The latest attack on Bush - the futures market

The Commissar has linked to an article in NRO that identifies a futures trading scheme whereby a single speculator is causing temporary market crashes for the sake of damaging W's reelection chances. Go to the above links for a more complete discussion.

If futures are covered by the New Deal era securities laws, then this scheme is illegal. It is illegal to try to create panic-selling by means of rapid sales of one's own holdings.

Whether or not this activity is really illegal, numerous thoughts come to mind.

(1) If someone did this to Clinton, he wouldn't worry about the legal niceties and the technicality of whether or not futures are covered by the Securities Act of 1933. He would order his regulators to investigate and prosecute.

(2) The New Deal securities laws are worthless. After each of the recent futures market "attacks" The market has recovered to its previous levels within minutes. The attacker has lost tremendous amounts of money, while those with confidence in Bush are making some quick gains. Panic selling doesn't work.

(3) The fact that someone with wealth and sophistication is willing to lose money and risk prosecution for the sake of hurting Bush should tell us something of the nature of the opposition. We are facing more than simply election year politics. We are facing nothing less than a coordinated attack on all of our institutions. The financial markets, the election process, the courts, the free press, etc. If the Democrats win this year, it will be nothing less than a coup d'etat. If the Democrats win, our election process will never be the same again.