Streetwise Professor

In response to Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Timothy Lane’s speech about the systemic importance of major global commodity trading firms (GCTFs), the FT’s Javier Blas asks: “Has Glencore become ‘too big to fail’?”

And I answer: hell no.

I will write much more on this subject-much more-when a few things clear.  For now, a few of my reasons:

• GCTFs-even the biggest, like Glencore, Cargill, and Koch-just aren’t that big.  Glencore, the biggest, has about the same amount of assets as Kraft and Fiat and Hitachi and Fubon Financial Group (assuming you’ve heard of it).  Are those TBTF too?  The biggest GCTFs have asset values an order of magnitude smaller than the banks that have been designated SIFIs by the Financial Stability Board.  Again: not that big, in systemic terms.
• GCTFs aren’t highly leveraged.
• GCTFs don’t engage in extensive maturity transformation.  Indeed, current assets and current liabilities are closely matched, and for many firms the maturities of their liabilities exceeds that of their assets.
• Commodity trading firms, e.g., Enron, have failed without significant knock-on effects.  Indeed, an entire commodity trading sector-the merchant energy sector in the US-imploded without disrupting the financial system, or the trade in physical power and gas.
• GCTFs weathered the 2008-2009 financial crisis fairly well.
• Even if a large firm were to fail, disrupting commerce in commodities for which it accounts for a significant fraction of the trade, (a) the quantity of trade in these commodities is very small relative to total international trade or GDP, (b) other firms are likely to be able to fill the gap quickly, in part because the assets used in commodity trade can be redeployed quickly, and (c) disruptions in trade have few knock-on effects on global or even regional GDP.  As an example, the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami severely interrupted trade in electronics and auto parts, but the effects on GDP in Asia were small and transitory, and the effects on GDP outside of Asia negligible.

This is not to say that GCTFs are always on the side of the angels: definitely not.  Nor is it say or that some additional regulation (notably in the nature of disclosure, and better anti-manipulation laws) is not worth consideration.  It is just to say that we don’t need to add them to the list of too big to fail enterprises.  We should be looking to pare that list, not expand it, and GCTFs do not pose the systemic risks that warrant SIFI designation.

Again, more to come in the weeks to come.

Gas prices in California are topping $5/gallon, and politicians are in a frenzy, making claims of manipulation.  Diane Feinstein is taking the lead:

Feinstein, in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), called for the agency to implement broad monitoring of oil-trading markets and investigate possible “collusion.”

“Publicly available data appears to confirm that market fundamentals are not to blame for rising gas prices in California,” she wrote, citing state data that showed gasoline production last week was almost as high as a year ago and that gasoline and blending components were equal to this time last year.

The California senator cited Reuters’ Friday report on the “short squeeze,” in which traders said refiner Tesoro Corp had to scramble to buy fuel from other companies to meet commitments.

While traders told Reuters that no single party appeared to be withholding supply intentionally and that there was no suggestion anyone conspired to drive up prices, Feinstein wrote: “An FTC investigation is likely the only way to determine whether this reported squeeze took place.”

Look.  I’ve seen this movie many times before.  There is a localized spike in gasoline prices.  Politicians start screaming “We must do something about this at once! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph!”  The FTC scurries to do an investigation, and finds that fundamentals explain the spike.

They also find something I’ve included in my classes for 10+ years: that Federal environmental policy is directly culpable.  The key here is that these spikes tend to be localized.  Why? Because due to EPA regulations, there are highly localized formulas for gasoline.  Which means that when there is a supply disruption in a particular locale that requires a specific gasoline blend, supplies can’t be shipped in from other markets because the refineries serving those markets produce a different blend.

This happens in the Chicago area with some frequency.

You may think that the environmental benefits of customized gasoline blends are sufficiently great to justify the occasional-and inevitable-price spikes that such a system produces.  If so, you should STHU about the price spikes. But then you wouldn’t be a politician, who wants it all ways all the time.

This story brings up another pet peeve of mine.  (Yes, there are many.  I know.)  Specifically, the promiscuous and imprecise use of terms related to manipulation.

