There used to be laws that blocked excessive profits from raw materials trading dating back to the Great Depression. Like a lot of common sense policies that were created back during that crisis, they were dismantled in recent years. Goldman was the first trading company to receive an exemption but they pretty much all do it today. What they are doing may be legal (now that they destroyed the law) but it should be reviewed and changed. How is it in the best interest of the country to allow stockpiling of any critical raw material and then trading it?
Are we a capitalist country or aren't we? It sure doesn't look like it when you see scams like this. This is not how the so-called free market is supposed to work.
A string of warehouses in Detroit, most of them operated by Goldman, has stockpiled more than a million tonnes of the industrial metal aluminum, about a quarter of global reported inventories.
Simply storing all that metal generates tens of millions of dollars in rental revenues for Goldman every year.
There's just one problem: only a trickle of the aluminum is leaving the depots, creating a supply pinch for manufacturers of everything from soft drink cans to aircraft.
The resulting spike in prices has sparked a clash between companies forced to pay more for their aluminum and wait months for it to be delivered, Goldman, which is keen to keep its cash machines humming and the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world's benchmark industrial metals market, which critics accuse of lax oversight.
