. >> senator vitter, we've had on our show in the past jim bullard, the st. louis fed president. was on just last week once again. he has talked about oil prices, other commodity prices, how he believes that could be in part because of the quantitative easing that we've seen. >> right. >> he doesn't say in full, he says in part because of that. >> right. >> what would you like to hear from ben bernanke on this point? >> i'm just going to ask him to acknowledge those negative impac impacts. there are clearly impacts to this policy of zero interest rates, including increasing commodity prices, including the price of oil, and just like the governor said, that's not the only issue, that's not the only factor, but it is a significant factor, probably one of the top three, so i'm certainly going to ask him about that, because that does impact growth, the economy, and in particular a lot of people on fixed incomes. >> senator, we're going to leave it there but thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. >> good luck with your questioning later today. >> thanks. >>> when we come

. >>> it looks like the st. louis fed is gearing up for the ipad 3 launch. stay with us.>> welcome back. bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. on the surface, it was another good day. you can't complain. take a look at the major indices, the s&p 500 is at another multi-year high, so is the nasdaq.re's the problem, th leadership is getting kind of narrow for my taste. really in terms of new highs, there's two groups, retail stocks, which had a great february retail same-store sales numbers, and technology stocks. that's basically it. a lot grout there that aren't leaders anymore. home builders, airlines moving sideways for a month. steel stocks have been going nowhere. the russell 2000, that's been going nowhere either. for the last month. bottom line here, maria, is, i'd like to get a little broader leadership in the markets right now. >> bob, thank you. shares of td bank, the second largest canadian bank and tenth largest in the united states rising today modestly after the company reported earnings lower than a year ago, but they did beat analysts' exp

the st. louis fed said it's raising prices by at least 15%, the speculation is.now that president obama has a task force on this? the problem is mcclashy newspapers report that the oil and gas price fraud working group has met only 4 or 5 times since its creation last april 21st and most of those meetings came at the time of its inception. david, let me start with you. the obama administration bear some responsibility for not getting the word out, schmucks look at oil speculation. >> the republican elected officials received $4 from oil companies for every dollar the democrats received. i just spoke with economist wolfe, he made it clear whether prices go up or down it has little to do with what the president says. so i would say no to you, cenk. >> i understand that. i am with you what the republicans are doing is protecting the oil speculators. president obama, eric mentions it in a couple of speeches. shouldn't the party say you guys have this totally wrong in the media? it's not dpeftic oil production. >> messaging is always important. look at what fox news h

you got the st. louis fed. sachs itself acknowledging the speculation is driving up prices. there are a number of factors. all i know is that in vermont and around the country working people are being devastated by these very high prices. we have got to lower them, addressing the issue of speculation is one way we do it and it is beyond my comprehension that we have a chairman who is essentially not obeying the law. he was told to come up with speculation limits, position limits. he hasn't done that, and what many members of the senate and the house are now saying, you have got to obey the law. do it and excessive speculation. >> senator sanders, thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> better than -- michelle will join us on the ground from greece. counting down to the european close in 11 minutes from now, 10 minutes. more squauk on the street straight ahead. but we couldn't simply repeat history. we had to create it. introducing the 2013 lexus gs, with leading-edge safety technology, like available blind spo

the st. louis federal reserve weighs in with a newly updated report. it says two main factors drive gas prices up. first, global demand shocks, like tensions from the middle east. but next the fed concludes speculation played a significant role in the oil price increase between 2004 and 2008 and its subsequent collapse. >> all over this country, people are really being hurt financially. >> reporter: senator bernie sanders of vermont is fighting back. >> this is money coming right out of their paycheck. >> reporter: today, sanders will send out a letter to the comphomties future trading commission calling for immediate action. sanders says so far he has pledges from 67 other members of congress to cosign the letter by the end of the day. >> what we want to do is limit the amount of oil that any individual corporation can control on any given day. >> reporter: one of the bidding commissioners spoke out. >> yes, i'm fired up. >> reporter: bart childen is one of five presidential appointees who regulates oil future traders. >> it's the excessive speculation we're concerned about. >> reporter: which is why senator sanders wants to limit those. >> if we do that, there are varying est

you may have seen, there is an article of the current journal of the national association business economists, an article by two st. louis fed members. it uses quotations from the transcripts from 1992 through but they 2000's, increase of the trend rate of productivity growth, how that was dealt with in the fed and how decisions were reached. to me, that is exhibit a in understanding how these transcripts can be used productively to understand and approve a policy function. >> the transcript question -- i up here -- the guys appea we're saying we already know one thing, but if we know that stuff, to release of the transcript should not be harmful, because it should be informative. in the world where it is not informative, i want to be informed. if they are saying one thing in the public stuff, but in meetings saying something different, that is something i think congress should be informed about when they are voting on the confrontation -- on the confirmation of the federal reserve chairman. i like the three years. i think the argument is against -- >> do you want two? into thenvite the tv's meeting. >> i do not want to have

