Jun 25 2009

Gas Prices by Goldman Sachs

(noon – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Not only are your tax dollars, and those of your children and grandchildren, going to the banks, but so is some of that money you spend at the gas station.   Goldman Sachs, among others, is now involved in making sure you are squeezed at the pump so they can get more bonuses and buy more yachts.  Good for the yacht makers I suppose, but not for the majority of Americans just trying to get by.

In an article by Jim Hightower, he places the blame on the same old derivative and credit swap games that helped get us into this financial mess in the first place.

“What’s going on here is not the “magic of the marketplace,” but some hocus-pocus by brand-name dealers. What might surprise you, though, is that the wheeler-dealers now jacking up our pump prices don’t operate under the BPExxonMobilShellChevron brands – but the logos of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other Wall Street traders that have been placing vast, unregulated, secretive bets on the future price of oil. They’re playing an electronic casino game in a global “dark market” of exotic derivatives and credit swaps.”

So if I understand this correctly, the US is in a financial crisis largely created by the practices of Wall Street and Big Banks; the government, or we the taxpayers, bailed them out with trillions of dollars, and now they continue to do the same damn thing.  Not only that, but what they’re doing is affecting your weekly budget as we speak.

“If this sounds vaguely familiar to you, it’s because this is the same game that Wall Street played with subprime mortgages, leading to the present crash of our economy. And, yes, these are the exact same banksters that you and I are presently bailing out with our trillions of tax dollars.”

http://www.commondreams.org/…

Oh, I know five months isn’t nearly enough time for Obama and Geithner to clean up the messes made by Bush.  But it sure looks like they’ve had enough time to allow the creation of new ways to fleece the middle and lower classes.  

They won’t give California five billion or so to help with keeping needed services available to those less fortunate.  But they can give trillions to banks and allow them to continue their games.  And now it is having a direct daily effect on everyone.  Disgusting and criminal.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

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  2. Economist has a good summary of the CTFC’s ongoing (as in never ending) investigation into this.

    In 2008 America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates NYMEX, examined how the changing positions of hedge funds affect prices. It found correlation, not causation-speculators were clinging on for the ride, not making the beast buck.

    But the CFTC’s investigations were hampered by the fact that it could not examine intra-day trades. Nor could it monitor certain derivatives, such as those traded via London’s InterContinental Exchange (ICE), in which Wall Street dealers are particularly prominent.

  3. Taibbi-Goldman-Sachs

    • Viet71 on June 25, 2009 at 14:28
    • #

    We’re just food…just prey.

    Goldman Sachs sits atop the food chain.

    I say it’s past time for the peasants to revolt.

    This native is getting a little restless.

  5. is turning into a clusterfuck.  

    • Viet71 on June 25, 2009 at 23:44
    • #

    are the most important of the day, if not the past many years.

    The Taibbi article on Goldman Sachs explains Obama and a whole lot else.

    Thank you, underdog.

    I wish millions would read your diary and the Taibbi article.  And then grab whatever implement is handy and head to Washington, D.C.

  7. they call this murky irregular market which includes swaps and other monkey business….

    … But the Treasury Secretary also argued against the abolition of credit default swaps – one of the instruments that helped bring the financial system to its knees – saying such a move would stifle creativity in a market desperate for innovation.

    “Overall, we do not believe that you can build a system based on banning individual products – our core challenge is ensuring we have a system that has a proper balance between innovation on the one hand and consumer protection on the other,” said Geithner.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

     

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