Regulating derivatives could lower price of food

[Nashoba07]

We have a Greed problem

[blackiron60]

This is why, or more accurately one of many reasons why, all the brainwashed kids who worship the free market are such fucking idiots.

[ytgv3fc7]

@blackiron60 absolutely. I'm so sick of the arses that argue "free" markets against me when what they really want is freedom from the law, freedom from morals, freedom from community, freedom to rape and murder for money and call it GOOD. Now and then one youtuber, maskedphrogg, will pop in and claim to have "beaten" me in arguments all the while NEVER proving his precious capitalism isn't the instrument of rape and murder, while I prove it is. So pathetic

[juliganp]

From what I understand, anyone can speculate in the commodity market for decades. Also, there have been huge spike in about all commodities sometime or another. The guest doesn't make it too clear what exactly took place in 2000 that changed how the market worked.

[deadeyedick1933]

@juliganp The 1936 Commodity Exchange Act put most commodities on regulated exchanges and limited the ability to use options (speculating without ownership). It basically fell apart in the 1970s due to loopholes, and was replaced with broader but weaker provisions. In my comment blow, FDR passed several laws to guarantee federal purchase of commodities at or near production price, which made heding unnecessary.

[deadeyedick1933]

@juliganp The spikes up in oil and food prices have been due to speculation, not a change in production cost. The final buyer of commodities in effect pays one fraction (~10% for corn in 2000) to the producer and another fraction to the speculator (usually connected to the grain cartel who owns the corn contract). So Cargill makes money by correctly predicting shortfalls or windfalls in production, and you pay that cost at the grocery store.

[imover18gotityube]

Pollin looks like House.

[deadeyedick1933]

TRN, Pollin is half right. Please interview someone about PARITY for agriculture. Try Randy Cook with the National Organization for Raw Materials. North American agriculture is nothing but a strategic tool for Cargill's gambling. FDR regulated futures trading, but he also guaranteed the purchase of grain at 100% the cost of production. We need the federal power to purchase and store commodities at parity, which makes hedging unnecessary.

[hackit12]

World must be crazy ... to allow these greedy investors to drive prices up based on their -'sure bets'- ! That are bankrupting the World !

Estimates are that current oil/gasoline prices are 2 to 3 times higher than realistic -'supply and demand-' ... because of the commodity trading of them.

Airlines and truck fleet operators should be allowed to trade in them for industrial

stability, but anyone else is really -'gaming the system'- at the expense of everybody else !

[btigtime2]

People had better learn to grow your own food. It take two years to get your dirt right. You had better start now.

Also find your local CSA and become a member... you might not starve.

[daleshankins]

I am victimized my own fear and greed. It seems that others may be as well. This places me (and others?) in a position of never being able to say "I have enough." I continue to want more in order to protect myself from feared future scarcity. Perhaps if I worked and shared more with others in my community rather than trying to accumulate enough to be "safe" I would find myself freed from this fear and greed.

[genefire]

@daleshankins Inspiring comment, one that you rarely read online, this is even more important because this comment is posted on youtube! I'm surprised it hasn't been attacked yet by the most ignorant in our society that chant things like "USA", "Drill Baby Drill", etc. Well I actually do conserve a lot more than most people around me but I'm trying. I hope the rest will follow the lead of the better good for our society. Especially these days when we are under constant attack by Big Corps.

[ytgv3fc7]

@daleshankins if enough people work together, two great things happen about "scarcity" : #1 stop making things become scarce to give them capitalistic value #2 stop making things scarce relative to needs of people by reducing demand to the limits of need AND reducing the number of people to what the land can support (this also mean no more making farms into parking lots or factory-farm bio-reactors for killer diseases into our water supplies and so on)

[daleshankins]

@ytgv3fc7 I believe it is possible to balance individual freedom, achievement and ownership and the common good of all men. An accurate accounting of the costs and benefits of products and services would help us see that balance is necessary. "Wealth" that does not include social and environmental costs is an illusion. For example, if oil prices included all subsidies, expense of wars and spill cleanup costs, gas would be over $10/gal. This would make cleaner, sustainable alternatives viable.

[ytgv3fc7]

@daleshankins I agree very much with you. I think there's certainly more than one way to get there too, just not using the centralized and subsidized systems currently in place, or the "demand of rate of return" all-growth "investment" (gambling) that people keep trying to push (ponzi scheme generators)

[DavidAKZ]

@daleshankins just remember 'Greed is Good'

[sarjil]

yes that's right "speculation" is causing prices to go high??!! now lets see hwo do someone speculate on something, well they do it with money and where do they get money and if speculation equals higher prices, that means there is a higher supply of money. 2nd this so called speculation also lowers prices to nosebleed levels so why dont ppl run out and give them gold medals for lowering prices? derivatives has nothing to do with prices themselves, only real longterm supply and demand matter

[0PsycoDad0]

@sarjil LOL!

Plz rethink again how "only real longterm supply and demand " are distorted by speculative short term profit maximazation philosophies.

[wonderpope]

@sarjil That's something I was wondering about myself. How is the speculating on the prices affecting the prices more than actual supply and demand? It's something they should talk about and explain better.

[kmarinas86]

@sarjil

"now lets see hwo do someone speculate on something, well they do it with money and where do they get money and if speculation equals higher prices, that means there is a higher supply of money."

They get it from the Federal Reserve, and what the fuck does a Federal Reserve have to do with free market capitalism? When derivatives traders fail, they really don't. They get bailed out out by the government directly or through tax cuts. If they didn't, they wouldn't lobby.

[genefire]

@kmarinas86 You do realize that the Federal Reserve Bank isn't Federal but an independently owned private organization where the real owners of it are kept secret. Therefore, it isn't government that is taking our money its just the means to do so. They are all guilty and the people up there in on Capital Hill are all traitors because they know this fact but are scared shitless to speak up about it, fearing retaliation ie DEATH or Political Assassination. This is what no backbone will give you

[InTheSticks1881]

A question for your guest. What would cause a catastphic collaspe of world's derivitives markets? 

[0PsycoDad0]

@InTheSticks1881 baning them?

[InTheSticks1881]

@0PsycoDad0 These things are horribly dangerous. His guest might explain.

[0PsycoDad0]

@InTheSticks1881 Yep but a general ban on them´d cause "a catastphic collaspe"

:D

[joggylol]

wattt

[dangerouslytalented]

...... sometimes you need somebody to point out the fucking obvious.

[DavidAKZ]

@dangerouslytalented +1 . In an increasingly complex world, increasingly required