Comment Text:
Dear Chairman and Members of the Commission:
For a long time the lack of reasonable position limits in the silver market has resulted in the continued manipulation of that market such that it has functioned not as a price discovery mechanism but rather as a price setting mechanism. This is not in concert with the mission of the commodities exchange.
Specitically, certain entities, with vast resources at their disposal, appear to have been engaged in blatantly illegal price manipulation with the result of such manipulation being a totally distorted, to the downside, price of silver. This does no one good, especially since silver is such a vital industrial component in the high tech and medical industries. The obscenely high short positions of said entities, and their apparent illegal coordination with other such entities, has caused the supply of silver to drop to inherently dangerously low levels and may result in dusruption of a significant portion of this vital segment of our economy.
If this were not bad enough, there is also the appearance of deliberate efforts by said entities to cause harm to their own customers by forcing liquidation of positions at a loss, which they then "buy back" in order to offset their own rapidly depreciating short positions.
This must stop. I implore the members of the commission to take reasonable steps to institute position limits - somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 contracts - that will ensure the reinsittution of the legally mandadated role of the futures exchange of price discovery.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my concerns.
L Carl Floyd
