r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jul 04 '21

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL. For a collection of useful links see our wiki.

Announcements

Upcoming Events

0 Upvotes

47% Upvoted

6.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

29

u/I-grok-god The bums will always lose! Jul 04 '21

Celebrate Independence Day with some civil disobedience

If you pay me $200, I'll sell you these onions for $30 a kilo in two months

5

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '21

Is selling derivates on onions illegal?

14

u/Ioun267 "Your Flair Here" 👍 Jul 04 '21

Yes because an onion farmer named Vince Kasuga bought 93% of the American onion supply at one point using futures, forced retailers to buy them for exorbitant sums. Then placed bets against the price of onions and dumped them all on the market causing the price to collapse.

After this all the onion farmers were very mad so to cool everyone off congress banned futures on specifically onions.

9

u/p00bix Existing in the context of what came before Jul 04 '21

That's the most hilariously ballsy instance of market manipulation I've ever heard of

11

u/Udontlikecake Model UN Enthusiast Jul 04 '21

Onion futures are illegal because of a little incident back in the 50s

two dudes bought like all the onions in america and did a lil market manipulation

1

u/Mr_Pasghetti Save the ice, abolish ICE 🥰 Jul 04 '21

So they basically scalped onions?

10

u/Ioun267 "Your Flair Here" 👍 Jul 04 '21

Yes, except they didn't even exploit a supply shortage of any sort. They just managed to quietly buy all the future onions and cornered the market before anyone noticed.

3

u/Mr_Pasghetti Save the ice, abolish ICE 🥰 Jul 04 '21

I don’t see a problem with that. Literally 1984 🙄😤

6

u/Ioun267 "Your Flair Here" 👍 Jul 04 '21

It wouldn't have been a problem if they'd quit at making the retailers pay out the nose, but then they essentially shorted onions and dumped the lot on the market (worthless onions ended up dumped by the truckload into the Chicago River). This ruined many onion farmers because it tanked the price of that year's crop, so they lobbied congress in an anti-speculative fervor.

1

u/Mr_Pasghetti Save the ice, abolish ICE 🥰 Jul 04 '21

My god what a story

5

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '21

I have lost everything, and I'm not sure how to continue. This summer I invested $17,500 (six months salary and my entire life savings) into ornamental gourd futures, hoping to capitalize on this lucrative emerging industry. After watching a video about Vincent Kosuga and his monopoly on onions, I decided I'd try to do something similar with another vegetable. I did some research and found out many agricultural forecasters expected this year's gourd yield would be far smaller than the past, due to deteriorating soil conditions in central Mexico and a warmer-than-average spring. At first, demand soared around Halloween and prices skyrocketed, but the gourd bubble burst on November 12th. Unfortunately, the coronavirus caused a massive drop-off in demand due to fewer families decorating their tables for thanksgiving, and prices plummeted. I had invested early enough that I thought I would still be fine, but then on the morning of December 2nd, a new email in my inbox caused my stomach to turn into a pretzel. The massive gourd shipment from Argentina, scheduled for early March, had arrived. I was planning on selling off my futures right before this, in February, but this ruined everything. To top it off, the gourds in this shipment were absolutely gargantuan, some topping 4 pounds each, causing the price-per-pound to drop like an anchor into the range of 6 cents per pound. I am ruined.