Obama sure loves Wall Street judging by most or all he’s appointed.

FDL-

Everybody get on the commodity speculation train.

A federal judge today threw out the Dodd-Frank provision that empowered the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to set position limits on commodity trading. Judge Robert Wilkins said in his ruling that the CFTC did not prove the necessity of position limits to curb runaway speculation, and that the law itself did not “constitute a clear and unambiguous mandate to set position limits, as the Commission argues.”

Here’s the punchline: Judge Wilkins was appointed by President Obama in 2010.

CFTC already set the position limits, and they were weeks from going into effect in the oil, grain, coffee, gold and other markets, 28 in all. At the time, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Maria Cantwell and others called it weak. Under CFTC’s rule, a single speculator could still hold as much as 25% of all deliverable oil supply in any given month. But now there will be no rule at all, unless CFTC can come up with a better rationale. Judge Wilkins sent the rule back to the CFTC for “further consideration.” But this, of course, is how Wall Street rules get watered down. The initial rule wasn’t all that effective, and yet the industry managed to litigate that away. Any substitute would have to be even more compromised to avoid the ire of the judge. And at that point it becomes close to meaningless.

[FIRE DOG LAKE]

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