"The maneuvering in markets for oil, wheat, cotton, coffee, and more have brought billions in profits to investment banks like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, while forcing consumers to pay more every time they fill up a gas tank, flick on a light switch, open a beer, or buy a cellphone.... Hundreds of millions of times a day, thirsty Americans open a can of soda, beer, or juice. And every time they do it, they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a shrewd maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars."
All ENABLED by YOUR GOVERNMENT, Americans.
Of course, I'm sure you don't mind kicking a few more cents so banks can continue to make record profits in this golden age.
"Aluminum shuffle is pure gold to the banks" by David Kocieniewski | New York Times, July 21, 2013
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — Hundreds of millions of times a day, thirsty Americans open a can of soda, beer, or juice. And every time they do it, they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a shrewd maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars.
The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where Goldman stores customers’ aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again.
The waste of fuel can't be helping the greenhouse gas emissions.
This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange, an investigation by the New York Times has found.
The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman, which owns the warehouses and charges rent to store the metal. It also increases prices paid by manufacturers and consumers across the country.
As if all the fraud and looting wasn't bad enough.... AAAAARRRRGGGGHH!!!!!!!!!!
Tyler Clay, a forklift driver who worked at the Goldman warehouses until early this year, called the process “a merry-go-round of metal.”
Only a tenth of a cent or so of an aluminum can’s purchase price can be traced back to the strategy. But multiply that amount by the 90 billion aluminum cans consumed in the United States each year — and add the tons of aluminum used in things like cars, electronics, and house siding — and the efforts by Goldman and other financial players has cost American consumers more than $5 billion over the last three years, say former industry executives, analysts, and consultants.
The inflated aluminum pricing is just one way that Wall Street is flexing its financial muscle and capitalizing on loosened federal regulations to sway a variety of commodities markets, according to financial records, regulatory documents, and interviews with people involved in the activities.
After I was told they had been tightened up (at least on paper).
But hey, what's one more lie from the ma$$ media, huh?
The maneuvering in markets for oil, wheat, cotton, coffee, and more have brought billions in profits to investment banks like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, while forcing consumers to pay more every time they fill up a gas tank, flick on a light switch, open a beer, or buy a cellphone.
In the last year, federal authorities have accused three banks, including JPMorgan, of rigging electricity prices, and last week JPMorgan was trying to reach a settlement that could cost it $500 million.
Which is like two weeks worth of profits. And how many billions have they made of this looting scheme?
Using special exemptions granted by the Federal Reserve Bank and relaxed regulations approved by Congress, the banks have bought huge swaths of infrastructure used to store commodities and deliver them to consumers — from pipelines and refineries in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas; to fleets of more than 100 double-hulled oil tankers at sea around the globe; to companies that control operations at major ports like Oakland and Seattle.
In the case of aluminum, Goldman bought Metro International Trade Services, one of the country’s biggest traders of the metal. More than a quarter of the supply of aluminum available on the market is kept in the company’s Detroit-area warehouses.
Related: Detroit Declares Bankruptcy
Before Goldman bought Metro International three years ago, warehouse customers used to wait an average of six weeks for their purchases to be located, retrieved by forklift, and delivered to factories. But now that Goldman owns the company, the wait has grown more than 20-fold — to more than 16 months, according to industry records.
You know the rea$on why, right?
Longer waits might be written off as an aggravation, but they also make aluminum more expensive nearly everywhere in the country because of the arcane formula used to determine the cost of the metal on the spot market. The delays are so acute that Coca-Cola and many other manufacturers avoid buying aluminum stored here. Nonetheless, they still pay the higher price.
And who benefits?
Goldman Sachs says it complies with all industry standards, which are set by the London Metal Exchange, and there is no suggestion that these activities violate any laws or regulations. But until last year, the exchange was owned by members, including Goldman, Barclays, and Citigroup.
So we have another LIBOR on our hands, huh?
Metro International, which declined to comment, in the past has attributed the delays to logistical problems, including a shortage of trucks and forklift drivers, and the administrative complications of tracking so much metal.
Translation: they lied!
But interviews with several current and former Metro employees, as well as someone with direct knowledge of the company’s business plan, suggest the longer waiting times are part of the company’s strategy and help Goldman increase its profits from the warehouses.
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It looks CRIMINAL to me!
I really hate to say it, but it does look like it is time to kill all the bankers.