Feinstein seized on a statement in a Reuters report that Tesoro had been the victim of a “short squeeze.”  Now, this term can refer to a a manipulation, in which the holder of a large long forward position-a position larger than the quantity that can be delivered at the competitive price-demands excessive deliveries of the commodity, driving up the price, and liquidating some of its long position at the supercompetitive price.  The demand for excessive deliveries is an exercise of market power.  The firm demanding delivery is deliberately squeezing the shorts.

This term is also commonly used to refer to a situation where a firm or firm is short, and has to cover under tight supply conditions, but where nobody exercises market power. Here the short is squeezed by tight but competitive market conditions.

Note that the same term is used to refer to two very different situations: one in which somebody exercises market power, and one in which nobody does.

I strongly suspect that Tesoro was caught in the second kind of squeeze.  One way to determine this is to see if Tesoro bought back contracts.  If it delivered on 100 percent of its contractual obligations, one of the longs to whom it had sold couldn’t have exercised market power: that requires the liquidation of some contracts at the supercompetitive price.

But use of ambiguous terms that can have diametrically opposed implications fuels political fires from the likes of Feinstein.  (Scary thought.  She’s the smarter and more honorable of the two senators from CA.)

So my prediction. Much harrumphing for as long as prices stay high in CA. The FTC will dutifully investigate. It will conclude that the spike was produced by an adverse supply shock that could not be ameliorated by increasing supply from other markets. The politicians will greet this report with stony silence. But the harrumphing will begin anew with the next spike.

But you’ll never get a harrumph from this guy. Not until there is credible evidence of manipulation.

I had a chance to read Judge Wilkins’s decision in the position limits litigation on a flight over to London, where I am speaking on the impact of financial regulation, at a conference put on by Lloyds Bank.

There is virtually no economics in the opinion-it is a highly technical analysis of issues related to administrative procedure, statutory interpretation, and the like.  The perfect thing to read while trying to get sleepy as part of my jet lag management strategy.

How technical?  The placement of commas technical.

There are essentially two parts to the decision.  The first relates to § 6a(a)(1) of Frankendodd.  This part is straightforward.  Judge Wilkins ruled that it was unambiguous that the CFTC had to make a finding of the necessity of position limits.  It didn’t.  Back to the drawing board, GiGi.

The second part relates to sections 6a(a)(2), (a)(3) and (a)(5).  Here you have to get into the weeds.  These Judge Wilkins found to be ambiguous.  The ambiguity relates to the words “as appropriate,” as in:

Section 6a(a)(2)(A):

In accordance with the standards set forth in paragraph (1) of this subsection . . . the Commission shall by rule, regulation, or order establish limits on the amount of positions, as appropriate, other than bona fide hedge positions, that may be held by any person . . .

Section 6a(a)(3):

In establishing the limits required in paragraph (2), the Commission, as appropriate, shall set limits –

(A)on the number of positions that may be held by any person for the spot month, each other month, and the aggregate number of positions that may be held by any person for all months; and . . .  [Emphasis added.]

What Judge Wilkins could not determine unambiguously was whether “as appropriate” referred to the setting of limits at all, or the specific quantity of the limits.  The plaintiffs (ISDA and SIFMA) argued that the CFTC had to determine whether it was appropriate to set limits at all.  The CFTC argued that it had to set some limits, and Congress directed it to set the specific quantities appropriately.

This is where the commas come in.  I won’t bore you with the details, but if you are planning any intercontinental travel, I direct your attention to pp. 29-30 of the ruling.  You don’t have to thank me for easing your jet lag.

This matter of ambiguity turns out to be mightily important under the Chevron doctrine which determines whether a court need show deference to an agency’s decision.  And here the CFTC (and yes, I’m looking at you, Gary) is hoist on its own petard.

