Regulation? Hardly! Try Speculation!

Deep Speculation -- from Harper's Weekly 2/11/1865

Market manipulation describes a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market and create artificial, false or misleading appearances with respect to the price of, or market for, a security, commodity or currency. Market manipulation is prohibited in the United States under Section 9(a)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934...The Act defines market manipulation as transactions which create an artificial price or maintain an artificial price for a tradeable security. --- from Wikipedia

Advocates of free markets like to point out that government regulation strangles and upsets the equilibrium that laissez-faire capitalism provides and requires in order to maintain pricing that reflects the true value of goods and services. Libertarians are staunch believers of totally unfettered capitalism, although the majority of conservatives are its primary cheerleaders also. Or so it seems.

Certainly all the saber-rattling from the United States, and Israel (the tail-that-wags-the-dog), against Iran is having an unnerving affect on the oil commodity markets around the world. Add to this the declining value of the U.S. Dollar, which dominates and is linked to the value of each barrel of crude, and not to mention manipulation by unscrupulous producers that invokes shortages and drives prices upward. Of course, as would be expected, Republicans are jumping on the bandwagon and are more than happy to blame this on the Obama Administration. But there are definitely other factors involved -- factors that have had a long-term influence on steadily rising gasoline prices over the last few years. These are factors that are unrelated to consumer demand, since demand is currently at its lowest mark in the United States since 1997.

Many people are only vaguely aware that oil prices are set by commodities traders -- speculators -- who buy and sell futures contracts on the world's commodities exchanges. These are agreements to buy or sell oil at a specific date in the future at a specific price. Buyers will use these to avoid the risks associated with the price fluctuations of oil, while sellers will attempt to lock in a price for their products. As with all financial markets, speculators use such contracts to gamble on price movements. Commodities traders can create a self-fulfilling prophecy by bidding up oil futures prices (or bidding down, selling short, and still getting rewarded handsomely). This practice adds up to 30% to the cost of a barrel of oil without adding any value to the barrel. Once this starts, it can create an asset bubble. (Sound familiar?) Unfortunately, the one who pays for this bubble -- the artificially-created pricing -- is the consumer. That's you...and that's me!

The other night Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks had a segment on his nightly cable television show about the fluctuating pricing of oil and gasoline, which raised a ton of questions (and answered a ton more) about how speculators in oil have been able to manipulate market pricing to the detriment of us all. Here's the reason for it all: In 2004, commodity investment in oil speculation was a hefty $13 billion. By 2009, only five years later, that investment skyrocketed to $300 billion! Coincidentally, or not, in July of 2004 the market price for crude oil was around $31/barrel; by July of 2008 the price escalated to over $137/barrel. In the United States, that translated to $1.93/gallon (in 2004) and $4.09 (in 2008) at the pump. Granted, pricing dropped after those high-marks, but have since steadily increased and now approach those record levels -- with higher levels expected as we move deeper into the year.

"The cost of gas is expected to rise this spring and summer — but no matter how hard conservative pundits try to blame a potential threat of an oil cutoff from Iran, it’s just not the whole story. Speculation on oil futures — by big banks such as Golden Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and others — contributes to the rising cost. 'They make money if the price zooms up,' Cenk says. In 2011, the average American household paid $600 more out of pocket as a result of that speculation. 'It isn’t supply and demand. It isn’t the free market. It’s because these guys are playing with the market — so that they can make more money. They have got to love what is happening with Iran.' "

As Uyger points out, last year each family in America paid an extra $600 in fuel costs due to oil speculation -- an extra $600 that isn't related to supply and demand market forces or because of free-market competition. It was, pure and simple, just another example of how monopolistic capitalism manipulates market pricing, creating bubbles of artificially high pricing for the benefit of a few and to the detriment of the many. It is, by no other definition, market manipulation -- despite the Dodd-Frank Bill passed by the Democratic Congress that was supposedly designed to limit such abuses.

Here's an older video from last year, again by Cenk Uygur, that explains this subject even more thoroughly. It's happening again.  

 

The Biggest Challenge of Our Time

Protester's sign at Occupy the Courts in Washington D.C.

