Thanks for your comments S

During the crude price spike up to $147 a few years back, we were having some healthy discussion on some energy boards whether the the crude price (which  is a "paper bbls" price which then gets accepted for physical settlement) really reflects underlying physical reality.

My argument was not necessarily, and that having a market that allows "paper offsets/settlement" does not necessarily result in the same "price discovery" as a market that requires physical delivery for settlement for example.

It is a point of enormous confusion IMO for the general public because the apparent economic dogma of price vs demand is so ingrained, without considering the effect of financial leverage and the price/demand for fiat itself

I think I shocked a few people, when I said that if it were up to me I could have popped that mini bubble pronto by either increasing margin drastically, or far more effectively by eliminating paper offsets and requiring physical delivery on all contracts within a couple months. 

The fact that such options were available to our "supposed regulators" and they didn't do it, suggests to me that they did it on purpose, and the high "paper bbls" crude price was intended by TPTB to send a message.

Being retired I don't keep up on particular stats I used to, however as i recall a spot check at one time revealed only about 1.5% of WTI Nymex contracts were settled "physically". Now there apparently is the ICE contract that doesn't even allow physical settlement, just cash settlement.

People should sit back and have a hard think to what extent supposed "price discovery" via "paper markets" such as I've described above may be distorted and divorced from underlying physical reality that it is routinely assumed that they reflect.

Helpfully to me, Alan the Obscure (SIR Alan Greenspin) in retirement had an article in FT which addressed and even helped clarify some issues

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/116114

If one wants , a forwards commodities  market that "requires" physical delivery (no paper offsets) can help address the desires towards price stability. However it's worthwhile considering that from a producers standpoint, the desire for price stability is really a desire to operate with lower capital requirement. In other words arguably if one weren't under-capitalized , just ride out the price swings. (7 rich years, 7 lean years comes to mind ) 

It's also worth considering that with a prolonged period of apparent low volatility (which might be resulting from efforts at maintaining price stability) , people can/will get overconfident/ complacent. If the system is fundamentally flawed in the first place, at some point it will unwind, and a result can be the BIG UNWIND.  Isn't this essentially Nassim Taleb's argument, or am I thinking of someone else? 

Personally, I've a fairly strong preference to taking medicine in small doses, rather than the BIG UNWIND.

It's interesting that the incoming BOE governor Mark Carney, has admitted that we had a credit bubble, and not just a little one, but a "generational" one

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eurorealist/message/56737

To what extent was this might have been a result of our Central Banksters desires/efforts to promote "stability" is an interesting question to ponder

Very Best Regards

b
 It's nice to see some people finally start to address the core issue
 which is fractional reserve system itself.
 
 However I would take issue perhaps with with Godfrey's final comments
 regarding our futures markets. Futures on  margin and highly geared
 with higher derivatives, is problematic as well.
 
 Ah, that'll be the derivatives market then.
 
 I think his point on futures bringing price stability is a good one
 though. The price of food _should_ go up, as agricultural production is
 imperiled by the present national mismanagement. Too many immigrants,
 too much consumption, too much artificial pressure on land prices.
 
 We're selling our agricultural family silver to property developers.
 Their profit comes not from the added value of a house, but from
 securing change of land use. This is really stupid in a country like
 ours.
 
 Don't get me started on wind farms and solar arrays.
 
 S.
 PS: But he ought to lay off the sauce before making speeches though - it
 shows far too much.
 
 S