TIL that onion’s aren’t a tradable commodity in the US because in 1955 two people managed to buy 98% of the onion supply in Chicago (home of the commodities exchange market)—some 30 million pounds—and used this massive inventory (they actually took delivery and housed all of these onions).
They then used this massive inventory to manipulate the market in a couple of ways and made a fortune.
I can’t help but wonder how many innocent people were completely fucked over by this.
Follow
fuchsiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
@AudreyJune what also seems weird to me is they added a specific restriction on onion trading as if this is not an issue with every kind of (food) trading??
@f0x well that was the market that got cornered. It’s notoriously difficult to corner a commodities market because a) it requires a fuckton of money, and b) the scheme can easily collapse if people know what you are doing before you have successfully done it.
Adding the regulation to onions was done by a bill introduced by then House Rep. Gerald Ford. It was done due to politics.
What fascinates me about this is we acknowledge monopolies are bad with things like onions, but not with things like say...vaccine patents.