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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. Yo,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton, what's up? I got a question for you girls.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what's ridiculous? I do? Actually, you spread

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Speaker 1: it up, spread some work. Let me give you a

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Speaker 1: little background though. Okay, so you know that I'm going

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Speaker 1: to talk about some things that I like and that's

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Speaker 1: not ridiculous. No, not at all. I like candles, but

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Speaker 1: I'm snobby about candles. I only like expensive candles because

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Speaker 1: they smell good. Like right now, I'm a little bit

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Speaker 1: obsessed with these candles from this company. Oddis V I V? No,

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Speaker 1: it's like V I V. Anyway, They're amazing. I'm not

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Speaker 1: even getting paid for this. They should pay me, but seriously,

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Speaker 1: like they're the most incredible candles. I'll write it down.

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Speaker 1: I love them. So I like that. You know what

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Speaker 1: else I like? Um, polka music, onion, soup, onion soup.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, these things go together, and I like I

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Speaker 1: like chips. Odd. Yeah, you back ended on this one totally.

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Speaker 1: You slipped it in. Like. So are you familiar? Okay,

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Speaker 1: first of all, are you familiar with the Super Bowl? Uh?

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Speaker 1: With the football? We just had one? Yes, Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was a huge bowl. Super Bowl for the whole globe.

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Speaker 1: Everybody was yeah, okay, so people have super Bowl parties.

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Speaker 1: I've talked about this. Yes, I went to length and

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Speaker 1: you went to one. Did you have dips and chip?

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Speaker 1: I had chips? No dip, chip and dips? Wait what? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so have you ever heard of is it hell of

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Speaker 1: a good dip? Let's just say it is and keep moving.

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Speaker 1: It's a brand in the store. I don't see l

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Speaker 1: u V a hell of a you know, they got ranch,

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Speaker 1: they got uh onion, they got them all ranch on

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Speaker 1: they so they had this special thing for this is

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Speaker 1: taking way too long. They had this special thing for

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Speaker 1: the super Bowl. They were giving away super Bowl snack

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Speaker 1: scented campbells. Why so they eate a French onion candle.

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Speaker 1: And they also had like a recipe for French onion

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Speaker 1: soup bites, which okay, aside from that, buttermilk ranch and

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Speaker 1: then just potato chips in here, baby, lighten it up. Onion,

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Speaker 1: French onion candle. Just go cook some onions. I know

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Speaker 1: what you're getting for your birthday. I know I wreak

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Speaker 1: of onions all the time. So that that that that

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Speaker 1: that that is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. Now it's coincidental, though,

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Speaker 1: because I've got something for you that should be right

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Speaker 1: up your alley. Okay, yeah, my shooter alley. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: know exactly alley. Yeah. The thing I was thinking, that's

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Speaker 1: ridiculous capitalism gonna get me right in the shooter alley. Capitalism, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. I just slide past that. Capitalism is ridiculous, Elizabeth,

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Speaker 1: But not like in the good fun way. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, like in that Picasso of face way. And

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Speaker 1: by that I mean it's it's recognizable, you know, but

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Speaker 1: it's still distarted and exploited, and it's probably overvalued by

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Speaker 1: market speculators. Right. So anyway, I'm not gonna get on

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Speaker 1: a soapbox about capitalism. You know my feelings about it.

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Speaker 1: All economic models are ridiculous. Young felt that way. Well,

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Speaker 1: leaving aside my college freshman opinions about capitalism, I would

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Speaker 1: like to tell you about a crime of capitalism, one

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Speaker 1: that is ridiculous and one that involves onions. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's about onions. You like onions, You like onions. You

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Speaker 1: like onions. What's your third favorite onion? Okay, good choice. Well,

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Speaker 1: I like onions too. So now imagine if onions were

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Speaker 1: suddenly like ninety dollars a bag for onions. That'd be ridiculous, right,

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Speaker 1: that would be very right. That's essentially what happened in

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Speaker 1: when one man conspired to create an onion cartel so

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Speaker 1: that he could have control over all of the onions

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Speaker 1: in America. Yes, this is ridiculous Crime A podcast about

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Speaker 1: absurd and outrageous capers, ices and cons It's always murder

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Speaker 1: free and ridiculous, Elizabeth Zaren. Before we get into the

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Speaker 1: onion cartel and the man with the bond villain dreams

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Speaker 1: to control all the onions in America, I'd like to

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Speaker 1: talk to you about a subject that's very near and

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Speaker 1: dear to my heart. No, I want to talk to

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Speaker 1: you about pork belly futures. Okay, yeah, Now let me

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Speaker 1: back up. Do you know what a pork belly future is?

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Speaker 1: Kind of I mean, I'm not gonna lie and be like, oh, yeah, totally.

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Speaker 1: And then you ask me something about like let's keep

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Speaker 1: it simpler, it's like all you know what it is,

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Speaker 1: it's all by cell cell by because I yell it

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Speaker 1: into a phone. Yeah. And then I had another guy

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Speaker 1: who's like yelling by by sell that yeah, with like

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Speaker 1: a bunch of little slips of paper and perfect Yes,

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Speaker 1: I know. Okay, Well, do you know what a pork

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Speaker 1: belly is? Okay? Now what is a pork belly? It's

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Speaker 1: the belly of pork. Fig Yes, it's a butcher's cut

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Speaker 1: of park. It's like a big layer of fat on it. Yes.

