Comment Text:
Dear Sirs,
For many years the commodities traders, especially ICE, have been sucking the lifeblood out of our economy, with very little oversight or taxes. These people do not have the best interest of our country at heart, they are simply opportunist, and do not care one bit about what they do to our economy or the rest of us.
As an airline pilot my job is affected in that as fuel prices go up, ticket prices go up (or more commonly the company comes after the employees for concessions, or else there is just less left at contract renewal time). If airline ticket prices go up like they are now, travel goes down, and it is a downward spiral not only for the airline industry, but for the economy as a whole.
It is beyond the time when we should allow a small group of uber-wealthy to hold the entire economy of the world hostage just so they can make insane amounts of money for themselves. Airlines can hedge their fuel prices so they can make financial plans, but if investors are never going to sell or take delivery of a commodity, don't allow them to invest in it. At the very least, there should be full transparency of the transactions, a transaction fee, and full taxes paid. We should at the very least be able to know who is profiting from our pain at the grocery store and the gas pump.