For the CFTC claimed that the language in the statute is NOT ambiguous.  Citing the Peter Pan (!) case, the Judge ruled that by claiming that the ambiguous wasn’t, the CFTC wasn’t owed any deference, and that there is precedent in his Circuit to vacate and remand the rule:

It is well-settled in this Circuit that “deference to an agency’s interpretation of a statute is not appropriate when the agency wrongly believes that interpretation is compelled by Congress.” Peter Pan, 471 F.3d at 1352, 1354 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (vacating and remanding agency decision because agency “premised its construction on the plain language of the statute, which it treated as unambiguous, and because we find that the statutory language is in fact ambiguous . . . .”).

Whoops.  By adamantly asserting that there was no ambiguity in the relevant sections of Frankendodd that the judge did find ambiguous, the CFTC lost any claim to deference.

Where do things go from here?  Probably a ping pong game, with the rule bouncing back between the agency and the courts.

Presumably the CFTC will stitch up some justification for a necessity finding, and go into a long disquisition to meet step two of the Chevron test:

“[I]t is incumbent upon the agency not to rest simply on its parsing of the statutory language. It must bring its experience and expertise to bear in light of competing interests at stake” to resolve the ambiguities in the statute.

I don’t know whether a justification of a necessity finding that is based on bad economics or bad (or no) empirical evidence is vulnerable to legal challenge.  I suspect it would be difficult for the plaintiffs to get the rule overturned because of a weak justification for the necessity finding.  I also suspect that CFTC will be able to pass the Chevron tests if it does recognize the ambiguity-which makes me wonder why they didn’t so recognize it at the outset.

My guess, therefore, is that the CFTC can, after yet more hearings, and comments, and time, correct what Judge Wilkins found wanting.  But that doesn’t mean that it’s out of the woods yet.  Not by a long shot.  For the plaintiffs made four additional challenges of the rule.  The judge did not feel it necessary to rule on these additional charges because he found sufficient grounds in the first to remand the rule back to the agency.

Notable among the additional grounds for challenging the rule is “Insufficient Evaluation of Costs and Benefits under 7 U.S.C. § 19(a).”  Will the CFTC stand pat on its existing cost-benefit analysis, which gives the word “perfunctory” new meaning?  Or will it feel obliged to gin up something better, given that the court was obviously not impressed with some of its other legal reasoning, and given that the SEC has lost a major case due to its failure to do a proper cost-benefit analysis?

The other challenges relate more to the specifics of the rules.

In brief, they have not yet begun to litigate (apologies to John Paul Jones).  The position limit rule has a long, long way to go before it becomes a reality.

This also raises the question of whether other Frankendodd-spawned rules will be challenged.  I’m guessing yes.  And there will be much rejoicing-among lawyers, anyways.

It is a good thing when bad rules are stopped.  The ongoing uncertainty pending definitive legal resolution is more problematic, however.  But that’s our reality, and will be for some time, on position limits, and other aspects of Frankendodd.

The title of my 2010 Regulation piece on CFTC position limits characterized the agency’s attitude as: “No Theory? No Evidence? No Problem!”  I had a problem with that attitude.  So did a couple of industry groups, ISDA and SIFMA, and they sued seeking to block imposition of the limits.  And Federal District Court Judge Robert Wilkens has a problem with it too.  He vacated the rule and remanded it to the agency for reconsideration, and granted the plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion against the rule.

The decision turned on whether the CFTC had to find that position limits were necessary to prevent and diminish excessive speculation.  The agency said no: it had no discretion, that Congress had mandated that it impose limits.  The plaintiffs said yes: the plain language of the statute requires the CFTC to make a finding that limits are necessary because speculation is excessive and is causing unwarranted fluctuations in prices.

The agency further argued that imposition of limits were mandatory, whereas plaintiffs pointed to statutory language saying that Congress had granted the authority to impose limits “as appropriate.”

The judge was quite firm in his findings regarding necessity:

The precise question, therefore, is whether the language of Section 6a(a)(1) clearly and unambiguously requires the Commission to make a finding of necessity prior to imposing position limits. The answer is yes.

