gene arensberg maintains that the problem at the comex is not position limits, but the exemptions that tilt the playing field in favor of large banks:

Bullion banks “do it” because they can

In Texas English: To us it seems the CFTC winks at position limits when it comes to a few preferred players. That is why so many now believe that those elite bullion banks consider the COMEX as their own trading playground. It is like allowing JP Morgan to use a battleship and an aircraft carrier against the natives using bows and arrows in the small COMEX silver frog pond.

While one might argue that an entity holding a little more than a quarter of the open interest net short is not dominant or intimidating because that would mean that three-quarters of the market is left, we would argue otherwise. Primarily because under the rules today no one is granted an equally powerful exemption to the position limits for the opposite side of the market, the long side.

Therefore, if JP Morgan wanted to or felt compelled to, it certainly could dominate or intimidate the rest of the market participants simply by taking ever larger net short positions until the real market demand has been artificially and temporarily sated. They are able to by virtue of their ability to claim an exemption to position limits purely because they hold or control metal inventory in excess of the entire market open interest for silver.

No trader on the long side has that “weapon” and everyone knows it. Only a very few bullion banks can use that weapon; they do so with this Commission’s blessing and everyone knows it. There is nothing equitable about that.