A Secret and Illegal Agreement

There certainly doesn’t seem to be a shortage of outrageous behavior recently, when looking at reports of an older Asian-American doctor being dragged off a plane. But where visual images cap a sense of outrage that has crept into the flying experience, sometimes bad behavior is not always captured on phone cameras. Sometimes you have to step back and think about things by reading and considering all the facts.
Last week, I asked you to consider writing to the CFTC and your elected representatives yet again in regard to a letter I sent to the two key appointees who are primarily responsible for guarding against market manipulation. In the letter, I highlighted the case for a silver manipulation. Today, I would like to point out just how upside down this whole thing has become.
The CFTC’s main purpose or primary mission is to prevent manipulation and ensure market integrity. Neither you nor I chose this as the agency’s prime mission, it was assigned by congress and commodity law. While not large by government standards, the CFTC is allocated more than $250 million annually and employs around 700 full time employees to fulfill its mission against manipulation and fraud in the regulated commodity markets.
To advance its prime mission, the agency actively solicits tips from the public in its quest to uncover wrongdoing and has instituted a formal whistleblower program designed to reward those who step forward to report wrongdoing. Sounds like a fairly formidable effort against market manipulation and fraud – a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars annually, 700 full time employees and programs designed to generate tips and complaints from the public. One might think with resources like that, market manipulation wouldn’t stand a chance. Think again.
Those raising the allegations of a silver manipulation, like myself and others, have, basically, zero funds and zero employees budgeted towards raising the allegations of a silver manipulation. The allegations are driven simply by observing price action and COMEX positioning changes, as reported in the COT reports. Despite the programs designed to encourage and generate tips from the public, the record indicates that the CFTC has become downright hostile and unwilling to openly discuss any allegations of a COMEX silver manipulation, even though the allegations are based upon Commission data. Talk about upside down.

This post was published at SilverSeek on April 20, 2017 –.