“Why the courts? Because frankly folks, that’s the scene of the crime. Corporate personhood and money equals political speech are court-created doctrines. We the people never decided it; our elected representatives didn’t decide it; ordinary people like me and you never decided it. The court created these doctrines and it’s going to take a movement to overturn it.” --- David Cobb, Move to Amend and an organizer of Friday’s Occupy the Courts protests.

 

 

In September a couple of years ago, I explored in a post how the Roberts Court obliterated the Constitution through corporate favoritism. I predicted -- which wasn't really that difficult -- how "big money in politics already subverted our democratic processes before [that election] year, but that [it would] seem like pennies-in-a-bucket when the steamroller of millions of corporate dollars start inundating the media with attack ads and influence peddling -- all designed to adversely influence your opinion to support their views and their candidates." Today's two-year anniversary of that inane and horrible Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, was the focus of yesterday's nation-wide network of protests called, collectively, Occupy the Courts. I was a part of the demonstration in Washington D.C., and although it was not as cold as last year's rally that observed the even colder and callous reasoning of that treasonous decision, it was still a brisk and windy day. 

 

Thom Hartmann speaking at Occupy the Courts

The D.C. event included many skits, street theater, and speeches by David Cobb, former presidential aspirant for the Green Party, along with Thom Hartmann, who initiated my journey of realizing the destabilizing and destructive nature of corporate personhood and the resultant corporatocracy we live under today due to this. 

The crowd was slightly larger than last year's event, but unlike a year ago the Capitol Police and Park Police were prominent and very visible. I interpret this to be a positive sign; the Occupy movement has created 

awareness and fear within those corporatists who have overtaken our government over the last thirty years, and especially within this century.  

 

I follow a friend's blog, aptly called "The Rant" by Tom Degan, and even before the realization of the near-collapse of the investment banking sector I expressed my doubts and frustrations about our country's burgeoning corporatocracy. The following reprint of a comment I posted on Mr. Degan's blog on September 9, 2008, which I highlighted in my very first post on No Corporate Rule, is worth repeating: 

 

"Tom, like you, I used to be firmly in the Democratic camp each and every election cycle, just knowing that if only the Democrats could retain power, all our social and political problems would be worked on, and would finally get solved. But, decade-after-decade, the same problems continued to persist. They actually got worse, not better. Aside from a Republican revolution that oversaw a dismantling of much of the New Deal era's strides to put society on a more equal footing, even when Democratic control was firmly in place the slide continued towards further degradation of human rights, and citizen needs, in favor of corporate and moneyed interests.

I, too, sincerely hope I'm wrong in my opinion about Senator Obama. I truly do. But the evidence is irrefutable. Thankfully, in 2002, which is the year Thom Hartmann's remarkable Unequal Protection came out, I picked it off the bookstore shelf and only intended to take a quick glance, but then couldn't put it down. I immediately bought it, and read it - more like absorbed it. Since, I've done extensive reading and research concerning corporate personhood through other areas, such as POCLAD.

That day things really started to crystallize for me. I understood that our problems weren't unsolvable through democratic action; they were only resisted by corporate entities that held far more power and influence than I did as a voter, and an agenda that was antithetical to mine, and most Americans. I learned that although I had the protections and rights granted to me through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so did, underhandedly, multinational corporate and banking interests. Just as important, it became apparent that our elected officials, from both parties, were in the corner of their corporate benefactors; not mine, or yours, or any of the other millions of middle or working class people in this country. When I made that connection, I mean when it finally hit me like a ton of bricks, I understood that a slow-motion coup d’état had taken place right under our noses. It didn't take troops and tanks rolling through the streets; all it took was time and incremental steps. It worked, and sadly, most of America is oblivious to the fact that it happened. They know 'something's wrong' but they haven't figured it out. It was the most covert takeover of a people in history.

I'll probably never return to the Democratic Party, but it could happen. If, through some miracle, they adopted the same stance in their official party platform that the Green Party has regarding the elimination of corporate personhood, then I'll come back. The 'Greens' unabashedly call for 'legislation or constitutional amendment to end the legal fiction of corporate personhood.' This, Tom, would be the real panacea to true reform, and the return of our country to We the People. Without this, we're just pissin' in the wind."      

