Os especuladores da cebola

Este excerto da CNN fala-nos sobre as cebolas. Acontece que nos anos 50 os agricultores achavam que o que andava a suprimir o preço da cebola eram os especuladores no mercado de futuros (esta maldita corja da sociedade não só têm culpa dos preços altos como dos preços baixos) e pediram para que fosse banida a comercialização dos mercados de futuros.

Que resultado podemos esperar? Ver o bold abaixo...


The bulbous root is the only commodity for which futures trading is banned. Back in 1958, onion growers convinced themselves that futures traders (and not the new farms sprouting up in Wisconsin) were responsible for falling onion prices, so they lobbied an up-and-coming Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford [*] to push through a law banning all futures trading in onions. The law still stands.

And yet even with no traders to blame, the volatility in onion prices makes the swings in oil and corn look tame, reinforcing academics’ belief that futures trading diminishes extreme price swings. Since 2006, oil prices have risen 100%, and corn is up 300%. But onion prices soared 400% between October 2006 and April 2007, when weather reduced crops, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only to crash 96% by March 2008 on overproduction and then rebound 300% by this past April.

The volatility has been so extreme that the son of one of the original onion growers who lobbied Congress for the trading ban now thinks the onion market would operate more smoothly if a futures contract were in place.

Retirado do Caldeirão de bolsa