Gary Gensler on CFTC reform

With all due respect to Gary Gensler for being a bright, intelligent, and nice man, he's speaking out of both sides of this mouth. He seems like an ethical, reasonable person, but let's read between the lines. He's worked on Wall Street for 18 years with Goldman Sachs, an investment firm (and now commercial holding bank) with some of the smartest traders and arbitrageurs on the Street. They can influence, if not manipulate markets.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-06/u-s-should-regulate-dealers-cftc-s-gensler-says-update2-.html

His rhetoric of enforcing concentrated position limits in the energy pits (and commodities markets, in general) is shallow, because manipulation of markets with outsized positions is exactly how the big commercial banks profit. The gold and silver COMEX exchange is home to some of the most grotesque short positions in a price suppression scheme obvious to everyone except the blind or captured. In other words, I'll believe the enforcement of CFTC position limits when I see it. Until then, see my disclosure.

Disclosure: long gold and silver mining shares.