 

I feel even more passionately about what I wrote that day then ever before. The benefit of hindsight has allowed me to know that the corporatists continue to whittle away at the rights only natural persons were granted through our Bill of Rights; only natural persons, those made of real flesh and blood, deserve the protections our forebearers recognized as natural law. The infusion of corporate money is shattering records this primary season, and we're already experiencing how Citizens United has effectively allowed corporations, domestic and foreign, to leapfrog over our democratic ideals and to the forefront of our constitutional protections. As these transgressions against democratic ideals continue; as each passing year brings us precariously closer to entering the throes of a fascist authoritarian regime, the stakes become higher and the threats loom larger.

 

Until corporate personhood dies and is buried, preferably through a constitutional amendment, we're only fooling ourselves if we think the normal recourse for democratic change will solve the problem. It won't. The last four years have shown us this, and if history is a reliable teacher, the next four years -- no matter who is in office -- will certainly prove this. It's time to think real change. Otherwise, as I said almost four years ago, we're certainly just pissin' in the wind -- and we'll deserve everything that blows our way. 

 

The Slippery Slope Turned to Black Ice

He did it! On the last day of the year, during a holiday weekend when most people aren't paying attention to the news, President Obama signed the egregious National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. Congratulations sir! You just set us on course for complete dictatorial control! From Anonymous earlier this month:

"If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we've been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America. — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing."

So we'll begin 2012 under a completely new legal authority; not the rule of law as based upon our constitutional protections, but rather the murky and ambiguous sense of justice that the president -- any president -- feels like asserting on any given day.  

We live in strange and dangerous times. May the new year's promise of peace, and increased awareness and raised consciousness, be with all of you and those you hold dear. 

OWS: Grow Awareness; Expose Corruption. Demand Later

Occupy D.C., Freedom Plaza, October 2011

“As Charles Stewart Parnell called out during the Irish rent strike campaign in 1879 and 1880: It is no use relying on the Government . . . . You must only rely upon your own determination . . . . Help yourselves by standing together . . .strengthen those amongst yourselves who are weak . . .band yourselves together, organize yourselves . . . and you must win . . . When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then and not till then will it be settled.”  Gene Sharp (1928-present)

Much of the criticism of Occupy Wall Street, and the movement it has borne, is a perceived lack of focus and clarity, both from opponents on the Right and proponents on the Left. I've read comments from my own blog ("I do think OWS needs to do a better job of selling its message and connecting to the general population") and other's ("It is hard to negotiate for change without such demands set forth...[a]s much as I admire the demonstrators courage and spunk I think the whole idea was half baked and doomed to fail from the beginning"). "It’s not poll-tested or focus-grouped, but it expresses perfectly the outrage that is the appropriate response to the maddening political situation we find ourselves in today. It succeeds as symbolic politics: taking back the square is just what we need to do", argues Betsy Reed with The Nation. Even mainstream medium bulwark CNN concedes:

"Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking's defenders and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns...there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on...they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem. Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president..."

Nonviolent protest is very successful in initiating change, something Gene Sharp, author of From Dictatorship to Democracy, knows more than anyone concerning the subject. Translated into over thirty languages, his work has inspired and created countless regime changes around the world. Examples of key nonviolent steps intrinsic to liberation: 

• Develop a strategy for winning freedom and a vision of the society you want
• Overcome fear by small acts of resistance
• Use colors and symbols to demonstrate unity of resistance
• Learn from historical examples of the successes of non-violent movements
• Use non-violent "weapons"
• Identify the dictatorship's pillars of support and develop a strategy for undermining each
• Use oppressive or brutal acts by the regime as a recruiting tool for your movement
• Isolate or remove from the movement people who use or advocate violence

Central to Dr. Sharp's treatise is the premise that "the power of dictatorships comes from the willing obedience of the people they govern - and that if the people can develop techniques of withholding their consent, a regime will crumble."

For now, the work is to build momentum through numbers. The work is to grow awareness. The work is to expose. It's their money versus our numbers, our awareness, our shedding light on their corruptness and lies. Demands will be formally articulated later. 

Here's the latest from Anonymous (Message to Occupy the World 11-18-11):

Greetings citizens of the world. We are Anonymous. Since the occupation of Wall Street began we have been watching closely as countless people in cities around the world have taken to the streets in peaceful support of the movement. A show of support for a humanity free from the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. Free from corruption in our political and financial institutions, and free from the injustices caused by corporate personhood and the oppression of others. This is not the Arab Spring, Egypt, Greece, Tunisia, nor The American Autumn.