But the plaintiffs’ victory was not so clearcut as has been portrayed in the initial reporting on the decision.  The judge noted that the two sides had unambiguous, but diametrically opposed interpretations of the statute.  The judge disagreed with both, finding the statute ambiguous:

In sum, although each party believes the statute is clear and unambiguous, their respective “plain readings” compel different results. Ultimately, however, this Court need not choose between the competing interpretations. As explained below, Section 6a is ambiguous as to the precise question at issue: whether the CFTC is required to find that position limits are necessary and appropriate prior to imposing them. Because the Position Limits Rule is based on the CFTC’s erroneous conclusion that the CEA is unambiguous on this issue, the Court “may neither defer to the agency’s construction nor endorse plaintiffs’ construction.” See Humane Soc’y of U.S. v. Kempthorne, 579 F. Supp. 2d 7, 15 (D.D.C. 2008). Instead, the Court must remand this rule to the agency.

As a result, he chose not to choose between the parties’ diametric interpretations.  So the rule will go back to the Commission.  Presumably it will make a finding of necessity based on some attempt to stitch together some empirical evidence on the adverse impact of speculation.  Presumably the plaintiffs will find this evidence unpersuasive (with good reason) and challenge the Commission’s finding, thereby setting up a further round of litigation.  The results of this litigation would presumably depend on what is a satisfactory basis for a finding of necessity by the Commission.  This seems to me to be a potentially far more contentious issue in which the courts may be more likely to defer to the agency’s discretion and judgment.

This decision does not address another challenge to the limits: that the CFTC failed to perform an adequate cost-benefit analysis as required by statute.  That’s another big issue that would require a more discriminating critique of the substance of the Commission’s analysis by the courts.

So this decision is not the end of position limits.  It is probably the end of the beginning, at best.

The concrete results in the short and medium term are beneficial, however.  A bad rule that has no firm grounding in good economic thinking or empirical evidence, and which would impose substantial costs on markets and market participants, will not go into effect next week as planned.  The Commission will be forced to confront these economic and empirical issues, and defend its judgments on these grounds: “Congress made me do it” will not suffice.

No doubt this process will be time consuming.  It will certainly extend well past the election, and depending on the outcome of the election the matter may become moot.  A Republican CFTC is much less likely to pursue position limits with the Javert-like intensity of a Gensler-led agency.  But even under a Democratic administration, the CFTC’s will to pursue position limits will be sorely tested.  It now faces a greater burden of providing some theory, and providing some evidence, or else it will continue to experience big problems in court.

A good day, a good result, but not a final one.  The position limit wars will continue, but the battlefield looks far different today than it did when Frankendodd lurched out of the castle on The Hill, and when the CFTC did what it perceived to be the monster’s bidding.

Meaning “High Frequency Blogging.”  Some quick takes on things that caught my eye.

