Stop Wall Street from Driving Up the Cost of Food and Fuel

Stop Wall Street from Driving Up the Cost of Food and Fuel

Please take a few minutes to urge the CFTC to insist on strong rules against excessive gambling in the commodities markets.

Sign letter telling the CFTC to move ahead with strong position limits to curb
excessive speculation.
We urge you
to take strong action against excessive speculation in commodities markets like
food and oil. 
We understand that other factors
contribute to highly volatile commodity prices, but excessive speculation plays
a significant part, according to studies by Princeton, MIT, the Petersen
Institute, the University of London, and the U.S. Senate, among other highly
credible sources.
Goldman Sachs suggested that speculation in the
energy market increases the price of a gallon of gas by 65 to 70 cents – and if
anyone would know it would be the people responsible.

 
Speculation imposes
financial hardships on families around the country.  Inflated gas and food
prices force us to make difficult decisions and sacrifices, and so do sudden
rises in those prices.  Especially right
now, with so many families struggling and unemployment barely beginning to
decrease, we cannot allow speculators to unduly affect our food and gas prices.
[M1]  Speculation also means higher costs
for real-world businesses, hurting consumers and the broader economy.

Please put
in place effective position limit rules, and do not allow them to be undermined.
Limits
should be placed on both the positions of individual speculators, to prevent
market manipulation, and also on the overall amount of speculation in the
market, to prevent bubbles in commodity prices.
[M2]

Thank you
for your consideration.


 [M1]But
these are individual consumers commenting. Effects on businesses show up in
consumer prices anyway. If you can work it in naturally then I guess that’s not
a problem but it seems like it might come off as artificial.

 [M2]This
has always been one of our central points, and we will say it in our comment,
but we have already lost  on it in this
rule. It will not happen in this rule. So not sure if it is worth saying or
not.

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