yes today spec is dead.

but manipulation is very much alive.

that is nothing new.

hell, Washington complained about it 250 years ago. MM fakery bankrupted Duer in 1792 and blew up Manufacturing bank in 1817. Hustlers cornered CBOT's wheat, corn, and oil with the same tricks 60 years later.

it goes on and on.

this is a great book. you might also enjoy this article.

but, theories and history aside, it boils down to this ...

you'd have to ask, what fuel outside of the Oxfam62, actually exists anymore to feed spec? (Pinketty did).

answer?

not much, because the middle class is dying.

• middle-class retailers (Sears, JCP, RS) are dead or dying, at the same time high-end retail is thriving.
• exact same thing in the restaurant business.
• real disposible income has just had the largest year-over-year drop since 1974.
• median houshold income has fallen 5 years in a row
• home ownership has fallen 8 years in a row
• as of last year, 56% of the credit market is considered sub-prime
• consumer credit has risen 22% over the last 3 years
• average per-person credit card debt ~$20,000
• average per-person non-mortgage loan debt ~$35,000
• average per-person mortgage debt ~$200,000
• consumer debt ~$12 trillion -- just in USA
• US national debt soon to pass $20 trillion, interest payments will quadruple by 2025
• US 85 million on medicaid
• US 50 million in poverty, above 15% 3 years in a row. hasn't happened since 1965.
• another US 47 million draw food stamps
• US working-age people actually working: down 3%
• US unemployment claim duration 37.1 weeks, up from 19.8
• 53% of all US workers make less than $30,000/year wages
• one-in-four part-time workers lives below the poverty line
• in the last 5 years, US has spent $4 trillion on welfare programs for its citizens
• US Census Bureau: 49.2% of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month

New York Times can tell you more.

but beware.

the news media (beyond their primary function as Weapons of Mass Distraction) is mostly just rich people paying other rich people to tell what's left of the middle class that in the end, it's all the poor people's fault.

GLAL,

R.