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Speaker 1: Is where we get bacon? Yeah, so I figured you're

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Speaker 1: familiar with like how we get bacon. You you've lived

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Speaker 1: in the South exactly. Now, hogs are a huge market.

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Speaker 1: Everyone around the world loves pork. We talked about chicken,

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Speaker 1: but everybody loves park. Did you know how much pork

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Speaker 1: we produce in a year as just as a globe?

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Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you in millions of metric

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Speaker 1: tons of so China's number one, and they produced five

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Speaker 1: point four seven million metric tons of hog every year.

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Speaker 1: The European unit two point three million metric tons of hog.

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Speaker 1: Now US re number three, number three, number three, so

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Speaker 1: we re number three one point to one million metric tons.

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Speaker 1: And rounding out the top four is Brazil with three

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Speaker 1: point seven million tons. I'm sorry, we are yeah point three.

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Speaker 1: Something is this when they're weighing him. Is that rude

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Speaker 1: or to tutor? Is that like the bones and everything

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Speaker 1: that weight? Yeah, that's like sale price. Wait, they use

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Speaker 1: all of it. Let's be frank. Yeah, everything but the

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Speaker 1: frank joke. That's good. No, the demand for pig has

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Speaker 1: been so high and so just outsized for so long,

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Speaker 1: and we were talking to centuries that eventually when we

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Speaker 1: get into like capitalism era, the pork belly market was

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Speaker 1: always super volatile. It just was like the prices are fluctuating,

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Speaker 1: made rise and falls. Hog farmers would make a fortune

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Speaker 1: and then they lose everything. So something had to be

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Speaker 1: done there, like how do we stabilize this pork belly market.

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Speaker 1: Starting in nineteen sixty one, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, that's

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Speaker 1: the Dow Jones for raw materials like pork bellies and

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Speaker 1: frozen orange juice and wheat futures, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange,

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Speaker 1: it began trading pork belly futures and that was meant

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Speaker 1: to stabilize pork prices, right, But it did bring some

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Speaker 1: calm to the pork market and also led to one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite films, Trading Places. You like trading Places.

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Speaker 1: Did you and your brother trap you guys grow watch

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Speaker 1: that growing up? I think, Yeah, what's your third favorite scene? Oh? Goodness,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. You know that, like I don't really

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Speaker 1: remember anything more than an hour. I know, like like

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Speaker 1: an eight year all to keep asking you your third favorite?

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Speaker 1: Do like that this was your third favorite hero? No?

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Speaker 1: The problem that I have is that I'll know that

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Speaker 1: I watched something, and then if I watch it, it

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Speaker 1: like refreshes my memory. Yes, I honestly I couldn't tell you.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I know it's like Dana Roydon and Edine Murphy.

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Speaker 1: Jimmie Lee Curtis. I don't even remember her. Do you

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Speaker 1: remember the gorilla like where they remember the blackface scene

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Speaker 1: or blackface? Yes, okay, I don't remember some part of it.

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Speaker 1: For those who have never seen the film, Trading Places,

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Speaker 1: about these dudes, the Duke brothers, Randolph and Mortimer Duke.

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Speaker 1: Their super old money. They have like seats on the

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Speaker 1: down jone exchange, and the Duke brothers they have a

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Speaker 1: commodities brokerage firm, which is what we're talking about now,

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Speaker 1: may bide cell raw materials that become the products we

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Speaker 1: all by. Now, the two brothers getting a spirit of

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Speaker 1: debate about nature versus nurture. So they decide they will

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Speaker 1: test their theory with a bet, and so they pick

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Speaker 1: rich person Dana Right a poor person Eddie Murphy and

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Speaker 1: they have them switch places and then see what will happen. Right,

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Speaker 1: So they do this. They decided to ruin these two

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Speaker 1: bands live and they make Eddie Murphy rich. They make

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Speaker 1: dannack Royd poor and he's just like he hits the

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Speaker 1: skids hard. And they just they determined that wealth is

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Speaker 1: not about merit. It really is about rather who you know,

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Speaker 1: wealth is about access as it he doesn't. It's nurture

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Speaker 1: not nature. Right anyway, Dana Chary, Eddie Murphy, they decided

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Speaker 1: to get revenge on the Duke brothers for ruining their lives.

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Speaker 1: So what do they do. They use frozen orange juice futures.

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Speaker 1: Okay yeah, yeah, remember okay, So they're active subterfuge. They

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Speaker 1: have this agent, guy Meeks, who has he has the

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Speaker 1: crop YOUELD reports. So they get the crop UELD report,

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Speaker 1: they switch it out, they give it to the Duke brothers.

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Speaker 1: The Duke brothers going, they tell their agents on the

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Speaker 1: stock market, Bye bye bye Cell Cell Cell right. So

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Speaker 1: they go in there and they have their marching orders

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Speaker 1: and they're going to try to drive up orange juice

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Speaker 1: to a fixed price. Right, So the Duke Brothers attempt

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Speaker 1: to corner them our market. Now, being super wealthy, they

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Speaker 1: can do this, and they do it all on margin. Though,

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Speaker 1: this is where they make a mistake. You know what

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Speaker 1: margin is. It's where you use someone else's money to

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Speaker 1: buy a stock and then when the price, when the

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Speaker 1: when the time to actually purchase it comes, do you

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Speaker 1: have to pay for whatever the price is set at

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Speaker 1: that time, so you can say a little bit of

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Speaker 1: a fluctuation. You do not know necessarily what the price

