The US should subsidize the development of a national commodity exchange

Actually, I wasn"t suggesting that people who have to buy water through an exchange. Commodity Exchanges sell and buy raw materials, as well as futures contracts on those underlying materials. [1] Moreover, commodity markets offer derivatives on raw materials as protection, a hedge, or as speculation, including purchasing Over-the-Counter derivatives, including derivatives engaged in purely speculative betting on the initial contract. [2] There are commodity exchanges that deal in purchase and sale of water, as Australia goes on one of one of its exchanges. [3] The Chicago Board of Trade described on Investopedia as: "A commodity exchange established in 1848 that today trades in both agricultural and financial contracts. The CBOT originally traded only agricultural commodities such as wheat, corn and soybeans. Now, the CBOT offers options and futures contracts on a wide range of products including gold, silver, U.S. Treasury bonds and energy." So it is not true the Chicago Board of Trade trades in simply raw commodities, but rather offers a range of futures contracts including OTC, as discussed in their transcript of on commodity exchanges offering OTC on their trading platforms. [5] Recently, commodity exchanges have opened the door to a number of problems as documented by Matt Taibbi: "Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum. And they're doing it not just here but abroad as well: In Denmark, thousands took to the streets in protest in recent weeks, vampire-squid banners in hand, when news came out that Goldman Sachs was about to buy a 19 percent stake in Dong Energy, a national electric provider. The furor inspired mass resignations of ministers from the government's ruling coalition, as the Danish public wondered how an American investment bank could possibly hold so much influence over the state energy grid." Taibbi adds, "Allowing one company to control the supply of crucial physical commodities, and also trade in the financial products that might be related to those markets, is an open invitation to commit mass manipulation. It's something akin to letting casino owners who take book on NFL games during the week also coach all the teams on Sundays." The Pro side introduced a debate anything the commodity exchange he imagined. After forfeiting the second round, Pro then went on to make claims that are not true of commodity exchanges and were not true in terms of the points I initially raised. Commodity Exchanges trade in raw commodities, futures contracts, and derivatives. My opponent mentioned I said you could buy commodities for pennies. I will concede being inarticulate; however, the SEC page for prospective investors even reveals that can buy or sell"by that "execute buy and sell" orders through an exchange for pennies. I admit in previous rounds this was not made as clear, but I wanted to include that in these final remarks. [8] Finally, it is unclear why we would want to open up a national commodity exchange in the US, as it has been used recently as another avenue for extreme manipulation. Large financial institutions with a dubious interest in the actual commodities have begun to buy physical commodities, simply to hoard and use as guarantees for speculative bets in the derivatives market. Pro forfeited the second round and did not even make an argument for his side. VOTE CON! [1] http://www.investopedia.com... [2] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com... [3] http://fortune.com... [4] http://www.investopedia.com... [5] http://www.sec.gov... [6] http://www.rollingstone.com... [7] Ibid. [8] https://www.sec.gov...