Can commodities brokerage firms be held legally responsible?

Question

Responsible for driving the cost of crude oil to the level that the high price of petroleum products has become a factor in limiting the growth of the American economy.

Just think about how much more robust the economy would if the greedy speculators had been limited in how much they could bid the commodity up. Is there a law firm out there that has the guts to file a class action suit. Should the monopolist practices of the oil companies and their distributors be prosecuted under the Sherman Act? No, they're not Oligopilies.

Answer 1

No. The commodity markets are a way to transfer risk from those who don't want it, to those that do. In other words, if you are an oil company and you want to "lock in" a price you're going to get for your oil, that's called "hedging", and its done using the futures markets. Speculators don't set oil prices, they are just attempting to guess what the oil price will be at a certain date. They are taking alot of risk doing this.

And speculators ARE limited in how much they can move prices in a day. It's called "limit up" or "limit down", and is used to keep the markets from moving too suddenly.

Dboy

Answer 2

How would you determine the price of oil? or any commodity for that matter? I have been a farmer all my life and have both benifited and lost because of speculators. Speculators provide a very important service of taking on risk. I can sell my whole years crop on the board at any time at whatever price they are offering. Im not forced to sell but I have that option. Someone has to be there to take the risk and that is the job of the speculators. Why is it people think that markets are only working when prices favor themselves :are low (in favor of buyers) or high (in favor of sellers). How do you propose to allocate scarece resources. The only way people will use less of something is if it costs more

Answer 3

Think about how much more robust our economy would be if frivolous lawsuits were made illegel.

Its amazing how much time, money and resources are wasted because of them

Answer 4

of course no longer. before everything, "exposure" to violent media would not reason crime. that's incorrect to state that Grand theft vehicle or the Texas Chainsaw bloodbath murders somebody. to declare it fairly is to make the absurd declare that this inanimate merchandise particularly controlled the murderer's strikes. it fairly is reminiscent of the absurd argument made by way of advocates of gun "administration" (that could desire to be greater properly termed sufferer disarmament) that weapons kill human beings as a replace of human beings killing human beings. people who adhere to such collectivistic notions are delusional and are purely supporting criminals who're finding for an excuse for the crimes they committed. If Grand theft vehicle is particularly to blame for a individual murdering somebody else, then shouldn't we enable murderers who declare to homicide somebody else because of the fact of Grand theft vehicle flow unfastened because of the fact they are able to't be particularly to blame of the crime, because of the fact the real murderer grow to be particularly Grand theft vehicle. If this grow to be the case, would not the probably result be a huge boost interior the homicide cost. besides the fact that, if people who blame inanimate gadgets for crimes choose to be waiting to hold onto their delusions, then to be consistent, they should choose letting the criminals flow unfastened.

Answer 5

no