by Deb Cupples | Of course investment bankers want to speculatively trade on oil. Given the buckets of cash they make, the cost of a gallon of gas is the least of their worries. Not even the cost of jet fuel worries them, which they'd likely just pass on to clients (and ultimately, perhaps, to ordinary investors). The Washington Post reports:
"Wall Street banks and other large financial institutions have begun putting intense pressure on Congress to hold off on legislation that would curtail their highly profitable trading in oil contracts -- an activity increasingly blamed by lawmakers for driving up prices to record levels....
"In a pair of lengthy and sometimes testy closed-door sessions in the Senate last week, executives from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, two of Wall Street's largest investment banks, made the case that their multibillion-dollar investments in energy contracts have not led to higher oil prices. Rather, they told Democratic staff members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the trades allow international markets to operate efficiently and that the run-up in oil prices results not from speculation but from actual imbalances of supply and demand.
" But the executives were met with skepticism and occasional hostility...." (See the rest of the story here).
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