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On Monday we published the first part of a multi-part interview with Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner (CFTC) Bart Chilton. Chilton was candid with Senior Editor Paul Jay telling him that to fight a 600 trillion dollar (that’s right…600 TRILLION) dark market, the CFTC would need at least 400 additional staff. At the moment the staff of 600 is essentially responsible for 1 trillion dollars each. Talk about doing more with less!

Chilton relayed to Jay that the CFTC is prosecuting it’s first manipulation case in 35 years. Of course they have prosecuted other cases over that time, but this is significant because it involves a company physically holding goods in order to drive prices up and then down.

There is a lot of justified anger directed at the state of the markets and at the whole financial community at large. It’s difficult to know who to believe. What is certain is that Chilton is correct when he says that the lack of regulation is what caused the crisis in the first place and that future regulation is key to protecting ordinary people against the kind of losses to wages, jobs and housing that were the result.

But enough about what I think of Mr. Chilton’s interview, I’d like to hear from you about this interview. We will compile the questions here and together decide which are most effective. Once we do that, I’ll forward them to the Commissioner who has indicated that he would be very interested in responding to Real News viewers.