated and deliberate attempt by the media and Democrat plants at blog sites to distort and outright lie about everything concerning this election in order to manipulate voters? I live in the heart of Santorum country in Pennsylvania, and now I'm being told that, even here, Casey is ahead. I don't buy it. I am feeling lied to and being taken for a fool. No one I know has even the slightest thought of sitting out, or not voting, or even...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - No evidence of market manipulation was found by the California Energy Commission in an investigation of an April-May spike in retail gasoline prices, the state's undersecretary for energy affairs said on Tuesday. Unplanned refinery shutdowns, declining inventories, lower fuel shipments to the region and clogged ports combined to send California gasoline prices 47 cents above the national average by early May, said Joseph Desmond, undersecretary of energy affairs. "The commission did not find a smoking gun," Desmond said. "The market operated in a fashion you would expect a market to operate." California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's investigation...