Dubious History Of Goldman Sachs Market Manipulation Repeats Itself As Speculators Spike Gas Prices
Bill Lindner July 01, 2009
In another case of history repeating itself, the rapidly rising cost of gasoline, misleadingly attributed by some to supply and demand issues, is actually more of the same from last summer when speculators -- led by Goldman Sachs who has an 80-year history of manipulation and speculation -- fraudulently ran up gas prices to more than $4 a gallon, and Goldman Sachs' long-term greed is once again rearing it's ugly head while America's economy lies in ruins due to their previous fraudulent actions.
Speculators make big profits at consumer expense by fraudulently manipulating oil futures. Oil futures are contracts between buyers and sellers where, according to How Stuff Works, the buyer agrees to purchase a certain amount of a commodity -- in this case oil -- at a fixed price. Futures offer a way for the purchaser to bet on whether or not a commodity will increase in price down the road. When locked into a contract, futures buyers receive a barrel of oil for the price outlined in the future contract, regardless of whether the market price was higher when the barrel was delivered.
Wall Street loves to bet, regardless of the legality involved. When Wall Street heard the word "bet," it flocked to the futures. Wall Street betting is what led to the worldwide economic implosion. Despite the fact that U.S. petroleum reserves are far from being depleted, the price of oil continues rising, showing that the laws of supply and demand have nothing to do with the cost of gasoline. To the contrary, there is quite an artificial market for gasoline that appears to be being manipulated by speculators again.
Rising oil prices -- which are threatening an already fragile economic recovery -- has reportedly led to a growing number of experts blaming Wall Street speculation as the main reason gas is going up, and most on Capitol Hill are remaining silent. Not Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins though. Sen. Collins is one of the few on Capitol Hill who are blaming Wall Street investors. She's trying to limit speculative investments in oil and other commodities.
Speculative Investment Has Driven Oil Prices Higher
McClatchy News has reported that speculative investment, not simply supply and demand, has driven oil prices higher for the past 14 months. Deutsche Bank has echoed the same warnings, saying that excessive speculation is responsible for rising oil and gasoline prices. Almost a year ago the crude oil price peaked at almost $147 a barrel.
Deutsche Bank noted that crude oil prices appear to have been divorced from the underlying fundamentals of weak demand, ample supply, and high inventories, and that rising OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) production -- which has been steadily declining the past year -- and spare capacity appeared unimportant to oil market investors at this time.
A new wave of speculative investment from non-commercial traders who don't actually use oil are driving the prices of oil futures up again. Oil should cost around $50 a barrel, but it keeps rising due to speculation.
Jason Ungar, Gresham Investment Management's managing director, says that speculators simply bet on the price of an underlying commodity. He says speculators leave themselves open to the vagaries of the market because they don't control the supply or demand for the commodity. Ungar fears that limits will be set on oil trading. The problem with his claims of being open to the vagaries of the market is the fact that the vagaries of the market are attributable to speculators whose actions are responsible for the erratic actions of said market. Rising fuel costs lead to less demand for gas which consequently increases supply. It creates more demand for public transportation. In other words, the erratic actions of the market are created by fraudulent Goldman Sachs financial manipulations that have repeatedly over-inflated gas and oil prices.
Speculative pricing has fueled numerous crises in this country. Goldman Sachs is behind the vast majority of it. Loopholes in legislation continues allowing Goldman Sachs and others to manipulate the system while ripping everyone off. Speculators now control about 80 percent of the oil markets according to the report from McClatchy News.
Normal Market Conditions Replaced by Speculators
A repeat of last summer, when gas was going for over $4 a gallon, is happening again. Claims of reform and regulation are irrelevent due to the fact that leaders from both major political parties are owned by lobbyists and large corporations. Both major political parties are extremely corrupt and both parties have little to no regard for the general population.
Gas and Oil prices fluctuated greatly last summer as a result of speculation. Oil futures had nothing to do with prices paid at the pump. In usual fashion, gas prices skydived quickly, but decended extremely slowly. Despite the bogus cries and lies, the short term trends in supply and demand had nothing to do with justifying last year's record jumps in crude oil prices.
