Carl Levin

And did you change your methodology relative to oil spills after the Federal Reserve asked you to do that?

An analysis performed by the Federal Reserve Commodities Team in 2012 concluded that JPMorgan, as well as three other similar institutions, had insufficient capital and insurance allocated to cover potential losses from a catastrophic…

It strikes me as a vast commercial industrial venture, not a banking activity.

Now U.S. banking law is supposed to encourage banks to concentrate on the business of banking--taking deposits, moving funds, and providing credit.

What we have seen very clearly is, after Goldman bought Metro, the freight incentives tripled.

It has been very powerful testimony.

The more information you have, the better for your trading strategy.

These are not law. They are policy, and that means they are left up to the companies to implement.

You have given us, I think, a number of suggestions as to how to end this situation.

There is some evidence here that this warehouse company shared premium payments with a metal owner when the metal is delivered to the physical market.

So there is a huge advantage here for Goldman. They own a warehouse that is putting in more and more aluminum, now what, 75 percent of whatever the LME, total aluminum in this country is in Goldman-owned warehouses.

If you have advance information that queues are going to go up and you are engaged in trading in derivatives, which are impacted by premiums, if you have that advance information and these huge traders like Goldman thrive on information…

I am at least equally interested in what the cancellation does in terms of increasing the queue, which affects the premium, while Goldman is trading in transactions relating to aluminum.

Goldman is arguing that when the premium goes up, the LME price goes down because the all-in price will always be about the same.

When you say 'causes'----

Now, Mr. Vazquez, if you can tell us in your judgment the relationship--two relationships: First, between the length of the queue in a warehouse and the premium, what is the relationship between the premium and the so-called all-in price?

Well, were you horrified by what you saw?

We will now call our second panel of witnesses for today's hearing: Jorge Vazquez, Founder and Managing Director, Harbor Aluminum Intelligence Unit LLC, Austin, Texas; and Nick Madden, Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer…

And the answer is no, that aluminum is not.

OK. I want to go back to one thing that Mr. Wibbelman said...

Different people get that information in different real time. Is that correct?

You do not mean that there is no confidential information that goes to those 50 people. Those 50 people get confidential information.

We cannot allow that stockpile to be used to manipulate a premium on aluminum.

We cannot protect our economy from other--we can, but not in this particular discussion.

Just to rely on a company policy in terms of information sharing, which is very beneficial and useful to a trader, is not good enough for me.