Comment Text:
I, Marie Kopin, live in the Central Michigan area where long distances are often involved for destinations such as churches, big store shopping, seeing relatives, going to school and going to work. My family and friends feel the effects of every increase in the price of gas. Prices are going sky high because of gas prices. For example, my housekeeper keeps raising her pay because it costs more and more for her to travel to my place; grocery prices are literally 'out of sight' for many items, more than double than last year at this time, and everything up here is increasing in price because of shipping it up here. Therefore, I urge you to curb excessive gambling in commodities markets like food and oil.
While many factors contribute to today’s highly volatile commodity prices, it is clear that excessive speculation is partially responsible, as shown in dozens of studies by respected institutions such as Princeton, MIT, Petersen Institute, University of London, Yale, the United Nations and the U.S. Senate. Back in high school, they called it 'daisy chaining'. Items get sold back and forth and never even leave the train yards or trucks, while prices increase many fold. Or, worse yet, items are not even produced while speculators keep bidding and raising prices.
Speculation imposes financial hardships on families around the country. These sudden rises in gas and food prices force us to make difficult decisions and sacrifices and create depression and anger, especially among the unemployed.
Please put in place effective position limits rules, and do not allow them to be undermined by exemptions or exceptions, or allow Wall Street gamblers to escape them. Please vote for middle class and poor citizens, not for the very small percentage of people who hold half of our USA wealth. I think that the CFTC should not allow exemptions or exceptions that undermine the rule, and should not give any exemptions to banks, hedge funds or other financial players. And please remember, corporations are not people.
Thank you for your consideration.
Dr. Marie Kopin
