Obama's Gary Gensler-Goldman Sachs-Commodity Futures Trading Commission (and Jefferson Davis-Slave-owning Family) Connections Revisited

“Less than a year ago, federal markets regulator Gary Gensler could reflect fondly on his association with Wall Street mogul and former politician Jon S. Corzine.

“The two had known each other for years, working together at Goldman Sachs and then in Congress, where Corzine was a senator and Gensler was a Senate aide. Invited by Corzine last November to speak at Princeton University about financial regulation, Gensler reminisced about their days crafting legislation and got in a friendly jab about Corzine’s upcoming wedding.
“`Jon, your life has changed a lot since our days together on a trading floor if this is your idea of a bachelor party,’ Gensler said.

“Now, the relationship has taken on an entirely different cast. Gensler, as chief of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is one of the key regulators probing the brokerage firm MF Global that Corzine led into bankruptcy…”

--from the November 4, 2011 issue of The Washington Post

“President Obama should replace Gary Gensler as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman with someone who will enforce speculation limits on Wall Street oil and gas traders, Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a letter sent to the White House on Monday. Sanders said Wall Street speculators were responsible for a spike in crude oil prices that, in turn, artificially drove up gasoline prices this spring to a nationwide average of about $4 a gallon for regular unleaded. Under Gensler, the commission has failed to enforce a provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which required rules to be implemented by no later than January 17, 2011, to eliminate, prevent, or diminish excessive oil speculation.

“`In blatant disregard of the law, Chairman Gensler has allowed oil and gasoline prices to be dictated by Wall Street speculators instead of supply-and-demand fundamentals,’ Sanders wrote to the president. `As a result, the American people continue to pay much higher prices for gasoline than they should.
"`At a time when gasoline prices have been a serious problem for our nation's economy and especially for people who must drive long distances to and from work in rural states like Vermont, the commission's refusal to enforce the law is inexcusable,’ the senator added.

"Gensler's term expired in April but he continues to serve as chairman.

“Sanders on March 5, 2012 sent a letter to Gensler and other commissioners urging them to stop flouting the law that required regulators to adopt tough new trading limits. The letter was signed by 24 other senators and 47 members of the House of Representatives….”

--from a June 4, 2012 press release of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont’s office

Obama’s Gary Gensler-Goldman Sachs-Commodity Futures Trading Commission (and Jefferson Davis-Slave-owning Family) Connections Revisited

Between 2009 and 2012 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has apparently allowed Wall Street speculators to artificially drive up gasoline prices to nearly $4 a gallon in recent months. One reason might be because the head of the Democratic Obama Administration’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, worked for many years as a Goldman Sachs executive on Wall Street before being appointed by Obama to his current public office. As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter noted in his 2010 book The Promise: President Obama, Year One:

“…Gary Gensler, the new head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission…had…worked at Goldman Sachs and he had worked on the Obama campaign…”

  Coincidentally, in the same book, Alter also observed that “Obama is not himself a descendant of American slaves, but…a descendant of African goatherds on one side and Jefferson Davis on the other.” In addition, in its March 2, 2007 issue, the Baltimore Sun reported the following:

“According to the research, one of Obama's great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 census in Nelson County, Ky. The same records show that one of Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves….The records show that Overall, then 30, owned a 15-year-old black female and a 25-year-old black male, while Mary Duvall, his mother-in-law, owned a 60-year-old black man and a 58-year-old black woman. (Slaves are listed in the 1850 census by owner, age, "sex," and "colour," not by name.)”