With nearly a quadrillion in derivatives that could implode the world at stake, author Larry Doyle is enraged that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) doesn’t have the funds to properly operate. He says it is a national security issue.
CFTC Commissioner O’Malia Says Agency Doesn’t Have Technology
Doyle, author of In Bed With Wall Street, notes CFTC Commissioner Scott O’Malia’s recent speech at the Tabb Forum in Chicago. “I do not believe that the (Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s) systems are adequate to oversee today’s fast and complex derivatives markets,” Scott O’Malia said Tuesday. O’Malia said he tried asking for additional technology, but to no avail. “Were using 20th century technology in 21st century markets.” O’Malia also went on to deride the lack of technical and market experts, while acting as a jobs act for lawyers.
Feeling O’Malia’s fustration
“Do you sense O’Malia’s frustration? I do,” Doyle observes. “Do you think any traders may be ‘speeding’ given that the cops are not able to properly monitor the traffic?” O’Malia spoke about the lack of technology and the need for another $100 million to be devoted to technology to monitor high frequency trading threats to national security as well as big bank derivative implosions that could wipe out the world economy several times over. Former CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton participated in a warning in regards to the big bank derivatives in mid 2012 and the topic has only grown in significance since.
CFTC’s O’Malia as whistleblower
Doyle makes an interesting observation about the state of the regulatory structure when he considers “whistle blowing.” He puts O’Malia’s “cry of frustration” into the same camp as retiring SEC attorney James Kidney voicing real concerns in describing the commission as little more than a “tollbooth on the banksters’ turnpike.” “Now we hear CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) commissioner Scott O’ Malia also ‘blowing the whistle,’” he writes. “How is it that this commission might be so ill-prepared to properly monitor this market that some estimate to be a quadrillion (a thousand trillion) in size?” Doyle questions. “Is anybody in Washington listening to what O’ Malia is saying? Or are we still supposed to operate under the guidelines that it is better to be quiet and take real national risk — and yes, I do consider this a matter of national security — rather than draw attention to a regulatory system that runs the gamut from ill-equipped to incompetent to captured to corrupt?” Doyle concludes with a tip of the hat to the Whistleblower: “Thank you Mr. O’ Malia.”