1. Echoing my looking back, looking forward point (made in July) re Libor, lawyers are very nervous that changes in the rate setting mechanism will call existing contracts-with outstanding amounts in the mere hundreds of trillions-into question.  Yeah, it’s broken, but be damned careful how you fix it-especially if you expect those “fixes” to be retroactive, and affect existing contracts.  Unless you want to subsidize corporate litigators and wreak widespread economic havoc.
2. OTC derivatives rules may be delayed due to “squabbling” among international regulators.  What a shock.  I mean, Carnac the Magnificent couldn’t have seen that coming.
3. The White House is backing off on its claims that the Mohammed video is the sole cause of the assaults on US diplomatic facilities throughout the Middle East.  On 9/11/12.  Jay Carney has a new explanation: an absence of gun control.  Seriously.  When asked about the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi in which US ambassador Stevens was killed, Carney said: There is an abundance of weapons, including heavy weapons, and there are certainly groups that carry those weapons and look to take advantage of those circumstances—as there are around the region and the world.”  So, on 9/11, some heavily armed dudes were just walking around and decided: “Hey.  Let’s attack something.  Eenie, meenie, meiny, mo [NOT referring to Mohammed, mind you]-The American Consulate!”  Totally random.  Totally.  Not anti-US.  Not at all.
4. The Taliban attack on a US airbase in Afghanistan that destroyed six USMC AV-6 Harriers was a total clusterf*ck.  But O didn’t let that interrupt Jay-Z, Letterman, etc.  Priorities.  Have to have priorities, dontcha know.
5. This piece on China’s Solyndra Economy echoes several points I made in my earlier post recommending that we lose any competition with China on green energy technology.
6. The very excellent Michael Pettis rightly points out dangers for commodities emanating from China’s fraught economic condition.  Like me, Michael is somewhat amazed that people who would decry central planning and heavy handed government efforts to direct the allocation of capital in the US or Europe are in awe of Chinese genius in using central planning and heavy handed government efforts to direct the allocation of capital in China.  This will not end well.  Yeah, I’ve been saying that for a while, but I am convinced that in a few years (if not sooner) China will wish to have Japan’s problems.
7. Finally, to that point, consider the fact that large quantities of inventories of steel in China-allegedly in China, I should say-don’t exist.  And if it happens in steel, it can happen in copper or soybeans or whatever, and likely does.  Phony warehouse receipts have been used to collateralize billions of loans-or the same warehouse receipts have been used to collateralize billions in loans.  Either way, China’s shadow banking system-which depends heavily on loans collateralized by commodities inventory-arguably is far more shadow than bank.  Remember that even modest slowdowns in economic activity can unravel fraud schemes in a hurry.  Such a slowdown is happening in China right now, and it is extremely likely that numerous such frauds will be revealed.  Given the dependence of China on shadow banking, the consequences of this could be seismic.  What say you, Tooltime Tom Friedman?

And on that happy note, I am pulling the kill switch on this HFB experiment.

The regulatory and trading world is all up in arms over the big price drop in WTI, Brent, HO and RBOB on Monday. Fat finger? Runaway algo? Round up the usual suspects!

I say none of the above, especially in light of yesterday’s  story that Saudi Arabia is going to increase oil output.

The price pattern is not typical of a liquidity event, such as arises from a trading or algo error.  In such an event, the price usually retraces quickly to its pre-error level.  That is, price impacts are almost purely transitory if it is understood that the order was an error, or simply a demand for liquidity.  Indeed, a paper by Bayuksahin, Haigh and Harris documents that prices of trades subsequently identified by the exchange as errors reverse well before the official announcement: the market participants figure it out on their own.

Here, the price fell dramatically, then only partially recovered.  Thus, there was a persistent/permanent component to the price move.  This combination of temporary and persistent price impacts means that market participants viewed that there was some likelihood that the order/orders was/were submitted by somebody with private information. (The fact that the move occurred on all major energy markets simultaneously supports that view, although with algorithmic trading one cannot be as confident: one can be more confident it wasn’t 4 or 5 fat human fingers.)

Put that together with yesterday’s Saudi announcement (into which they were probably dragooned by a threat from the IEA and the administration to tap the SPR) and the most likely explanation is that the announcement was leaked, or that the individual or individuals behind the decision decided to make a little money on their information and control.  Which they did, because prices traded off more after the story was released publicly.

Therefore, IMO Monday’s event was an oil leak: somebody spilled the news of the Saudi decision, and that triggered a big trade that pushed down prices.

Not a tech issue.  Just old fashioned front running of an announcement.

According to this Greg Meyer piece in the FT, Barclays estimates that $6 billion have flowed out of commodity index investments in 2012, and that many institutional investors are reducing exposure to commodities.

The anti-speculation frenzy that reached a peak in 2008, but has never gone away, is predicated on the belief that index investing-“massive passives” in the words of CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton-exert a disproportionate influence on prices.  So, this outflow of indexing money should have led to a decline in commodity prices right?  But they have been up over 2012: one broad index, the UBS Bloomberg CMCI is up from 1520 at the end of 2011 to 1628 today, about a 7 percent increase.

But the anti-speculation folks have their story, and they’re sticking with it.  Sayeth Dennis Kelleher of “Better Markets”, “There’s excessive speculation in commodity markets which is driving up prices.”  QED.

Evidence? We don’t need no steekin’ evidence.

