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A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold
http://www.prisonplanet.com/a-shuffle-of-aluminum-but-to-banks-pure-gold.html

DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
NY Times
July 21, 2013

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — Hundreds of millions of times a day, thirsty Americans open a can of soda, beer or juice. And every time they do it, they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a shrewd maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars.

The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where a Goldman subsidiary stores customers’ aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again.

This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange, an investigation by The New York Times has found. The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman, which owns the warehouses and charges rent to store the metal. It also increases prices paid by manufacturers and consumers across the country.

Full article @ Link above... see bottom of page

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-23/should-goldman-and-jpmorgan-control-power-plants-warehouses-and-oil-refiners-live-se


"Should Goldman And JPMorgan Control Power Plants, Warehouses And Oil Refiners?" - Live Senate Webcast

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/23/2013 10:01 -0400


No really, that is the actual name of the hearing that the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs will hold today in order to "clarify" why banks like Goldman are currently the owners of the largest aluminum warehouse in the US, or why Goldman, JPM and BlackRock are set to control 80% of all copper stores. The hearing's official name: "Examining Financial Holding Companies: Should Banks Control Power Plants, Warehouses, and Oil Refineries?"
 As a reminder, as we previewed yesterday, it was the Fed which in 2005 granted said banks permission to do just that. That the Senate should even have to debate such an issue shows not only who is really in control, but how many light years behind the curve US Congress is when even grasping how pervasive and insidious the New Normal cartelization by industry monopolists - because a handful of banks controlling the entire commodity logistics chain is nothing short of an monopoly - has become. It also shows that no amount of regulation can possibly prevent the banks creeping take over of all the key "just in time" supply choke points until such time as everything unwinds, yet remains in the control of the banks.
Watch the hearing below.

The prepared testimony by the witnesses can be found here:

• Ms. Saule Omarova [view testimony]
  Associate Professor of Law
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law
  
• Mr. Joshua Rosner [view testimony]
  Managing Director
  Graham Fisher & Company
  
• Mr. Timothy Weiner [view testimony]
  Global Risk Manager
  Commodities/Metals, MillerCoors LLC
  
• Mr. Randall D. Guynn [view testimony]
  Head of Financial Institutions Group