Commodity Shortage Disaster in the Making

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

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The government is planning on doing something about those pesky speculators that keep driving up the price of commodities. Even though this has been tried thousands of times previously and has NEVER worked - and even though we have the example of the complete economic collapse in Eastern Europe that this behavior caused - and even though last falls ban on short selling of financial stocks didn't prevent their prices from falling off a cliff - this will not discourage the U.S government from creating a new mess in the commodities markets. It is true that some people never learn and it appears that many of them get elected to political office or work as regulators.

The CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) announced yesterday that it will hold hearings this month and next to explore the need for government-imposed restrictions on speculative trading in oil, gas and other energy markets (even though natural gas is at a multi-year low and oil is 60% off the high it reached one year ago). The CFTC can also set restrictions for other commodities as well and can change margin requirements for trading (and this is also being bandied about). ETFs, which are used as investing vehicles by small investors, were especially singled out for restrictions.

It has been pointed out that insiders like the floor traders and commodity trading firms in Chicago are unlikely to be impacted by the CFTC proposals that are supposed to be protecting the public and not the industry. For those not paying attention, commodity prices nose-dived before this news was released, not after. Probably just an amazing coincidence and not the insiders getting the word before the public (if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd like to sell you). It is quite clear that if anyone gets disadvantaged from changes in CFTC policy, it is meant to be the small investor who relies on ETFs and not the big players.

Political pressure is being put on the CFTC by senators Bernie Sanders, who is a Socialist even though the media describes him as an independent and Bryon Dorgan, the biggest economic ignoramus in congress -and that's really saying something, and congressman Bart Stupak from Michigan who wants lower oil and gas prices to protect the state's auto industry (or what's left of it). Attempts to control oil and gas prices were last tried in the U.S. in the early 1970s when Nixon imposed wage and price controls. Oil producer profits were cut to such an extent that U.S. oil production dropped substantially. The U.S. which had been self-sufficient in oil up to 1969, then became extremely dependent on foreign sources. OPEC was then blamed for the shortages and big price hikes that followed, but it was U.S. policy that made it all possible. Did the government blame itself? Of course not! It was those rapacious speculators and evil foreign forces that made it happen. Historical analysis of past inflations shows very clearly that without exception speculators and foreigners are blamed for inflationary price rises that originate with government printing too much currency and then attempting to limit the mess it engendered with price controls. This scenario has played out hundreds, if not thousands, of times. This time will be no different.

The forces of economics can no more be banned by government action than gravity can be outlawed. So what is likely to happen? Since commodity trading is not limited to the U.S, but large active markets exist in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and up and coming Dubai, expect trading to increasingly move to those places. Dubai in fact wants to capture more commodity trading business. When U.S. policy hands this to them on a silver platter, except to hear how those scheming Arabs stole this activity from the U.S. ETFs also exist in the English, Canadian and Australian markets (and some others), that American small investors can get access to. Investment money will simply move out of the U.S. - at least until the government tries to impose capital flow restrictions to prevent this (expect this at some point in the future).

If prices of oil are held down temporarily (and it will only be temporarily) by CFTC restrictions or other government action (yes, this will be coming) you can expect shortages in gasoline, heating oil and diesel. There were long gas lines in the 1970s for good reason. While people had to wait a long time and sometimes could only gets a limited quantity of gas, they still got some gas. Heating oil was in danger of running out in certain places - like Minnesota - as well. Things could get much worse this time, since shortages are the only thing you can rely on from price controls. Even worse, prices always wind up higher than they would have been if the price controls had never been imposed in the first place.

One more piece of advice. In case the U.S. government does decide to outlaw gravity and some politician tells you it's safe to jump off the capital building. Make sure you reply, "You first".

NEXT: Government Price Controls in the Making

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer,New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21


This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.