Ironically, I am in NY to speak at the CME Group’s First Annual Global Commodity Investment Roundtable, an event aimed precisely at fund managers, where I will be on a panel discussing the role of speculation.  Greg’s article tees that up very nicely.

Through the miracles of web search, with an initial boost from Highgamma’s comment linking to a 1996 WSJ story, I have reconstructed what happened in cheese in 1988 that led to my first foray into commodity manipulation.

For many of the gory details, you can read this summary of a very long report on the goings on in the cheese market in the ’88-’96 time frame.  Here’s a GAO take on it.  (Who knew cheese was such a big deal?!)

The Cliffs’ Notes version is pretty simple.  Starting in 1988, Kraft started selling large quantities of cheese on the National Cheese Exchange.  At first glance, this seems peculiar, because Kraft is a major cheese buyer.  But at second glance it makes sense.  Kraft bought most of its cheese on contracts tied to the NCE price.  So driving down the NCE price reduced its acquisition costs under the contracts.  Put differently, Kraft was short cheese forward contracts, and had an incentive to drive down prices.  Given the thinness of the NCE market, selling a few carloads at the Friday auctions accomplished just that.

Kraft, it should be noted, vociferously denied these allegations.  But the case set out in the report seems pretty damning.  In particular, in a manipulation of cash-settled forwards (which Kraft’s cheese purchase contracts were), the manipulator loses money on the transactions used to distort the price, but makes it up on the forwards.  That definitely appears to be the case here.  Relatively small volume transactions on NCE lost money, but had a big price impact which benefited Kraft’s far larger volume of cheese purchases.

In other words, Kraft’s strategy was right out of my 2001 J. Business article “The Manipulation of Cash-Settled Futures Contracts.”

I’m sure you have all been on tenterhooks waiting for those details.  Or not.

Glencore’s director of agricultural trading, Chris Mahoney, unleashed a torrent of criticism when he remarked:

“The environment is a good one. High prices, lots of volatility, a lot of dislocation, tightness, a lot of arbitrage opportunities.

“We will be able to provide the world with solutions… and that should also be good for Glencore.”

Let the witch hunt begin!  The UN and Oxfam and other NGOs and the allegedly conservative (though really Conservative-there’s a difference) British government responded to Mahoney’s remarks with sputtering outrage:

With the US experiencing a rerun of the drought “Dust Bowl” days of the 1930s and Russia suffering a similar food crisis that could see Vladimir Putin’s government banning grain exports, the senior economist of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, Concepcion Calpe, told The Independent: “Private companies like Glencore are playing a game that will make them enormous profits.”

Ms Calpe said leading international politicians and banks expecting Glencore to back away from trading in potential starvation and hunger in developing nations for “ethical reasons” would be disappointed.

“This won’t happen,” she said. “So now is the time to change the rules and regulations about how Glencore and other multinationals such as ADM and Monsanto operate. They know this and have been lobbying heavily around the world to water down and halt any reform.

. . . .

Oxfam was scathing about Glencore’s exploitation of volatile world food prices. Jodie Thorpe, from the aid agency’s Grow Campaign, said: “Glencore’s comment that ‘high prices and lots of volatility and dislocation’ was ‘good’ gives us a rare glimpse into the little-known world of companies that dominate the global food system.”

Oxfam said companies like Glencore were “profiting from the misery and suffering of poor people who are worst hit by high and volatile food prices”, adding: “If we are going to fix the ailing food system then traders must be part of the cure.”

Stephen O’Brien, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development, said: “We know that food-price spikes hit the poorest hardest. Ensuring the poor can still access enough food is vital in times of food-price rises, which is why the UK is investing in safety nets that deliver food and cash to the poorest.”

All of which raises the age old question: Is profit the problem, or the solution?

For economic nitwits like the UN, Oxfam, etc., it is definitely the problem.  And such economic nitwittery has been with us long hence, as Adam Smith noted in his Digression Concerning the Corn Trade and the Corn Laws, Book V of WON (bonus ironic marxists.org link!-seems appropriate):

In years of scarcity the inferior ranks of people impute their distress to the avarice of the corn merchant, who becomes the object of their hatred and indignation.

