Ruthless and Excessive

 by Art Woolf

It is long past time to drive ruthless energy speculators out of the market.

---Representative Peter Welch, commenting on a bill he is co-sponsoring.

Does this mean that the plain vanilla (non-ruthless) energy speculators will be allowed to continue operating and won't be driven out of the market?  How does Rep. Welch, or the federal regulatory agencies, differentiate between the ruthless and the benign speculators?

According to the AP story, the bill,

The Energy Markets Manipulation Prevention Act (H.R. 2869), directs the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use its existing authority to investigate excessive speculation in energy markets and empowers the CFTC with additional regulatory authority.

I assume, then, that non-excessive speculation won't be investigated.  But how is the CFTC supposed to differentiate between excessive and non-excessive speculation?

Comments

[Lazarus Long]

Welch has gotten on board the Bernie Rhetoric Express. Plenty of class envy for everyone, no waiting.

[Ed G. Mann]

The federal regulatory agencies differentiate between the ruthless and the benign speculators by examining their voter enrollment. A (D), (P) or (L) produces a benign label provided proper emoluments are forthcoming at primary time.

[Chris Campion]

I suspect Welch won't find speculating to be ruthless when his constituencies' 401k values increase as stock prices go up due to (wait for it) - speculation. Will he label people who buy stock in GE "ruthless", because they're hoping to gain from their investments?

I'll be surprised if Welch isn't photographed behind a barrel of oil that has horns glued to the top of it.

[Milton Eaton]

Do you think Peter understands that anyone who buys insurance or heating oil at a fixed price next winter is a speculator. The "bet" is that avoiding the cost of an accident or storm, at the cost of insurance is worthwhile. In the case of heating oil, the bet is prices will rise this year. When we guess wrong we pay - like last year.