this is from ted butler's latest essay. if there is any doubt as to whether the commodity markets (and financial markets in general) are not only manipulated, but completely corrupt, this should dispel all of those doubts. not only do the banks know about it, and the treasury department knows about it, but congress knows about it, too. this is all the smoking gun anyone should need to send people to prison:

Bear Stearns held the largest concentrated short position in COMEX silver (and gold) futures at the time of its forced merger with JP Morgan in March. That position was not discovered until the publishing of the August Bank Participation Report followed by the October 8 letter from the CFTC to Congressman Miller. Furthermore, Bear Stearns had no legitimate backing to the short silver position, either in actual metal or cash. Otherwise it could have been delivered against or bought back, just as would have happened were it a long position.

The price of silver at the time of Bear Stearns implosion was $20 to $21 an ounce. A free market covering of a concentrated short position of this size would have driven silver prices to the $50 or $100 level and would have exposed the long-term manipulation. Rather than let the free market deal with the required short covering of such an uneconomic and unbacked short position, government authorities arranged to have the short position transferred to JP Morgan. This was undertaken by the U.S. Treasury Department, along with taxpayer guarantees against loss to Morgan worth billions of dollars. This was done, no doubt, to save the financial system from imploding. This was also patently illegal, as it aided and abetted the silver manipulation.

http://news.silverseek.com/TedButler...