Smith goes into detail about how government policies derived from this outrage are destructive, rather than constructive, turning shortages into famines by restricting the efficient flow of grain from places where it is relatively abundant to where it is desperately short-an efficient flow that is best achieved by allowing avaricious grain merchants to profit front the price disparities that these uneven endowments create:

The ancient policy of Europe, instead of discountenancing this popular odium against a trade so beneficial to the public, seems, on the contrary, to have authorized and encouraged it.

By the 5th and 6th of Edward VI, c. 14, it was enacted that whoever should buy any corn or grain with intent to sell it again, should be reputed an unlawful engrosser, and should, for the first fault, suffer two months’ imprisonment, and forfeit the value of the corn; for the second, suffer six months’ imprisonment, and forfeit double the value; and for the third, be set in the pillory, suffer imprisonment during the king’s pleasure, and forfeit all his goods and chattels. The ancient policy of most other parts of Europe was no better than that of England.

Our ancestors seem to have imagined that the people would buy their corn cheaper of the farmer than of the corn merchant, who, they were afraid, would require, over and above the price which he paid to the farmer, an exorbitant profit to himself. They endeavoured, therefore, to annihilate his trade altogether. They even endeavoured to hinder as much as possible any middle man of any kind from coming in between the grower and the consumer; and this was the meaning of the many restraints which they imposed upon the trade of those whom they called kidders or carriers of corn, a trade which nobody was allowed to exercise without a licence ascertaining his qualifications as a man of probity and fair dealing.

. . . .

Whoever examines with attention the history of the dearths and famines which have afflicted any part of Europe, during either the course of the present or that of the two preceding centuries, of several of which we have pretty exact accounts, will find, I believe, that a dearth never has arisen from any combination among the inland dealers in corn, nor from any other cause but a real scarcity, occasioned sometimes perhaps, and in some particular places, by the waste of war, but in by far the greatest number of cases by the fault of the seasons; and that a famine has never arisen from any other cause but the violence of government attempting, by improper means, to remedy the inconveniences of a dearth.

. . . .

The unlimited, unrestrained freedom of the corn trade, as it is the only effectual preventative of the miseries of a famine, so it is the best palliative of the inconveniences of a dearth; for the inconveniences of a real scarcity cannot be remedied, they can only be palliated. No trade deserves more the full protection of the law, and no trade requires it so much, because no trade is so much exposed to popular odium.

Grain traders like Glencore are the visible manifestation of the invisible hand.  The prospect of earning a profit is what drives them to find who is willing to sell grain and who is desperate to buy it.  It is the extreme shock to relative availability that results from regional and localized droughts (or other weather extremes) that makes trade particularly valuable-and profitable.  It is in such conditions that trade-and trading firms-are most valuable.  And as Smith noted, it is precisely then that they make their biggest profits: deprive them of the ability to profit then, and they won’t be there precisely when they are most necessary.  They won’t invest in the physical and human capital needed to facilitate trade.  They won’t generate the dense network of facilities scattered through the world, that are not only the conduits for physical flows, but are also the conduits through which vital information about supply and demand flow: information that permits them to find out where the grain is available and where it is most needed.

To put it bluntly: if you don’t like seeing pictures of starving African babies,  like the one in the Independent story, ignore those sanctimonious moral poseurs like Oxfam and Ms. Calpe who feed what Smith likened to the “popular terrors and suspicions of witchcraft” far more effectively than they feed actual people.  Remember that prices and profits signal scarcity, giving an incentive to conserve and an incentive to move grain where it is most needed.

And as in Smith’s time, governments are the greatest impediment to this process.  For instance, in 2010 Russia embargoed wheat exports, and there is widespread discussion (including by Glencore’s Mr. Mahoney) of whether it will do it again:

But the smart money is betting that Moscow will indeed force overseas sales down by November or December.

