julian d. w. phillips thinks the government will move to prevent manipulation of the silver and gold markets. but i think that is just wishful thinking, since the institutions that have profited from the manipulation have substantial influence over the government. they may take a look at oil and the energy complex, but the regulators will have to be dragged kicking and screaming before they do anything about gold and silver:

For many years, accusations that JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs have wide open and huge, exposed short positions against gold and silver, have been made by groups like GATA and others.In the United States these four banks control over 90% of the derivatives market.They too will be subject to "substantial supervision and regulations," including conservative capital requirements and strong business conduct standards.U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is set to propose giving securities and futures regulators authority to police the over-the-counter derivatives market.Discussions on these regulations begin next week.

Oil market regulation is the first target so as to keep oil prices free from speculatively higher prices.Other markets, including Gold & Silver, are being targeted for regulation at the same time.The Secretary is moving to address these accusations and ensure that the markets involved are managed in an orderly, regulated manner.On the surface it appears that these regulations will simply affect the markets from the day of the enforcement of the regulations and thereafter, but it is more likely that actions to clean up their acts will start much earlier, if there has been market manipulation?

Mr. Geithner stated, “Our plan will help prevent market manipulation, fraud and other abuses by providing full information to regulators about activity in the OTC derivative markets.”The Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees securities, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which supervises futures markets, would have authority to impose recordkeeping and reporting requirements on the derivatives.This plan is geared toward removing counterparty risks by requiring greater use of central counterparties and imposing stricter capital standards on participants.If Mr. Geithner’s staff succeeds in bringing true transparency to these markets, either the charges of manipulation will be dropped or the manipulation will be halted!

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