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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Fwd: [New post] How The Gas Prices Are Manipulated By The Koch Brothers And Other Wall Street Players

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From: Addicting Info
Date: Sunday, February 26, 2012
Subject: [New post] How The Gas Prices Are Manipulated By The Koch Brothers And Other Wall Street Players
To: majors.bruce@gmail.com

New post on Addicting Info

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How The Gas Prices Are Manipulated By The Koch Brothers And Other Wall Street Players

by Emine Dilek

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Why are gas prices surging to levels unseen since the 2008 oil spike while the oil companies reporting record profits? Much of the problem is actually created by Wall Street traders here in the USA who gamble on oil prices and powerful multinational companies that manipulate the supply and demand by stockpiling oil when the price is low and expected to rise in the near future. And yes, so far this practice is perfectly legal.

Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that regulates commodity futures and option trading in the United States, says a very few number of players control too much of the market, allowing them to push the price of gas higher and higher. The American public knows very little about the oil speculation industry because a conservative majority on the CFTC has refused to implement the mandates from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to curb abuses and provide transparency.

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One of those players is the petrochemical multinational Koch Industries. Although oil extraction is a small part of the Koch's oil business the company has major control over every other part of the market as its core venture is shipping crude oil, refining it, distributing it to retailers, then speculating on the future price. The company actively trades about 50 types of crude oil around the world and has trading operations in London, Geneva, Singapore, Houston, New York, Wichita, Rotterdam, and Mumbai.

When future oil prices are expected to rise--which means when demand is expected to exceed supply--big banks and companies like Koch start buying up oil and storing it in massive containers both on land and offshore to lock in the oil for sale later at a set price.

In 2008, Fortune magazine reported that Koch Supply & Trading leased the 2-million-barrel-capacity Dubai Titan that year, the third supertanker the company has leased, because the demand for oil storage was so high that Koch and other big investors who could not secure storage on land have resorted to leasing supertankers and using them as floating oil tanks.

Koch was one of the companies that lobbied aggressively against President's financial reform bill-–mentioned above--particularly on provisions related to transparency in the energy trading market. Representatives from the company's lobbying firm even argued that moderate levels of the toxic chemical dioxin should not be designated as a cancer risk for humans at an EPA hearing last summer.

When we look at the money Koch has spent on lobbying to influence laws and regulations in Washington in recent years--from $857,000 in 2004 to $20 million in 2008--it is not surprising that Koch's lobbyists and officials have successfully fought to preserve the industry's tax breaks and credits, and defeated all attempts by Congress to regulate environmental hazards and transparency requirements.

At the beginning of February 2012, Koch and about 300 other-–invitation only--individuals pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections at a private meeting in California. And now at the end of February 2012 we are seeing a distinctive rise in the oil prices at the pump. I will not speculate any further as I have the utmost trust in the intelligence of our readers to connect the dots and fill in the blanks.

Emine Dilek | February 26, 2012 at 8:51 am | Tags: CFTC, Commodity Futures Trading Commissio, Dodd-Frank, gas and oil prices, Koch brothers, Koch Industries, Obama, oil speculators | Categories: Barack Obama, Current Issues, Election 2012, Information and Resources | URL: http://wp.me/p1w9KV-9P6

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Another day. Another apology.

From the Ottawa Sun:

Qur'an burning contradictions

John-Robson
By John Robson ,Parliamentary Bureau

On hearing that American soldiers had burned some Korans, Afghans
erupted into randomly murderous rage. In the ensuing stone-throwing,
tire- and flag-burning and infidel-denouncing some 14 people have been
killed so far, mostly Muslim Afghans. What's that about?

It's hard to sympathize with whoever was charged with disposing of
Qur'ans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan and decided a public
bonfire would be nicely inconspicuous. And yes, it feeds into the
stereotype of Americans oblivious to other cultures. But that said,
let me pose a few questions to the kinder, gentler multiculturalists
out there.

Barack Obama predictably groveled in a three-page written apology to
Afghan President Hamid Karzai because some idiots burned Qur'ans
thought to have been used by Taliban prisoners to exchange messages.
So will Karzai send Obama a written apology because an Afghan soldier
shot two American soldiers who weren't involved in the incident?

Or for Taliban desecrating Qur'ans by writing murder plots in them? Or
for his countrymen killing nearly 2,000 Americans and more than 150
Canadians because we came to save them from the Taliban we armed to
save them from Communism, then tried to insist that girls should go to
school without being murdered, raped or disfigured with acid?

Why do we act as if we agreed that it was worse to destroy a book than
a person? If an Afghan burned a Bible in America, or Afghanistan, how
many people would die in the ensuing riots? None, obviously.

If most Afghans found a Bible and recognized it they almost certainly
would destroy it. Quite possibly along with its owner. We don't hear
about that stuff, though, do we?

Has the President of Iraq apologized because Christians are being
murdered, terrorized and driven out of that country? Has the Saudi
King to whom Obama infamously bowed apologized because it's illegal to
build a church in his country or conduct a public Christian worship
service? Or because his predecessor King Faisal told anyone who'd
listen that Jews murdered gentiles to consume their blood on Passover?

Or, if kings are off limits, how about the Saudi imam who, in a
government mosque, reproached Palestinians for failing to enslave
Jewish women? Still waiting for that apology too. A Saudi who burned a
Bible would be lucky if they only went to jail ... for having had a
Bible.

As founding king Ibn Saud's grandfather once explained, he would
haggle over politics. "But when the question is one of religion, we
kill everybody." In Afghanistan that apparently includes not only
innocent non-Muslims, but innocent Muslims as well.

If it were an isolated incident ... I'd still be shaking my head. But
of course it isn't. Last year at least 24 Afghans were killed after an
American preacher burned a Qur'an in Florida. After. But not because.
As newspapers casually noted Friday, terrorists in Iraq killed dozens
of their fellow Muslims on Thursday alone, without a desecrated Qur'an
or any other excuse.

Then there were the infamous Danish cartoons, taken on a provocative
tour of the Middle East by Danish imams complete with added
inflammatory bogus images. In the ensuing riots dozens who were
neither Danish, nor cartoonists, nor Christians, Jews, atheists,
Buddhists, Hindus, or any other form of stinking infidel were killed
because ... uh ... why were they killed?

At the risk of ruffling Justin Trudeau's hair, I find this response
barbaric. By all means be offended if someone clumsily insults your
religion. But exhibit some self-control. Express dismay; request an
apology; ostracize the offender. But don't try to kill him, let alone
get so crazy you kill someone who is not only innocent of the original
offense but shares your outrage.

If you do, don't expect me to pretend it's not disgusting.

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JP Missing Identy cards

Dear Friends,

LOST AND FOUND

Four identity cards of University of Karachi department of Microbiology were stolen with a pouch at Paposh nagar Karachi by name of Ammara Usman daughter of Muhammad Usman, if anyone could find it please call on the following number for I will be very thankfull.

if found please Contact number: 0333-2339792

Many thanks