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Speaker 1: will be. So they buy this on margin. They got

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Speaker 1: all these orange juice futures, contracts, markets open, Duke Brothers

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Speaker 1: buying a ton and then trading pauses crop, your report

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Speaker 1: comes out. Everybody's like, oh no, the Duke brothers, what

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Speaker 1: they were told is the opposite. So now everybody's trying

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Speaker 1: to drop their orange juice prices. The market response orange

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Speaker 1: usee prices drop at great and Murphy. They have bought

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Speaker 1: futures on the short so now they can because they

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Speaker 1: have promised to buy orange juice, they have to start

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Speaker 1: buying to fulfill their orders. And they do this, and

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Speaker 1: that that they do is they buy everybody who wants

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Speaker 1: to sell oranges except from the Duke brothers. So now

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Speaker 1: they have these prices they are contractually obligated to buy.

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Speaker 1: It bankrupts them. This is the power of the futures

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Speaker 1: market because you're basically saying tomorrow, I will buy this

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Speaker 1: these orange juices from this orange juice from you, but

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Speaker 1: whatever the prices tomorrow today, and you lock it in,

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Speaker 1: and that's supposed to stabilize the market. Some people make

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Speaker 1: these bets. Well that's what the Duke brothers ended up.

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Speaker 1: How they end up going belly up, much like say

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Speaker 1: a pork belly. Now, to bring it all back around

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Speaker 1: to park belly, futures farming has gone industrial, right, we

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Speaker 1: all know this. It's agri business is big business. But

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Speaker 1: that means they can lower the prices of the cost

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Speaker 1: to bring a hog to market. That's been really helpful

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Speaker 1: to also stabilize the pork product market. Right. This also

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Speaker 1: means hog farmers can leverage their size to control prices,

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Speaker 1: and this is pretty much how you get price stability. Right.

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Speaker 1: This killed off the pork belly futures market. So two

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Speaker 1: thousand eleven, Chicago mercantile exchanss like, forget this, We're not

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Speaker 1: doing it anymore. The agri business basically made it no

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Speaker 1: longer necessary. Right. This also happened to be coincidentally one

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Speaker 1: year after Congress looked into the fixing of pork billy futures.

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Speaker 1: So you know, it was that a little bit of

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Speaker 1: congressional testimony. And by the way, trading places was cited

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Speaker 1: in congressional testimony to help the sound help the cores

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Speaker 1: men and women understand futures. It's not just us good

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Speaker 1: teaching tools. It is I'm telling you, Eddie Murphy, if

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Speaker 1: you want to get people's attention and hold it, Eddie

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Speaker 1: Murphy exactly, throwing some dan A right if you really

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Speaker 1: just like, you know, it got some Canadians anyway. It

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Speaker 1: turns out this whole thing I'm telling you this all

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Speaker 1: applies to the onion futures market. Have you ever heard

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Speaker 1: of onion futures? No, I've not. Well, turns out you

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Speaker 1: can get onion futures. You can buy onions before they

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Speaker 1: come to market, which are also now no longer traded

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Speaker 1: on the Chicago mercantilers. They get rid of those two

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and uh there this case. So there isn't

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Speaker 1: a classic eighties movie to explain it, so we'll have

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Speaker 1: to rely on me, you know, just good. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: it's the great Onion Scam of nineteen fifty five and

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Speaker 1: just imagine trading places like stuff happening. Right You ready

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Speaker 1: for the story of Vincent Cassuga and the Onion Cartel.

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Speaker 1: Never been more ready. Okay, this story takes place in

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite places, Chicago. Chicago's amazing, dude, it

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Speaker 1: really is, like I legit love Chicago. I love it.

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Speaker 1: There's so much green space for a big city. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a lot of the Midwestern cities because they're built

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Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century before cars. They have a much

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Speaker 1: better layout, plan, gener structure. Everything is just a lot cool.

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Speaker 1: I've been finding that it was Indianapolis recently. I was like,

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Speaker 1: this is a damn cooling. I mean, not like popping off,

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Speaker 1: but I mean like I like the building anyway. Chicago's dope.

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Speaker 1: In her book The Futures, author Emily Lambert was writing

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Speaker 1: all about the economics, and she was explaining the Chicago

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Speaker 1: Mercantile Exchange and so forth. She shared why Chicago and

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Speaker 1: onions are so naturally intertwined. Do you know anything about this? No?

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Speaker 1: I didn't either, So Lambert writes, and I quote, onions

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Speaker 1: were faded to trade in Chicago. The name of the

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Speaker 1: city was derived from chicaqua, the Native American word for

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Speaker 1: a stinky wild leak plant that grew around the river.

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Speaker 1: Chicago is basically a swamp. Before people got there and

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Speaker 1: the conditions, people were like, oh, we don't camp there,

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Speaker 1: Like that's it's right by the lake. It's just rats

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Speaker 1: and onions. Nobody goes there, right. So now this chicaqua,

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Speaker 1: this is one. This was the Miami or the Miami

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Speaker 1: tribes word for the area. But other people, other indigenous

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Speaker 1: tribes in the area, they had their own term for it.