This is mass global awakening.

The lies and corruptions that have attached themselves to our system like a parasite have been exposed.

A way to rid our world of this parasite uncovered.

The cure lies in all of us.

This is only the first wave of our brothers and sisters to awaken to the lies and corruptions taking place around them. You, my brothers and sisters bear the weight of carrying this message to the masses. You must continue to hold your ground and stand up to help educate others to these injustices. The practice of active non participation in the things we deem evil, peaceful protests, and large scale community education efforts are things each one of us can continue and teach others to help aid in the fight. This will assure us victory against tyranny in our world.

We have already seen signs of this process beginning to take hold. With the successful transfer of 4.5 billion dollars on Bank Transfer Day, and 690,000 new accounts created at credit unions in the U.S. alone, we have taken the first strike against the banks.

This will not be the last.

Occupy protests continue to grow despite the puppet media, who is bought and controlled by politicians and corporations continuing to lie about numbers involved in the protests. They have said there is no clear message and otherwise down played and belittled the protests as a whole. Yet our message has still gotten out.

Political and corporate backed entities continue to try to adopt and corrupt the movement.

Trying to turn it into a tool for their own purposes, yet they fail.

Worse yet, incidents of police brutality and the revocation of the rights of our citizens are growing more common place. Corrupt elements hidden within police forces around the world have begun to inflict terror and beat the otherwise peaceful protestors into submission. Mayors, and governing officials in cities around the world have begun to send in their dogs in an effort to stamp out the growth of revolution. They have taken notice of our actions and they are scared!
 

These crimes against our citizens do not go unnoticed, and must not be allowed to quell our efforts in seeking freedom. We must maintain peaceful despite these atrocities and not feed into their efforts to bring us down to their lowly level of existence.

The instigators of these actions are unaware that they are defeating themselves, for we are already at the third act of the famous quote; “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you. then you win.”

There has never been a more exciting time to be alive in all our lives.
 

It is important that we not be bored or let idle time pass, for the seeds of revolution against worldwide injustice have been sewn. Yet without enough nourishment they will not survive and grow to full fruition.

Citizens of the world, the power for change is in our hands. We must continue to expose the truth to the masses.

Know your own power; inform others of the immediate threat of corporations, banking institutions and the growing takeover of world governments. Maintain true to the foundations of the Occupy movement. Fight greed, corruption and corporate control of our democracy.

Continue to denounce the involvement of entities with political and financial affiliations in the movement. Express your free right to assemble via global, large scale peaceful protests.

Our efforts must not simply continue.

Our efforts must grow.

Corrupt governments, police, corporations, banking institutions and those who oppress others.

You cannot kill, or buy an idea.

You are the parasite, not our citizens who gather in peaceful protest against injustice in our world.

You are outnumbered, and surrounded.

The revolution has begun, and the end of your reign is near.

We will not stand for your atrocities and injustices any longer.

We are Bradley Manning, we are Scott Olsen. We are your brother, mother, and best friend.

We are people.

We are free.

We are one.

We are Anonymous.

We are legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

 

You should have expected us!

The Slipperiest of Slopes

UC Davis Student Civil Disobedience, 11/18/2011

"The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second."

------ Chris Hedges, from 2011: A Brave New Dystopia, Truthdig 12/27/10

Nazi Execution of Dissident

By now, you've probably seen the video of the obviously intentional and grotesque behavior by campus police at the University of California in Davis. (If not, you can see it here.) This video, originally only available through fringe progressive blogs and websites, has finally seen the light of day within the corporate-owned mainstream media -- mainly because it has gone viral on the Internet. As with anything accusatory or demeaning of the corporate-state, unless there's no further chance of ignoring or omitting the obvious (as in the case of the Occupy movement), the corporate media is forced to undraw the curtain and reveal the events -- although, not necessarily, and often not, the truth and reasons behind them.

The question I want to ask is this: When this kind of despicable behavior is conducted by those entrusted to serve and protect us from criminal activities, and equally important, is condoned and approved by their superiors and those we supposedly elect, when and where is the line drawn that separates us from the inhumane and state-sanctioned slippery slope toward totalitarianism and demagoguery?