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Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

paulkrugman.substack.com

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Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#211

Post by jmyeet »

This topic keeps coming up so I'll summarize some points I've alrady made [1].

1. The size of this market manipulation can be measured by the gap between spot or physical oil prices (which generally aren't public) and the future or paper price [2]. Historically these have tracked each other so close it was a non-issue. Now it's a huge issue;

2. Part of the gap can be attributed to the financial markets being in denial [3] and the market itself being in extreme backwardation. That simply means the spot price is significantly higher than the future price. It indiciates some sort of market dysfunction (or delusion). We saw this in the silver market last year.

All credit for this wanton insider trading goes back to the Supreme Court inventing presidential immunity out of thin air [4][5] and a Congress that has completely abdicated any kind of constitutional responsibility.

You might think there might be some kind of criminal prosecution or at least investigation by government agencies of the players involved. Well, sycophants and crackpots have put in charge of those agencies (eg Michael Selig of the CFTC [6]).

And if that fails, just buy a pardon [7].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47955623

[2]: https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-interpret-wartime-oil-pric...

[3]: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-Reality-Finall...

[4]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/supreme-co...

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States

[6]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/12/michael-selig-predi...

[7]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/donald-trumps-...

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#213

Post by breppp »

leonidasrup wrote: post #64
Havoc wrote: post #43

The worst part is the sharp changes in the price being traded aren't achieved by magic but rather with guns & actual human suffering

Someone has taken the Rothschild motto too literally: “Buy when there is blood in the streets, even if it is your own.” — Baron Nathan Rothschild https://medium.com/@douglasp.schwartz/buy-when-theres-blood-...

[flagged]

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#214

Post by snovv_crash »

stevenwoo wrote: post #127
api wrote: post #72

I remember one take I had in 2024 after the election. We're all familiar with some of the "defund the police" experiments that went too far in places like Portland and San Francisco and resulted in things like epidemics of casual shoplifting. Well, what we just did is basically the white collar crime equivalent. We now have a wide open free for all for all forms of white collar crime. You can just insider trade, laun…

The whole retail theft epidemic (and the ensuing Union Pacific cargo theft ) was a corporate scam perpetrated by local news and law enforcement PR departments.

I heard it was organised crime loading up on stuff it could sell at informal locations.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#215

Post by pjc50 »

lbriner wrote: post #192

The scary thing for me is that in the US, the President and by extension the DoJ has a lot of power to override any legal protections that exist in most countries. In the UK, the Prime Minister or the Home Office cannot ring up any of the enforcement agencies and tell them to drop a corruption case - the law is supposed to apply to everyone. In the US, for some reason, if you are a danger to the President's friends,…

> In the UK, the Prime Minister or the Home Office cannot ring up any of the enforcement agencies and tell them to drop a corruption case - the law is supposed to apply to everyone.

I would not rely on that. The Attorney General can withdraw prosecutions, and is a government minister (although not technically in the Cabinet).

Parliament can do anything, it just usually doesn't. This includes retroactive legislation to decide that you did not win a lawsuit that you actually did win (Reilly and Wilson v Secretary of State, although that itself was eventually ruled unlawful). The infinite delay of Bloody Sunday prosecutions is probably the biggest example in UK discourse.

No country is safe from this if enough authoritarian-collaborator political appointments are made (such as happened to SCOTUS). It should really be viewed as a form of coup.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#217

Post by deepsun »

sailfast wrote: post #99
5o3lad wrote: post #95

The corruption is a welcome byproduct of Trump's role as a Reality TV host who has to keep the conflict going and Hormuz closed. The fact that he is talking peace again now is just because he cannot attack before the meeting with Xi in mid May. The real issue is US energy dominance and control of the sea routes. Which Krugman does not mention, because the effort is bipartisan and he probably likes it. The US literall…

I think you’re giving Trump too much credit. If he starts firing shots again the war is illegal. The 60 day window is over. He has no appropriated money to fight the war, no public support, and no way out. There is no chess game here. It’s not even checkers. He is just trying to not have to admit he made a mistake - just with billions of dollars and lives on the line. Such sad.

No mistakes, public largely forgot about Epstein files with the Iran war.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#218

Post by zzrrt »

bobthepanda wrote: post #187
kelvinjps10 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe at least the people that put them in power (voters). But being honest, it wasn't just voters.

Nonvoters would win the Electoral College if that was a thing.

Hot take: if <80% of eligible voters show up, nobody wins and the same politicians stay in office for another year, even if term limits would normally apply.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#219

Post by ericmay »

fabian2k wrote: post #114
ericmay wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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And what did the attack accomplish? It did degrade the Iranian military somewhat. It killed the Iranian leadership, but odds are the replacements are simply even more radical and opposed to the US. The nuclear material is probably still buried in the facilities attacked in the earlier strikes (not the war this year). That is a delay on any potential nuclear weapons development, but not more than that. It showed Iran…

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Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#220

Post by mothballed »

pjc50 wrote: post #176
david-gpu wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point. At the same time, when he broke his electoral promise to stop foreign interfefence and kidnapped Maduro, his voter base did not turn against him. That seems to have emboldened him to pursue more military actions abroad. Now let's see how long until he invades Cuba, and how his voters will react.

God, they're going to love that - provided it's a swift victory, of course. They've wanted that since the Bay of Pigs.

I wonder what Cuba would look like now if Batista had never been overthrown. That's probably on par with how it would have worked if US meddling were more successful. I can't say I know it would be worse.
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