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Speaker 1: But yet all of them seem to basically want to

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Speaker 1: point out that this place is stinky as hell. Returning

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Speaker 1: to a Lambert, she says, quote Chicaqua is the Miami

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Speaker 1: Tribes name for the region on which the city and

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Speaker 1: campus sits, and is said to be associated in the

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Speaker 1: naming of Chicago. It refers to the marshy environment where

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Speaker 1: wild leaks, garlic, and onions grow, giving the area a

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Speaker 1: strong and pungent fragrance. Other tribes of the region referred

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Speaker 1: to the area as the place of onions, and legends

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Speaker 1: of a great skunk who devoured humans and covered the

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Speaker 1: land and its pungent spray. So it's like if you

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Speaker 1: had a hell of a good candle yes, and it

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Speaker 1: smelled like skunk. But you know what, though, I'm not

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Speaker 1: gonna I'm not gonna get on onions. Onions are amazing.

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Speaker 1: I love onions. I'm all about like the album Family,

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Speaker 1: This fertile ground. Where is where our onion conspiracy takes place?

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Speaker 1: Now in this land where the great skunk devours people

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Speaker 1: and leaves the land shrouded in skunky aroma, Chicago is

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Speaker 1: where we're gonna meet our anti hero. You're ready to

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Speaker 1: meet Vincent Cassuga. He was a farmer from New York.

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Speaker 1: He was in place called Pine Island. It's a small

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Speaker 1: town down by the New Jersey border. Kasuga had a

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Speaker 1: big spread, about five thousand acres of a black dirt farm.

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Speaker 1: And black dirt is like really fertile, rich earth. So

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Speaker 1: he was growing celery, carrots and onions and lots of

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Speaker 1: onions and so so that you can picture him because

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Speaker 1: Suga was not a big man. He stood about five

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Speaker 1: feet four. He comes from Eastern European roots and he

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Speaker 1: was born in America the nineteen fifteen. He started farming

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Speaker 1: in the US and the thirties. His farm was productive, profitable.

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Speaker 1: He's very good at it. Two of his biggest clients

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Army and Campbell Suit. So everybody was

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Speaker 1: eating his onions now. Because Suga had a scrappy side

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Speaker 1: to him. He was a little bit of a totjof

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Speaker 1: spark plug of a man. Dude was driven by will.

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Speaker 1: He was just like about it. And he always kept

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Speaker 1: a revolver on him and a billy club making case

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Speaker 1: got the revolver away from him, make a billy club.

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Speaker 1: I think he would like the billy clubs. The intro. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's like a this off. I just I didn't have

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Speaker 1: a Chile. Those things will not okay. Now, my dude, Cossuga,

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Speaker 1: Now you know, he's the kind of guy who shoots

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Speaker 1: first and asked for forgiveness later, just like all good Catholics,

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Speaker 1: you know. But and all truth he did contain multitudes.

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Speaker 1: He was a devout Catholic. The dude, I might say

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Speaker 1: devout Catholic. He donated millions to the Catholic Church, so

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Speaker 1: much that the Vatican invited him out to Rome to

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Speaker 1: have private audiences with the Pope. He got the whole

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Speaker 1: v I p pass. Yeah, not one pope, three popes.

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Speaker 1: He had private on three popes. Not only that, he

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Speaker 1: got a ride up and down in the Pope's private

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Speaker 1: paper elevator, which I didn't even know that was a thing.

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Speaker 1: Apparently they got this like little cart that you shoved

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Speaker 1: up and down anything. It's all gold, oh you know it.

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Speaker 1: You know, a deep red carpet, gold everything. No, perhaps

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Speaker 1: it was his resolute faith. I don't know, but something

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Speaker 1: gave Cossuga the strength to go on when others would

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Speaker 1: turn back. You know, it's like that. There was one

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Speaker 1: time he crashed his plane, so he owned his own plane. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he was flying a friend home to us. We go

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Speaker 1: in New York, somewhere up in there among the clouds.

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Speaker 1: He's like, you know, how to change my mind, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna go to Pine Island. So he starts to go

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Speaker 1: on two extra miles. That's really testing. Your fuel tank

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Speaker 1: did not pass the test. Plane runs out of gas

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Speaker 1: in the air. He has to ditch it, he crashes

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Speaker 1: and totally walks away from the crash. So he's and

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Speaker 1: he's hospitalized for weeks. He had to wear a full

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Speaker 1: body cast, and then when he was like done, he

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Speaker 1: just checked himself out of the hospital and went back

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Speaker 1: to farming. Because that's amazing because usually you're here, Oh

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Speaker 1: he crashed his plane. Yeah, not this area. So in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, he gets involved in the stock market,

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Speaker 1: and that's what will bring us to all of the criminality.

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Speaker 1: But first a little break for some commercials and some capitalism,

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Speaker 1: and then we'll be back with the commercial involving onion.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, alright, Elizabeth, Okay, Elizabeth. So we're in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. Vincent Kasuga has just gotten involved in the

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Speaker 1: stock market. He's like, I'm doing well as a farmer.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to invest now. Admittedly, this was not the

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Speaker 1: thinking of most people at the time, because there was

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Speaker 1: a little thing called Black Tuesday that wiped out most

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Speaker 1: of the stock market. Everyone else is like, to hell

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Speaker 1: with the stock market. That is legalized gambling. Not Kissuga.

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Speaker 1: He's like, that's legalized gambling exactly. So he decides to

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Speaker 1: get involved, and he's like, I think I can make

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Speaker 1: a fortune there, and he was wrong. He goes into

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Speaker 1: the thirties, he loses everything. His first pray about he

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Speaker 1: and his wife nearly had to like hawk the farm

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Speaker 1: that he was betting on wheat futures, and then the

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Speaker 1: prices shifted as a telling you boom. He lost it

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Speaker 1: all on margin calls. He goes to tell his wife,

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Speaker 1: and his wife's like, that's it, You're out, and he's like, okay, okay, baby,

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Speaker 1: I promise no more trade and wheat futures, wheat futures. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you have to open all the other but not ever again, babe.

