Ted Butler Quote of the Day 05-21-15

Where do I get off accusing the COMEX and CME of running a crooked shop whether you call it market making or a bookie operation? For nearly 30 years I’ve argued that COMEX silver has facilitated the silver manipulation in violation of the terms of commodity and interstate commerce law; but let me do so today in terms of what constitutes a crooked bookie. If there’s one thing in which no one would disagree, a bookie would be considered unquestionably crooked if he took measures to ensure the outcome of a sporting event, such as paying players in a college basketball game to deliberately shave points in a game or otherwise perform badly enough to affect the outcome. In essence, that’s exactly what the COMEX has encouraged in silver. How so?

First, if a bookie never lost when he took a big line on any sports event that should raise suspicions of rigged games. After all, there is no way a freely contested event could always fall within the odds to the bookie’s favor. Let me stop here and agree that it’s not the COMEX or the CME taking the bets that never lose, but certain favored members, like JPMorgan and other large institutions. The CME provides the infrastructure that enables the real bookies to take the bets of speculators (technical funds) in silver, gold, copper and other commodities. The CME gets kickbacks from everyone who places bets on the COMEX, but sees to it that the most favored member bookies always win.

Data from the federal commodities regulator, in the form of the weekly Commitments of Traders Report (COT) confirm that the biggest bookies, like JPMorgan, have never, to my knowledge, incurred any losses in taking the other side to what the technical funds have ever bet. Some smaller bookies or commercial traders have suffered a rare setback or two over the years, but the biggest silver bookies, like JPMorgan? Never have they lost. That’s the sure sign that the COMEX silver game is fixed –  when the biggest bookies never lose.

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