On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 13:37:46 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 17:32:51 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

So, Golden Sacks is driving aluminum from one warehouse to another,
and then back again, to drive up prices for "warehousing" it.

Meantime, JPMorgan bought up more than half of the copper warehoused
for the US market, planning to do the same thing.

As EA says, it's time to bend over:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/bu...anted=all&_r=0

=======================
Aluminum is only part of the story.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...it_work.ht ml

Well, Matt Yglesias is asking in that piece essentially what Iggy is
asking.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...omplaints.html

This one does some explaining and concludes "Since 2010, the
additional cost to aluminum users is about $3 billion annually,
according to the Beer Institute, a Washington-based trade group that
represents brewers." [talking about aluminum cans]

"Buyers have to pay premiums over the LME benchmark prices even with a
glut of aluminum being produced. Premiums in the U.S. surged to a
record 12 cents to 13 cents a pound in June, almost doubling from 6.5
cents in summer 2010, according to the most recent data available from
Austin, Texas-based researcher Harbor Intelligence.

"Warehouses are creating logjams, said Chris Thorne, a Beer Institute
spokesman.

“Restrictive and outdated warehousing rules are interfering with
normal supply-and-demand dynamics, creating supply-chain bottlenecks,
and preventing brewers and other aluminum users from getting aluminum
in time and at fair market prices,” Thorne said.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...SBRE96J0AS2013

[can't find]


http://moneymorning.com/2013/07/19/b...ions-in-fines/
[Enron lives!!!!!]

Ouch.


Commodity trade speculation/bubbles] appears to be in large
part driven by the existence of "phantom." assets, analogous
to bank credit and/or the ability of a physical asset to
operationally exist in several locations at the same time
through "hypothecation" of collateral. In too many cases
there are NO PHYSICAL ASSETS, only IOUs or markers.

This is a far more important story than it appears, for
example, speculation/market manipulation in food appears to
have been a far more substantial factor in the "Arab Spring"
and the collapse of a number of Mid-East governments than
any sudden desire for freedom. Indeed, the continuing
turmoil in Egypt can be almost entirely traced to unstable
and rising food prices.

In short, the vaunted "free market" appears to be collapsing
at the macro scale in everything from the cost of capital
[LIBOR/QE] to energy, largely due to the actions of the
major players such as "Golden Sacks," the mega banks, the
hedge funds, with the collusion of the politicians and
regulators.

FWIW G/S is now a bank.
http://www.goldmansachs.com/what-we-...nding/banking/



This is ****ing me off.

--
Ed Huntress