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Speaker 1: So that she should have like made him be a

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Speaker 1: little more specific, because, like I said, a few years later,

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Speaker 1: he's out there and he's deep in the futures market.

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Speaker 1: He was flying to Chicago every week so he could

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Speaker 1: go trade. He lives in New York, He's got his

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Speaker 1: bone pilots. On Monday morning, why is Chicago hangs out

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Speaker 1: trade for like three or four days. Thursday flies back

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Speaker 1: and does she think he's out like plowing the field.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. She didn't tell me all if you

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Speaker 1: need me, yeah, I don't know. Then she hears the

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Speaker 1: places like called dirt it. I'll tell you that. Vance No,

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Speaker 1: I think that. I think she had to be aware

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Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, so you know, anyway gets back. Isn't

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Speaker 1: it worth fun to imagine she had no idea? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: she's just in there, like you know, making let's have

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Speaker 1: peanut butter brittle and just on her own, just having

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Speaker 1: some me time, listening to her stories, living your best life.

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Speaker 1: So dope to the guild, all of mom happy, mother's

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Speaker 1: little helpers. He's got a fistful helpers. Okay. Anyway, so dude,

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Speaker 1: he gets good at trading. Cassuga starts not losing out

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Speaker 1: everything and his wife's money and all of everything on

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Speaker 1: the futures market. So he starts making bank. He starts

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Speaker 1: getting really good at He starts buying Cadillacs for his brokers.

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Speaker 1: That's how good he's getting at it. Multiple brokers, multiple Cadillacs.

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Speaker 1: Not just like Steve got your catalect, more like Steve,

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Speaker 1: Gary Lionel and Anton gil got y'all got covered you two, Joaquin,

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Speaker 1: But there's one there's this one story about him. But

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Speaker 1: it's like I was reading and I'm like, what a jerk.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, I think, guy, he's he's giving cars to

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Speaker 1: his broker's right, there's supposed to be gifts. He's riding

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Speaker 1: around one time and uh, well, I'll just put it

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Speaker 1: to this way quote from a book he said. He

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Speaker 1: presented a broker name Nate Wertheimer, who was at one

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Speaker 1: point a chairman of the Murk that's the Mercantile Exchange,

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Speaker 1: with a big, fancy Cadillac. Fifteen minutes later, they were

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Speaker 1: driving down Michigan Avenue when Kassuga, in the backseat, put

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Speaker 1: his dirty feet on the ceiling of the car. We're

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Speaker 1: finmer told him to take his feet off the ceiling

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Speaker 1: of his car. Your car, Kassuga asked, and then stuck

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Speaker 1: his feet through the canvas ceiling. That's like the Charlie

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Speaker 1: Murphy story about Rick James and the white couch is.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, he just gave

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Speaker 1: you your couch, Nie Murphy, but he just he just

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Speaker 1: gave you a car. But you want to get it

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Speaker 1: detailed afterwards. Yeah, I think they're both jerks. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what everyone everyone's jerk in the start

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Speaker 1: in life. Everyone life, you're going to broaden it just

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Speaker 1: going all throwing the net wide, all right, you leave

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Speaker 1: my sister out of here. Sorry. Anyway, back to kiss

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Speaker 1: the dude. He like, as I'm trying to convey, he's willful,

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Speaker 1: he's controlling, and he's gonna do what he's gonna do.

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Speaker 1: Be it his you know, it doesn't matter you're his

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Speaker 1: wife or his broker. To hell with you. So if

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Speaker 1: you just keeping things, you know, like modern, have you

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Speaker 1: bought eggs lately? I have? Have you seen the prices? Yeah, yikes,

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Speaker 1: they're coming back down, but bikes, So, like you may

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Speaker 1: be wondering what the hell egg producers, like, why did

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Speaker 1: eggs suddenly go up in price? Right? They jumped up

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Speaker 1: by six over the course of the last year. A

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Speaker 1: dozen of grade at large Grade E eggs was a

401
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Speaker 1: dollar seventy nine. A year ago they were four five.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know, we're yeah, we're screwed on that.

403
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Speaker 1: But yeah, across the country, the averages are bitter about this.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, as you pointed out, egg prices started to fall,

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Speaker 1: they've already fallen about fifty percent back down. Wasn't that

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Speaker 1: because of avians? I've seen arguments on both sides. One,

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Speaker 1: I've seen that avian flu wiped out sixty million birds, right,

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Speaker 1: and so obviously then you have the supply and demand issue. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And I also heard that I think it was what

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Speaker 1: the U. S d A was telling home farmers not

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Speaker 1: to have chickens because they were worried that that's the

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Speaker 1: whole pandemic chicken thing. I don't think that affected the

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Speaker 1: market anyway, but yeah, but a lot of people I

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Speaker 1: know were like, oh, I got chickens, Like you want

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Speaker 1: to buy eggs from meat when? Oh interesting you and

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Speaker 1: your but I mean black market egg people. Oh yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: after those fifty or sixty million chickets were destroyed or

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Speaker 1: whatever it was, the prices started to fall right. Well, ultimately,

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Speaker 1: what you notice is it's about still supply and demand.

