Oil Trading's Powerful "Dark Markets"

[RamboLiberal]

As gas prices skyrocket, attention has turned to public "pits," where brokers trade "oil futures" - the right to buy or sell crude oil at a specific price, on a future date.

But far away from the hue and cry, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil futures contracts are traded electronically every day, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.

More than 30 percent, experts say, exchanged in so-called "dark markets," the exact size and scope unknown to U.S. regulators.

"If you can trade out of the sight of U.S. regulators, you can manipulate these markets," said Michael Greenberger, a former top staffer at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, which regulates the trading of commodities like oil in this country.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/17/broadcasts/main4188620.shtml

[LiberalFighter]

1. InterContinental Exchange, or ICE need to be prohibited from operating.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. The last paragraph:

That is why oil prices started coming down today.

Timne for some long jail sentences. Like life sentences in federal stir, for the big players.

[groovedaddy]

3. And WAY past time for the Oil Men in the White House to be put in chains

and hauled out the place before they do more damage.

[raccoon]

4. Some interesting comments on that article at that site, too. Thanks for the link. nt