The value of the weakened dollar didn't play much of a role in the rising gas prices either. Speculation played the biggest role in the manipulation of gas prices last year and it's about to do the same thing again this year. A good explanation of the speculative manipulation of gas prices last year can be found in this article from Nieman Watchdog.
When prices move up that quickly, you can be sure that the normal market conditions have been replaced by speculators wanting to make some quick bucks.
Goldman Sachs' Great American Bubble Machine
A recent article -- The Great American Bubble Machine -- by Matt Taibbi takes an indepth look at how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression, from tech stocks to high gas prices, the latter of which they're about to do again.
Goldman Sachs has been responsible for swindling the American empire for several decades. A who's who of Wall Street swindlers who are affiliated with Goldman Sachs can be found in Mr. Taibbi's article. Loopholes have been exploited -- and purposely left open -- for years, which has led to greed destroying disorganized democracy aided by our corporately owned Congress that has purposely blocked meaningful reform for years.
High gas prices, rising consumer-credit rates, swindled pension funds, mass layoffs, taxes that will be paid for generations to come because of Wall Street fraud -- all kinds of money that is and has been lost -- keeps going to Goldman Sachs where a select few continue gaining illicit wealth at the cost of a great many who continue getting poorer.
We've got ourselves a bad case of corrupted history that continues repeating itself over and over. Goldman Sachs conveniently positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble and sells fraudulent investments that are nothing more than piles of crap. After Goldman Sachs defrauds the American public out of vast sums of money, our corrupted politicians in Washington allow these crooks to rewrite the rules -- while receiving massive bribes from Goldman Sachs. Once everything comes crashing down, the whole process starts over again. This has continued unabated since the 1920s and it needs to stop. If it takes locking up the fraudulent perpetrators along with the corrupted politicians, so be it.
"Long-term Greedy:" 80 Years of Fraudulent Goldman Sachs Bubbles
Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869 by Marcus Goldman and Samuel Sachs. Goldman Sachs foray into speculation began with the pre-crash of Wall Street in the late 1920s by bilking investors with "investment trusts" where cash from investors was 'invested' in Wall Street securities that were often kept hidden from the public -- much like the current fraudulent actions that continue being kept hidden from the public today. The same principles that ripped off investors then has continued to this day. The Great Depression, bubble number 1, was engineered and controlled by Goldman Sachs.
After wiping out several investors during the Great Depression, Goldman Sachs went on to become the chief underwriter to America's most wealthy and powerful corporations. "Long-term greedy" became their mantra.
After the financial sector was deregulated in 1999, it opened the door for more fraud and long-term greed. On the other side of that door stood the internet age which in turn led to speculative bubble number 2: tech stocks. By setting up a two-tiered investment system, Goldman Sachs was able to capitalize on the dismissal of regulations in the financial sector, allowing them to speculatively pump up sham stocks. Around that time, Goldman Sachs engaged in "spinning," better known as bribery. Banks engaged in spinning undervalued stocks by offering CEOs cheaper shares in their own companies in exchange for future business.
Goldman Sachs bubble number 3 was the housing bubble which was created by using deceptive underwriting standards in mortgages. Investment bankers like Goldman Sachs created a mass market for toxic debt. By bundling hundreds of different mortgages into Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and lying to investors, they were able to turn junk-rated mortgages into AAA-rated investments and got companies like AIG to provide insurance -- also known as credit-default swaps -- on these lethal mortgages.
When One Bubble Bursts, Illegally Create Another One
Speculation and securities fraud was responsible for bursting the housing bubble. Goldman Sachs received double compensation with the housing bubble. First they hosed investors who bought their fraudulent CDOs and then they hosed taxpayers who have been stuck with the bill.