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Speaker 1: You know, there is still an economic theory at work

421
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:15,440
Speaker 1: underneath all of this, which is supply controls demand, demand

422
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:17,720
Speaker 1: control supply. Do you have this interaction? Right? Last time

423
00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:20,239
Speaker 1: I went to the store, they were eleven? Don't are

424
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:26,479
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Ding? Wow? That's insane? Well, my du

425
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,879
Speaker 1: kasuga right, he's like inspired by these types of crazy

426
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 1: price sikes. He's like, you know, what to hell with these? Like,

427
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:34,159
Speaker 1: you know, oh, I'm gonna get futures. He's like, what

428
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 1: if I could like kind of control the price and

429
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:39,920
Speaker 1: by either controlling supplier demand. Well, I don't know enough

430
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:44,199
Speaker 1: people to control demand. I can control supply though. He

431
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 1: starts getting into it right. So his first time he practices,

432
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 1: he makes a trading places style bet. He goes out

433
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:53,040
Speaker 1: and he makes a weather bet. He says, okay, he

434
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 1: purchased a bunch of onion futures, and he bets on

435
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:57,600
Speaker 1: the price to rise, and then to guarantee that the

436
00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 1: price rises, he goes down to the local weather bureau

437
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:02,679
Speaker 1: and he bribes them to put out a fake weather

438
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 1: service issuing a frost warning. So the price goes up

439
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,200
Speaker 1: because the frost warning. But the mercury it never fell.

440
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:12,479
Speaker 1: There was no frost. It never went below fifty degrees,

441
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:16,399
Speaker 1: so onion surplus was there. The market was like boom.

442
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 1: He made a bunch on on that, right, He's like, oh,

443
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: that was a good score. I bet I can go

444
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 1: bigger because that was not enough for so market manipulation

445
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: was one thing. But he's like, what if I could

446
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: totally control the market, and what if I didn't have

447
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:32,200
Speaker 1: to rely on lies and false crop reports or weather reports.

448
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 1: He's like, what if someone could do that? Like control

449
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,280
Speaker 1: the market. That would be a huge fortune. And nobody

450
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 1: will look for onions. So if someone did that, that

451
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: person would be a master scammer. And he's like that

452
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 1: person hits up his business partner, Sam Segull, and he's like, Yo, Seegull,

453
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: I got I got I got a new score. And

454
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, hit me with it. He lays it

455
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 1: out for him. He's like, oh, bet, I'm down. Let's

456
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:00,879
Speaker 1: do this. So the two of them they start basically

457
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 1: setting up everything they'll need to control the onion market

458
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: of America. On New York exactly. This dude has a

459
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: nephew who's still alive, Harvey paffen Roff. He was talking

460
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 1: to NPR about this and he recalled what he knew

461
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,640
Speaker 1: of his uncle's onion hoarding. So Harvey paffen Roth said, well,

462
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,680
Speaker 1: he was building it was a big shed of corrugated aluminum,

463
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 1: I mean huge, and he had a conveyor in there

464
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: and he was filling it with onions. So he was

465
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: stock buying all the onions from his farm in the

466
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: trading pits of Chicago. Vincent, his business partner Sam Siegel,

467
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: bought up all the available futures contracts for onions by

468
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: the winner of nineteen fifty five, they had done the impossible.

469
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 1: You may be wondering, Elizabeth, what is the impossible, Elizabeth?

470
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,360
Speaker 1: What is the impossible? Great question, Elizabeth. According to prof

471
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: he owned all of the longs in the futures market,

472
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: and he owned all of the onions in the United States.

473
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 1: So basically he had cornered the market. He owned all

474
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:58,719
Speaker 1: the onions in the United States. That's let's say he

475
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: buys onions from farmers and California, from California to New

476
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 1: York to Texas, Minnesota, everywhere, Vidalia, the walla wall is,

477
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: everywhere that they had good sweet onions, red onions, white onions.

478
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 1: He was like, send them my wet you know it,

479
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: pearl onions. So they start stockpiling them and effectively they'd

480
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,959
Speaker 1: start taking them off the markets, and now the supply

481
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:22,920
Speaker 1: starts going down, down, down, because onions, like apples, can

482
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 1: last for a while on the marketing called storage in particular,

483
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: so it doesn't take kasukan seagull long. They end up,

484
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: as I said, controlling about of the onions in the

485
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 1: Chicago market, which represents most of the United States agricultural products. Right,

486
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: So what does this mean in real terms, what do

487
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: you mean? Like they owned the onions right well to

488
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: control the market. If they control they can run the

489
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: price up for the onions, which is what he did.

490
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: So he starts to drive the price up as he

491
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:50,959
Speaker 1: dwindles the supply, right, says, less and less onions going

492
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: to markets. He's holding them away from the market. I

493
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 1: have like six for you. That means like in the fifties,

494
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,359
Speaker 1: if you had French onions soup you were eating sue this.

495
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you're pretty much only some good trick to

496
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 1: suit this. So, now that he has the onion market

497
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 1: pretty much controlled, he starts buying up onion futures and

498
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: that's going to guarantee his huge paid eight down the line.

499
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: So he also now to do that, he'll need to

500
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 1: control all the other onion growers in America. So this

501
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: is what he sets to do next. So November and

502
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 1: December fifty Kasuga calls a meeting of his new de

503
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: facto onion syndicate right, and he brings together with this

504
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: consortion with growers and wholesalers, distributors, and he tells them

505
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: the plan. He informs that he wants to buy onions

506
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: from all of them, right, and he'll set the price.

