Comment Text:
Like many Americans, much of my savings was lost due to the financial crisis of 2008 ... my retirement funds, my children's college funds, and my general investment accounts. In the wake of that crisis, I applaud the efforts of the Dodd-Frank Act to curb excessive future speculation (specifically on food and energy commodities).
It is my understanding at this time that you are considering how to implement rules regarding aggregate speculative position limits meant to prevent excessive speculation that would affect our food and energy prices.
As an average citizen whose wealth and children's future ability to attend college will be affected by this decision, I am writing to urge you to implement the speculation limits as proposed by the Dodd-Frank Act and provide exemptions from these limits only to those who deal in physical commodities and use markets to hedge commercial risk in those commodities. Banks, hedge funds, private equity and all passive investors in commodities should not be deemed as exempt from these limits, particularly for hedging price directional bets such as commodity index swaps, Exchange Traded Funds and Exchange Traded Notes. Exempting financial speculators from these limits would circumvent the spirit of the law and put at risk the wealth carefully accumulated by millions of Americans.
Sincerely,
Greg King
Minneapolis, Minnesota
