Warren Pollock: Open Letter to the CME

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Open Letter to the CME
To: Terrence A Duffy, Chairman CME Group

As illustrated by the failure of MF Global, I am of the opinion that, the CME has not met its basic obligations to the marketplace as a “public fiduciary.”

Our society depends on “basic finance” to provide “utility functions” such as banking, hedging, insurance, and/or capital formation. Presently, we have an “innovative system” that degrades the integrity needed for “basic finance” to perform as required in a well-structured economy.

Worse yet, our “innovative” financial system impedes the effectiveness of the greater “physical economy.” The physical economy is all those individuals and entities tasked with meeting actual need. The physical economy consists of many of your customers including farmers, manufacturers and electric companies.

Our society needs people working in the physical world to create jobs more desperately than it needs the continuity of the CME. Must we endure another market catastrophe to figure this out?

The 2008 bailouts defined “moral hazard,” as the socialization of losses due to over-leverage. MF Global consumers are currently subsidizing losses attributable to over-leverage and “innovation.” Perhaps small percentage moves in speculation rationalized an internal choice between corporate survival and the sanctity of customer funds. Complexity has been specifically designed by “modern finance” to intentionally allow over-leverage leading to out sized profits and reactively-subsidized losses.

The word, “theft,” comes to mind.

I believe that, the products traded by your member firms, at the CME exchange and elsewhere, well exceed the capacity of the monetary system to cover relatively small percentage losses or speculative miscalculations. Clearing OTC derivatives on an exchange does not, and will not, correct the problem.

With repeal of Glass Steagall, and the conversion of mutual companies to publicly traded entities, meaningful regulation has proved to be politically impossible to recapture. The solution therefore resides in simplification from “innovative” towards “basic” finance.

Presently, I would urge you to make MF Global customers whole as a perquisite to market reform towards a “utility function.” More than just the continuity of the CME may be at stake.

Warren E. Pollock

Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1942 Thanksgiving Proclamation - Kipling's Caution to the Empire

"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord."

Across the uncertain ways of space and time our hearts echo those words, for the days are with us again when, at the gathering of the harvest, we solemnly express our dependence upon Almighty God.

The final months of this year, now almost spent, find our Republic and the nations joined with it waging a battle on many fronts for the preservation of liberty.

In giving thanks for the greatest harvest in the history of our nation, we who plant and reap can well resolve that in the year to come we will do all in our power to pass that milestone; for by our labors in the fields we can share some part of the sacrifice with our brothers and sons who wear the uniform of the United States.

It is fitting that we recall now the reverent words of George Washington, "Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection," and that every American in his own way lift his voice to Heaven.

I recommend that all of us bear in mind this great Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me I the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Inspired with faith and courage by these words, let us turn again to the work that confronts us in this time of national emergency : in the armed services and the merchant marine; in factories and offices; on farms and in the mines; on highways, railways and airways; in other places of public service to the Nation; and in our homes.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, do hereby invite the attention of the people to the joint resolution of Congress approved December 26, 1941, which designates the fourth Thursday in November of each year as thanksgiving Day’ and I request that both Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1942, and New Year’s Day, January 1, 1943, be observed in prayer, publicly and privately.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this eleventh day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-seventh.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Rudyard Kipling, 1897

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Post Option Expiration Gut Check Doesn't Stick

US stock markets went out on their laws, roiled by a failed bond auction in Germany.

Gold and silver received their traditional post option expiration smackdown, designed to pry any new futures position out of the hands of any specs who happened to have held in-the-money calls after yesterday.

The US will be closed tomorrow, and staffed by junior employees on Friday. So eyes will be on the overseas markets.

Pleasant holiday to the Yanks.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Out on the Lows

A failed bond auction in Germany cast a pall over the holiday markets in the US.

Stocks went out on their lows in thin trading.