507
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: He's like McDonald's with potatoes. He's like, this is the price.

508
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm I'm paying a dollar six d a bag.

509
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: And they're like okay. And these are big time onion guys, right,

510
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: so they can get prices. They feel they can set

511
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: prices too. But they didn't buy onions by the bag.

512
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: They buy him by the train car, right. So that's

513
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: nine hundred sixty dollars per train cars what he's saying essentially, right,

514
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: So in this one train car, that's about six hundred

515
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: fifty pound bags of onions. So there was another VISal

516
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: when his deal that he presented to these guys, he's like, okay,

517
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: you all have to agree not to bring any onions

518
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: to market before the end of the trading season, which

519
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: is in March. So that's the future trading season. So

520
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 1: that means until at least the end of the March

521
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: of the next year. He has all these gathered men

522
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: make their promise that they will allow him to buy

523
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 1: up all their onions, so they're still making money, but

524
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: then control the prices will drive up prices and then

525
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: they can release them back onto the market. Everybody wins

526
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Right, so what are people supposed to

527
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: do for French onion soup for Christmas? New Year's Eve

528
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 1: blom and onions. They're they're they're they're doing it for

529
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: the next year for fifty six people have un till March, right, yeah,

530
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: so they're basically you're gonna have the huge surplus come

531
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: out because right now all the harvest stuff everybody's called, well,

532
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:46,680
Speaker 1: they're they're basically living off the onions from earlier. Okay,

533
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't notice it until like Easter. That's when

534
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: you're exactly eastern good. Okay, when you when your family

535
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: is sitting down for your Easter brunch at the outback steakhouse,

536
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: you're like, the blooming onion is fifty dollars anyway, So

537
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 1: so well they're doing this. Chicago Mercantile Exchange is getting

538
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: rumors that there's a fluctuation onion prices start, people starting

539
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: to notice it, and there's like the supplies dwindling, prices

540
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 1: are going up. Kassuga tells the growers, we've got this

541
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: market under control, if you boys want to cooperate now,

542
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: He's like basically telling we got it on lock, do

543
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: not mess this up and try to go out there

544
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: and make money right now because the prices are going

545
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: up and everyone's like, okay, now, if you want to

546
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: do some trading places money on your onions, which is

547
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 1: what Cassuga wants to do, you buy futures contracts, right,

548
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: So you tell an onion buyer, I'll make a contract

549
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: with you come September, I'll sell the bag onions for

550
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: three dollars. Right, And if the price is four dollars

551
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: for a bag of onions, you now lose a dollar

552
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: on every bag because it's going up. The prices down

553
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: to two dollars, you make a dollar on every bag

554
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: on right. So that but if you can drive the

555
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: price down, you can guarantee that you make your money.

556
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: That's Kassuga's plan, right, He's gonna drive the price down,

557
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: even though right now he's driving it up. Right. So

558
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: the onion cartels is not particularly enthused about all Kassuga's

559
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: market eploys are. They're pretty decent guys, but he had

560
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: them leverage because they're like, well, if he does this,

561
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: I'll lose it. He could work this against me, so

562
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: they're feared is turned against them. So now they let

563
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 1: him set the prices for the market. So Kasuga warns

564
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: in the onion car tell members that if any of

565
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: them choose not to go along with his market moves,

566
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: well then he and seagull Quote would dump the onions

567
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: on the market and decimate prices. Everybody's terrified, so this

568
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: is gonna be a big tissue. So they're forced to

569
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: play Kasuga's game. Everyone's going along with it, and they

570
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: now have to purchase roughly all of the car loads

571
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: that they can, and they're just putting them into cold storage.

572
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: They end up controlling eight and a half million pounds

573
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: of onions. Oh my god, the onion guys exactly. So

574
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: they start they just start stockpiling onions and warehouses, worrying

575
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: about like how they smell going home to their wives,

576
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: and prices keep climbing. The money there, there's just still

577
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: making money. I can smell the Ksuga. So the Kasuga's

578
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: onion car power, it's pan off big time right on.

579
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,040
Speaker 1: Prices continue. They're up to four dollars a bag, and

580
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: remember he started a dollar. So they're all happy with this.

581
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: But they're all cooperating under the standing the agreement would

582
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: remain secret if anybody speaks about it, this smoky back

583
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: room deal, they'll all be busted. Right, This is totally

584
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: illegal what they're doing. So the idea was to keep

585
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: a secret. Now that's the idea, not the reality, right, right.

586
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 1: So the thing about someone like Vince Kasugas, they never

587
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,959
Speaker 1: know when enough is enough because there's never enough. As

588
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: long as there is more for them, they want them

589
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: more to right. So he would should have been happy

590
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: making his long daddy money off market manipulations. But no,

591
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 1: he wants to drive the price of onions up and

592
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: then he wants to drive it back down. That's gonna

593
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: take a lot of coordinated effort. So he pulls a

594
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: double cross on the onion cartel because he's like, look,

595
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 1: these guys are gonna be a problem for me, and

596
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: there's too many. He crossed the onion cartel. He only

597
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: needed the onion cartel to help him drive the prices up.

