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| I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, when broaching this subject, I knew one of John Connally's sons & met he and his dad at O'Hare unexpectedly within a couple hours of the Carter Embargo. Introduced to Connally by his son, I was very impressed with his understanding of agriculture and he was furious at Carter. Said there had been some rumbles and a few trial balloons but Carter did not consult anyone in Congress or the Cabinet. The Nixon Embargo was unfortunate in that it did not allow the free market to price the soybeans as related to the demand & also remember the Ford Embargo in October of 1975...a consultant I used called about midnight telling me 'something is up at the white house...a lot of USDA consultants are over there.' and the next morning about 5 am..a young man I had mentored for a year called me to relate his employer, a large grain house, had gone flat all positions over night...liquidated everything world wide..I put 2 & 2 together & spent the day selling any corn option which bounced above $4 & change...and sold so much corn the phone clerk kept saying...."Cook is buying the pits...this is a bull market...do you know what you are doing??" I was not 100% sure...but took the big risk...market closed....the top cash corn trader from Cook called me after the close and wondered what I knew, as they had bought a lot of what I had sold...I told him I really did not know anything....left & grabbed the spouse and jumped on a plane to either Minneapolis or Vegas, can't remember which...think it was Las Vegas and watched Ford announce the embargo on a lobby television when we walked into the hotel. It was a good trade. Also a reason why I used to make the spouse a bit nervous. Still do. I am not too concerned about an embargo, yet.....too many free traders and we would lose a major part of our credibility.
Edited by SeniorCitizen 1/11/2008 16:24
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Anyone remember Carter's grain embargo?