Any export restriction is likely to be far different from the ban imposed in 2010, when Moscow introduced what many traders labelled a “brutal” outright export embargo. Instead, the Kremlin is likely to be subtler this time, combining administrative measures that would slow the flow of grain overseas to a trickle. [Again-nothing new under the sun, i.e., Russian “administrative measures.”]

. . . .

Moscow has a large arsenal of tools at its disposal. Export tariffs and quotas are the most obvious; but executives deeply involved in Russian trading say Moscow could use informal and less obvious tools, including its tight control over the railway, to reduce exports without triggering the ire of its trade partners. [Welcome to the WTO!]

. . . .

Christopher Mahoney, the head of agriculture at Glencore and one of the most influential traders of Russian grains, last week warned about possible restrictions. He said that Russia was likely to exhaust its exportable surplus in the next three months, forcing Moscow to “rethink” its current opposition to restrictions.

There were also extremely counterproductive export restrictions (in rice, particularly) during the 2008 price spike.  These are eminently understandable policies from a political economy perspective, but they shouldn’t be confused with enlightened efforts to minimize the impact of shortages of vital foodstuffs.

Do not read this as a blanket endorsement of commodity trading firms and all they do.  That is far from my view: I know that they can, and have, undertaken inefficient and anti-competitive actions that harm commodity producers and consumers.  I will say-and have said-that under oath.  I know they are anything but moral avatars.

But that’s exactly Smith’s point: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker , that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” And a lucky thing, that, because if we did we’d often starve.  And far fewer people starve, or go hungry, because there are avaricious types who do themselves some good by mitigating the impacts of scarcity.  Meaning that if you want to criticize the Glencores or Dreyfuses or Cargills of the world, castigate them for actual sins-manipulation, for instance-that reduce welfare, and applaud their efforts to profit from droughts by mitigating the effects of supply dislocations even though both the vicious and virtuous actions stem from the very same avarice.

Corruptocrat Jon Corzine is whining about the MF Global Bankruptcy Trustee’s decision to assist customers who lost money as a result of the MFers in their attempts to recoup their losses by suing Corzine and other executives of the firm:

Corzine, along with other current and former MF executives, filed an objection in court on Wednesday arguing that their ability to defend themselves would be hurt if trustee James Giddens is allowed to assign his legal claims to plaintiffs in existing cases.

The executives are defendants in multiple lawsuits accusing them of mismanaging the firm and playing a role in its October 2011 collapse.

“Nothing in the Bankruptcy Code authorizes such limitations on the objectors’ rights and defenses or an enlargement of the trustee’s rights,” lawyers for Corzine and the other executives wrote in documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

If allowed to join the customer cases, Giddens would have the right to limit the information and documents available to the executives through discovery, as well as dictate which documents the executives would turn over to plaintiffs, lawyers for Corzine and the other executives wrote.

Sorry.  I’m getting all choked up.   Hard to type through the tears.

JK.  MF him.

It looks like Corzine is going to skate on criminal charges, as in a reversal of usual procedure prosecutors appear to be focusing on low level employees, and not as a way of getting at bigger-and rotten-fish like Corzine.  (I’m sure that he’s a made man in the Democratic Party and a big fundraiser for Obama has absolutely nothing to do with that.)

Given that, one can only hope that he spends a good part of the rest of his life in civil legal torments, and ends up coughing up large sums to the injured customers who he victimized.  For regardless of his culpability in diverting segregated customer funds, his recklessness was the proximate cause of their losses: his ill-judged and ill-designed (i.e., improperly funded) bet on PIIGS debt put the firm in the straits that led someone to consider it necessary to take money that wasn’t the firm’s in a vain attempt to save it.  Moreover, even if he did not give the order to use seg funds, it happened under his watch: the choice is between scienter and negligence.  It still stuns me that a guy who was head of a major clearing firm claimed ignorance of the mechanics of the clearing process.  I guess he was too busy figuring out how to gamble his firm to resurrection.

So encroach away, Mr. Giddens!  Rough justice perhaps, but that’s exactly the kind Corzine deserves.