Bart Chilton, the member of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission who long has complained about manipulation of the monetary metals markets and has vigorously advocated more restrictive position limits for commodity traders, announced today that he will retire from the commission soon:
http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimo...ment110513#s...
In his formal statement presented at today's CFTC meeting, Childton said: "Early this morning I sent a letter to the president expressing my intent to leave the agency in the near future."
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Chilton's five-year term on the CFTC expired in April and he had said this year that he would like to be reappointed. His announcement today contradicting himself suggests that he has been told that President Obama would not be renominating him, which should be no surprise, given the enormous trouble Chilton has caused for the powerful financial interests that control the U.S. government.
Because of his work on the CFTC Chilton came to be targeted by not only those financial interests but also by some people who have supported GATA's work for free and transparent markets in the monetary metals. Unlike most other CFTC commissioners, Chilton strove to answer his e-mail personally, and this responsiveness induced people dissatisfied with the commission's work to focus their dissatisfaction on him even as he sought to accomplish their objectives.
No other commissioners would answer their mail reliably, so Chilton took the heat for all of them.
Chilton was only one of the five CFTC commissioners and was never able to carry a majority in favor of improving competition in the commodity markets. But he raised hell about the issue and induced the commission to hold its March 25, 2010, hearing on the monetary metals markets and arranged for GATA Chairman Bill Murphy and board member Adrian Douglas to speak at the hearing, which turned out to strike a powerful blow against market manipulation.
As his biography suggests --
http://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/Ba...ilton/index.htm
-- Chilton arose from the producing class, farmers. He represented the producing class well in its age-old struggle against the financial class. GATA and the whole country are enormously obliged to him. His departure from the CFTC will be a great loss.
