Comment Text:
CFTC Chairman Gensler:
To be brief, this letter is to call upon you to do your sworn duty, to uphold the rule of law, and to protect innocent citizens from outrageously “rich and powerful” criminals.
You must be fully aware that there is overwhelming evidence of blatant and grievous manipulation in the silver market, made only more obvious by events of this month (May 2011). The COT proves that speculators were not the cause of last month’s dramatic rise in silver prices, and can not be blamed for this month’s equally dramatic crash. The CME refused to raise margin requirements to subdue volatility during last month’s rally, but only raised margin rates when silver prices were falling, thus increasing volatility and benefitting only their member banks, which were holding massive naked short positions. HFT robots were used to artificially drive the price of silver down and force margin calls to further collapse silver prices. In brazen defiance of the laws forbidding manipulation, they succeeded in massively robbing the innocent to further enrich the wealthy. In fact, this decades long manipulation is the real reason the silver market appears to be “volatile”.
Were small private investors “grandfathered” in their existing positions and thus made exempt from the new margin requirements? No! Then why should mega-banks with massive concentrated short positions be “grandfathered” and thus made exempt from reasonable position limits? HFT robots have been banned from other markets, so why permit them to manipulate the silver market, which is much more vulnerable because of its much smaller size? The CME is obviously not self-regulating, but instead seems massively complicit in blatantly illegal manipulation of the silver market for the benefit of its member banks, to the detriment of the private citizens you have sworn to protect. So why does the CFTC continue to abdicate its regulatory responsibility to the CME?
There is no longer any doubt that illegal manipulation is rampant in the silver market. Only one question remains: Will the CFTC fulfill its charter, perform its legitimate purpose, and put an end to this manipulation before more innocent investors are robbed? Does the CFTC perform any legitimate function at all, or is it a sham, a useless waste of taxpayer dollars? Is the CFTC a law enforcement agency, or is it merely an apologist covering for the criminals who are making a public mockery of Federal laws every day?
This issue is far worse than mere robbery. It is, in a very real sense, treason. Our nation is in the midst of a life and death financial crisis, the result of a very real financial war with other nations. The criminals who have artificially depressed the prices of gold and silver for decades have enabled those foreign nations, our enemies in this financial war, to buy up and haul off to foreign shores most of the financial reserves of our nation. Worse, those same criminals have apparently defrauded millions of American investors into believing that they safely own gold and silver bullion which in fact has been sold and shipped to Russia, China, and India, leaving only unbacked paper contracts for gold and silver that can never be delivered because it does not exist. When this immense Ponzi scheme collapses, it will leave our entire nation destitute. Millions of real human beings will suffer the lingering agony of death by starvation because the government regulators they trusted to police the markets have been derelict in their sacred public duty.
Let me tell you that God is real. His Judgment Day will surely come. Eternal punishment will surely be inflicted upon all oath breakers who have the blood of millions on their hands because they had authority to stop this holocaust but refused to do so. The road to Hell is paved with claims of good intentions. A supposedly good purpose is never an excuse for using an evil means to achieve that purpose. Lies and deceit are Satan’s tools. No one can do God’s work by using Satan’s tools. No one can do any good by covering up for, excusing, enabling, or supporting thieves and robbers.
I call upon you to immediately use your authority to put an end to all of this blatant, brazen manipulation and fraud in the silver market.
1) Immediately impose a 1500 contract position limit, with no exceptions and no “grandfathering”.
2) Enforce position limits intraday on a moment by moment basis and not just at the end of a trading period.
3) Forbid HFT robots and other similar manipulation tools from trading in the market.
4) Strip the CME of the power to set margins and of all other “self-regulatory” functions.
5) Require all margin rate changes to be announced 3 months before becoming effective.
6) Forbid banks owning COMEX clearing vaults from trading in the PM futures market.
7) Fully audit all COMEX clearing vaults and CME members as frequently as possible.
Sincerely;
John Lewis