the fed chairman. >> unemployment is declining and is now at 8.3%, the lowest in three years. and we can get pretty technical in these hearings. but my constituents in st. louis would like to know what we in congress and you at the federal reserve can do to put americans back to work in ways that perhaps we can all understand. what do you suggest? from the federal reserve's point of view, we have been keeping interest rates low and trying to create financial conditions that will foster investment in entrepreneurship and demand on the part of consumers. that should help bring the economy back towards a normal level of functioning. as i said earlier, the fed cannot affect the long run health prosperity and productivity of the economy. that's up to congress. and there's a whole range of policies there starting with fiscal, i would say. having a fiscal program that on the one hand achieves fiscal sustainability on the long run. and on the other hand is protective of the recovery which is still not complete. we need to talk about skills. we need to talk about the tax code. infrastructure that allows our economy to function at a level. there's a lot to be done. i g

the short-term situation, iran anxiety right now. goldman sachs did a study. 23 bucks on a $100 barrel of oil speculation. st. louis fed had it at about 15%. so that is a factor that can be like 15 bucks when you fill up your pickup. >> 15% is about right. look. we have very efficient commodity and financial markets. they've done -- you know, we've had trials. they never find anything wrong. but peter, let me ask you this. suppose these evil speculators sold oil and sold gasoline futures and lowered the price because america is drilling more and pipelining more. in other words, in the markets, peter, what goes up can come down. >> it's true. but the way the futures market has been inverted. it's gone from 80% end users like the airlines and the fuel users to 80% speculators. in the short-term when there is upheaval like in iran and anxiety about that, they have been able to leverage that to their advantage. the reverse could happen. but bottom line, i'm saying that have the futures market through the cftc be -- bring it back to its original purpose for the end users price stability. >> yeah, but this helps add liquidit

the st. louis federal reserve weighs in with a 56-page newly updated report. it says two main factors drive gasñr prices up. first, global demand shocks like tensions in the middle east. but next the fedconcludes "speculation played a significant role in the oil price increase between 2004 and 2008 and its subsequent collapse." adding as much as 15% to prices. and says that that can explain part of the recent increase in oil prices. >> all over this country people are really being hurt financially. >> reporter: senator bernie sanders of vermont is fighting back. >> this is money coming right out of their paycheck. >> reporter: today sanders will send out a letter to the commodity futures trading commission that says, "as the cost for american people to fill their gas tanks continues to skyrocket, the cftc continues to drag its feet on imposing strict speculation limits to eliminate, prevent, or diminish excessive oil speculation." and calling for immediate action. sanders says so far he has pledges from 67 other members of congress to co-sign the letter by the end of the day. >> what we want to do is limit the amount of oil that any individual corporation can control on any given day.

an article in the current journal of the national association of business economists, it's called business economics. but there's an article about two st. louis fed economists. it's very long, but it's very good, and it uses extensive quotes from the transcripts in the period between, i guess, like '92 through the early 2000s, and it's all about the, what the increase in the trend rate of productivity growth, how that was dealt with in the fed and how decisions were reached. and, you know, it's really worthwhile, and to me, that's exhibit a in understanding how these, you know, transcripts can really be used productively to understand and improve monetary policy function. >> the transcript question, though, does kind of raise -- like, i sensed from all the fed guys up here this kind of bureaucratic intransigence a little bit. on the one hand we're saying, okay, we already know everything. like, steve listed automatic things they do to be -- listed all the things they do to be transparent. but if they really do, they should be discussing their genuine views, so it should be uninformative. in the state of the world or where it is informative, then

st. louis fed is putting out inventory numbers that are startling. paints a positive picture, don't you think? >> i like theerve does great reports. especially san francisco fed, in particular. when it comes to value quantitative easing, give me some value, guys. >> on the table, off the table, likelihood of it happening later this year? >> we'll talk about that on the "santelli exchange" today. bill gross made a comment i found fascinating. he said there is going to be qe-3 because every time the central banks pull the sugar the stock market goes down. the answer to your question would be yes, except for in eight months we have an election. i think no matter how apolitical people think the fed is, i'm not buying it. they feel the pressure with all other politicians regard to money, balance sheet and some of the programs of the past. >> do you mean they don't want to be the reason an election happens? >> they don't want to have their finger on who gets elected, but don't want to be too sympathetic to one or the other. they are on a tight rope. >> gross said they were being played. there is a game which we a