Comment Text:
James Moritz
108 Atterbury Rd
Monroeville, PA 15146-4802
March 24, 2011
David Stawick
Secretary, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Three Lafayette Centre
1155 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20581
Dear Mr. Stawick:
Excessive speculation hurt the economy in 2008 and, once again, is harming the economy in 2011. According to data recently released by the Commission, speculators have raised their positions in energy markets by
64 percent compared to June 2008, bringing speculation to the highest level on record.
Speculation has taken over from supply and demand as the driver of price.
Speculators NEVER take delivery of any oil; their only intent is to make money on the transaction with absolutely no value-added.
I ask you to do the following to end this disservice to the American
people: • support the Commission's immediate adoption of spot-month speculative position limits; • urge the Commission to adopt effective back-month levels that will accomplish the legislative purpose of curbing excessive speculation; • urge the Commission to adopt single-month limits that are no higher than two-thirds of the all-months-combined levels; • urge the Commission immediately to adopt a position-accountability regime for the nonspot months in place of its proposed position-visibility rule; and • urge the Commission to adopt lower speculative position limits for passive, long-only traders.
Time is of the essence.
Sincerely,
James Moritz
412 373-7364
