.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear W.L.:

According to many very knowledgeable observers, it’s the same folks who designed, securitized and sold trillions of dollars of subprime mortgage securities and intentionally misrepresented their safety. These are also the same people who designed, securitized and sold trillions of dollars of exotic derivatives that almost collapsed our economy like a house of cards. And these are the same corporations to whom our government gave hundreds of billions of dollars because they were too big to fail — and then paid key employees tens of billions of dollars in “good boy” bonuses.

As a result of the 2008-2009 worldwide recession, consumption of oil declined from a high of 87 million barrels a day to 82 million barrels a day by the fall of 2009, a decline of 5.7 percent. This has been a bad year for most economies, especially ours, in which unemployment has now reached double digits. However, production from OPEC and other oil-producing regions has remained stable, giving the United States an opportunity to accumulate huge surpluses of crude oil, natural gas, diesel, jet and automobile fuel. Yet oil, which was trading at $35 a barrel in January 2009, is now trading at $80 a barrel.

So you ask: “Who is responsible, and how is this possible?” Well, money has no borders and scoffs at patriotism. Money corrupts, sometimes with a self-destructive arrogance, and there is a certain breed of capitalists to whom this is an aphrodisiac. They are the pimps who run the large financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., Citigroup, etc. Avarice, greed and excessive hubris are their alma mater and foul these hoodlums like clouds of choking cigarette smoke.

I’m told by knowledgeable insiders that these financial firms (other firms, too) conspired with one another to bid up the price of oil. And that their combined trillions of dollars of leverage can move crude oil from $40 a barrel to $45 in a single day. I’m told that these financial firms buy oil futures at $60 a barrel and trade them at $62 to a partner firm that sells the same contract to another financial firm at $64. In the trading process, 100 million barrels of crude in a week can generate $400 million in profits.

So that’s how the price of crude can leap from $35 a barrel to more than $80 a barrel in 10 months, socking it to the consumer. A society where 41 percent of the economy is controlled by money center brokerages and banks is a society in which capitalism has run amok. In this milieu, the laws of supply and demand, physics and common sense are meaningless, so manipulation by conspiracy becomes the norm.

Perhaps the administration should break up the huge money center brokerages and banks to mitigate their destructive influence on the economy.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 8303, Largo, Fla. 33775 or e-mail him at mjberko@yahoo.com. © 2009 Creators.Com