Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi writes about Goldman Sachs....
Posted: 07 Jul 2009, 00:15
And blames the oil (and more generally the commodities bubble) on them. Along with seemingly all other bubbles. Warning, not for the faint hearted. He sights the cap and trade market as Goldmans next bubble target, and sees it as yet another way for Goldman (and the other investment banks) to suck the lifeblood from the global economy.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... hine/print
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... hine/print
And what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help — there were other players in the physical-commodities market — but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative WE ARE DODGY. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures — agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.
