One just hopes (ha.) his ca. 100 shares bought him the proportional level of influence that the money-laundering Russians, Qataris and drug lords got, since ISTM that was the only real purpose of these ventures.
Seriously, guys, learn how a pigeon drop works.
Well, the Republicans weren’t wrong, voter fraud does exist and immigrants are “taking jobs”. It’s just that in this case he’s a Republican who voted for Trump.
I started a thread about this last month. Hasn’t been updated in a while, however.
Sorry. Thanks for the info!
No worries!
Especially if the middleman has been largely captured by near-monopolies. They tell the producers that they’re only going to pay so much for the cattle, and then turn around, and tell the consumers that the price of steaks is going up. If that middleman is the only game in town, what other options do you have? Stop producing beef, and stop buying it, is about it.
Even if you decided, “Screw that, I’m starting my own slaughterhouse, with blackjack, and hookers!” the big companies can manipulate the market to destroy you.
It’s why there was a long tradition, especially in the upper Midwest, of farmers being pro-regulation, along with being anti-tariff.
If there’s a near monopoly anywhere along a supply chain, that entity(ies) can dictate irrational and/or unprofitable terms to the entire rest of the chain.
The Pentagon buying weapons, Amazon buying first shipping services and now everything, Boeing (until recently) supplying airliners, “deregulated” utilities or those who’ve captured their regulator, Walmart in many ways. Etc.
The term is monopsony. That’s when there’s a single buyer for products and they can therefore dictate prices to the sellers.
Yep.
IMO the terms monopoly and monopsony tend to be used for the far ends of a supply chain. Your local electrical utility has a monopoly on selling electricity locally and the US DoD has a monopsony on buying aircraft carriers in the USA.
But the reality is that if you have enough vertical integration in middlemen, or enough consolidation of middlemen then you have a kink that segregates one single supply chain into two price-unrelated markets.
e.g. …
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) can dictate their buying prices to farmers & local farmer coops, making ADM a monopsony buyer of e.g. grains in that upstream segment of the total farm-to-table supply chain.
And meanwhile ADM can also act as a monopoly supplier of e.g. grain and grain products to the downstream market segment of millers, bakers, and packaged food manufacturers.
I don’t know of a word that encompasses that dual monopsony/monopoly role. But boy howdy is it a profitable role once you settle into it.
I congratulate you both on this excellent find. Delicious!