We're Being Had... Again

The CFTC gets the Brits to impose trading regs on Atlanta-based ICE Futures Europe. On the very same day, Dubya acts to open ANWR, the OCS and shale oil reserves. All of this is occurring with $140 oil in the background. You couldn't have choreographed a screenplay better.

From Kevin G. Hall at McClatchy News:

Michael Greenberger said speculation is a major factor, and he knows a lot about the complex global oil market. He directed trading and markets for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1997 to 1999. That body regulates the trading of contracts for future deliveries of commodities, including crude oil. The contracts, called futures, drive oil prices.

Greenberger goes on to state how by trading on the unregulated and thus opaque Intercontinental Exchange in London, US actors may very well be manipulating the price of oil. The energy futures market was created by Texas Republicans. It is not outlandish to suppose that these same Texas energy traders who brought us the calamity of Enron are at this moment artificially raising the price of oil as leverage to get ANWR and OCS opened to drilling as well as shale oil production. The challenge is to raise oil prices high enough for long enough to accelerate domestic production without exciting alternative energy development. Indeed, environmentalists are useful idiots by their staunch opposition to nuclear energy.

The creation of Atlanta based Intercontinental Exchange and the subsequent creation of its London based ICE Futures Europe closely mirror the time line of the legislation. CFTC approval in 2006 of trading in US futures on the unregulated London exchange was the coup de grace.