The solution to this problem is really quite simple..... The international community and the US government simply need to adopt a "take delivery" rule for commodities. The rule would simply state that to buy or sell commodities you must actually take possession of your purchase. Commodities are the essentials; food, energy and precious metals, so when investors are unsure about the rest of the economy they retreat to the things they know we all need driving the prices up without adding any real value or taking possession of their purchase, so the additional cost is simply their profit. As it is now a person behind a computer can buy oil at 100 dollars a barrel and because that oil is no longer available the price may jump to 103 dollars a barrel even though the oil has never moved. In my opinion this change would not interfere with free market principals it would simply eliminate artificial inflation of prices on essential goods.
on March 19, 2011, 4:05 pm, in reply to "