While bankrupting America with their fraudulent housing bubble, Goldman Sachs created bubble number 4: $4 a gallon gasoline. After defrauding the country with their financial ponzi shemes, Wall Street turned to the physical-commodities market -- corn, coffee, cocoa, wheat and above all else, oil. Despite the best lies and the media's attempts to make the world believe the oil supply was drying up, it wasn't. Goldman Sachs was able to turn a sleepy oil market into a giant betting parlor which ended up spiking the prices at gas pumps.
Speculators drove up gas prices last year after Goldman Sachs convinced pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures. Between 2003 and 2008, speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, which explains why they're trying to do it again. Protections that had been put in place to prevent manipulation of the commodities markets were rewritten or exempted by our bought and paid for federal government, allowing Goldman Sachs and other bankers to again defraud the country. By 2008, at least three quarters of commodity exchanges activities were led by speculation.
Bubble number 5, courtesy of Goldman Sachs -- and its former executives -- was rigging the fraudulent financial bailout. Once the oil bubble collapsed, Goldman Sachs moved to the one thing left to feed on: taxpayer money. Thanks to the fraudulent bailout engineered by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Lehman Brothers -- one of Goldman Sachs competitors -- was able to collapse without intervention and AIG, one of the bigger recipients of the fraudulent bailout, was able to repay billions it owed to Goldman Sachs due to their fraudulent financial activities. So far, almost $13 trillion -- a lot of which is unaccounted for -- has been given or lent to these fraudulent companies by the Federal Reserve...which isn't Federal at all. The Federal Reserve is privately owned and badly in need of an audit and major reform.
Former Goldman Sachs executives are responsible for the vast majority of fraud perpetrated against Americans and our corrupted federal government continues allowing Goldman Sachs to survive and get away with their crimes, which actually makes them just as guilty as the perpetrators. After destroying this country, helping trillions disappear from the stock market and creating historic bubble catastrophes, Goldman Sachs gave the people of the U.S. a whopping $14 million in 2008, and that's only because Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of one percent.
How is that possible? Goldman Sachs manipulated its money around so that most of its earnings occurred in foreign countries with low tax rates. Due to our corrupted corporate tax system, Goldman Sachs and companies like it can ship their revenues offshore and defer taxes on those revenues indefinitely, even while claiming deductions upfront on that same untaxed income. According to the Government Accountability Office, between 1998 and 2005, roughly two-thirds of all corporations operating in the U.S. paid no taxes at all. All the more reason to closely scrutinize offshore bank accounts....
America's Corrupted Two-Party Political System has Failed the People
Goldman Sachs bubble number 6 is global warming. Goldman Sachs employees paid about $981,000 to President Obama's campaign. As noted by Mr. Taibbi, having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman Sachs is once again back to its old business of scouting out loopholes -- as well as bribing politicians to make sure those loopholes remain open -- in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of Goldman Sachs alumni occupying key government jobs.
The new game in town, as envisioned by Goldman Sachs, is the $1 trillion a year fight to stop global warming. Instead of credit derivatives, oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the next bubble is carbon credits -- a booming trillion-dollar market that will exist if the bought and paid for Democratic party who received almost $4.5 million during the last election cycle from Goldman Sachs -- manages to create the new cap-and-trade bubble that is being disguised as an "environmental plan." If successful, rising energy prices will be mandated by the government. Goldman Sachs won't have to fraudulently manipulate it at all. Their bought out Congress is trying to do their dirty work for them and taxpayers will once again be stuck with footing the bill.
For over 80 years, Goldman Sachs has repeatedly bankrupted America and the rest of the world with the help of corrupted politicians in Washington. More information on the Goldman Sachs bubbles -- the Great Depression, Tech Stocks, The Housing Bubble, $4 a gallon gas, rigging the fraudulent bailout and the Global Warming Bubble -- can be found in the report from Mr. Taibbi.
The speculation that is again resulting in rising gas prices needs to be recognized for what it is and stopped once and for all. It's high time for America and the rest of the world to say "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" America's two-party politics -- Republican and Democrat -- isn't working anymore either as they've both been corrupted for decades. As I've said a few times in the past, it's time to take out the trash in Washington and put people there who will actually watch out for those their elected to represent
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/108382