598
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 1: Is he he doesn't need their help to drop the

599
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: prices down? Is he the el Choppo of the onion chop,

600
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: the el chopped onions? So once he hasn't all the

601
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 1: it's like purchasing stockpiled they're redundant. The other one I

602
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:05,719
Speaker 1: haven't thought this through, because they're like, oh yeah, we're

603
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: gonna help roll in this together. What are you doing

604
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: now he's got your onions. So he decides it's gonna

605
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: be soon time to release the onions. So New Year's Eve,

606
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: the Onion Car tells, they told you controls nine gay

607
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: percent of the onions and they are all in cold

608
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: storage around Chicago. So Becasuga starts working the other deal,

609
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: he starts deciding how he's going to short the price

610
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: of onions. So he contacts a few people that he

611
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: trusts in the Onion Car tell and he decides, like

612
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: some angry god of gravity, this is how I'm gonna

613
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: make the prices plummet. And they're like, okay, well we'll

614
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: lay it on me. So, because he had one other

615
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: problem that all the onion growers no onions rot. This

616
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 1: can only go for so long. They're doing it over

617
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 1: the winter, so that really helps him because these onions

618
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: are basically frozen in box cars in Chicago. But it's

619
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: gonna get cold. It's like stop being cold in March

620
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: when exactly right, and you don't want like train cars

621
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: sitting in mud with stinking onions, right, So the onions.

622
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: They've been stored and there's like, you know, just car

623
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: train car loads everywhere that you can imagine in the

624
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: train yards, just filled with onions. So they realize some

625
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: of them are starting to turn, so they they take

626
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: the train cars and they move them out of Chicago

627
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: and they send part of them to Iowa, and then

628
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: they have the people in Iowa repurpose them. So they

629
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: take the onions and clean them up and rebag them,

630
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: and you shoot and sell the ones that are sailable

631
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: and then dish the other ones, and then they bring

632
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: them back. The people in Chicago see more trainloads of

633
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: onions coming and they're like, oh my god, there's even

634
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: more onions. So the price goes down further. Onions. I

635
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: bet you they took the mushy onions and made them

636
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: into those reconstituted onion rings. Yeah, I think you're probably right.

637
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: They net them. They're all mushy onions. Oh yeah, the

638
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: onion rings are all it's wasted onions like baby people.

639
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: So they've got hundreds of box cars now sitting all

640
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: around Chicago. The only thing left for Cassuga to do

641
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: now is is to screw his partners in the onion

642
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: cartel and and work post side. It's against the middle,

643
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: the middle being him. So after this little break, I'll

644
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: tell you how he's going to screw the Onion cartel,

645
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: screw him. Okay, so Elizabeth, last we left the story,

646
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: Chicago was swamped with onions, just just rife with them, right,

647
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: just onions in every train, heard, every box card. It's

648
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: just there's nowhere for hobos to. People are walking down

649
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: the street and they reach in their pocket for their keys,

650
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: on falls out. So because you guys, I tell you

651
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: he just needs a couple more weeks for his plan

652
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: to hold together, and then he's going to screw his

653
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: cartel members and then short the price and be the

654
00:33:57,760 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: only one to make big. But he does need a

655
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: couple of them to help him out, because you know,

656
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: he's feeling a little guilty and he's like, look, you guys,

657
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: help me, like I like a couple of years. One

658
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: of the co conspirators, this dude named Dave Slinger. So

659
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: he contacts his boy, David Slinger, and he's like, hey,

660
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 1: this is the plan. So Slinger tells us the other

661
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:16,839
Speaker 1: half of the phone call, and he tells us this

662
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:22,240
Speaker 1: in congressional testimony. So going from his congressional testimony. Along

663
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: about the twentieth of January, I had onions. I had

664
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: my Indians all hedged, and I got rid of all

665
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:29,359
Speaker 1: of them, and I went on a ski trip and

666
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: broke my leg and I was confined to the hospital

667
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: in Walsaw. And along about the first February, I received

668
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: a call from Mr Cassuga and he wanted me to

669
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: call William Garring and suggest to him that we go

670
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: short the market. I was completely dumbfounded because I thought

671
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: they were on the long side of the market. I

672
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: do not know exactly what was said after he made

673
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 1: that suggestion, but I was left with the impression that

674
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,800
Speaker 1: he had reversed his position, that he was shorting the market,

675
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: and possibly his conscience was bothering him, and he wanted

676
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: Gearing also to get in on the short side. I

677
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: told him that I didn't think that. I thought that

678
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: they were going to reverse their position and go short

679
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: the market. The group should be called together and should

680
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 1: do it together. Now. Mr Cassuga answered that that would

681
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 1: never do it, would wreck the market in a matter

682
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: of minutes and would go down to fifty cents. That

683
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: the only way to do it was to control it

684
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: somewhat and only one person knows about it. I said,

685
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: all right, I will call William Garring, and so I

686
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: called him, and William Garring absolutely wouldn't have anything to

687
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: do with it. He said, I won't do anything less

688
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 1: all the group backs together. Don't think i'd call him

689
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:35,399
Speaker 1: Mr Cassuga back. I believe that was the last conversation

690
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 1: I had with him until some time in the summer.

691
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: Doesn't that sound the congressional testimony. I don't even know

692
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,399
Speaker 1: the dude. I talked to him one time that if

693
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: you like how they're like, if we're gonna short this,

694
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: we're gonna short this together. Ex fact, they're screwing them together. Well,

695
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: in for a penny, in for a pound together. So

696
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: it turns out everyone was not as greedy as Cassuga was,

697
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: so he basically miscalculate it. He's like, yeah, we're all

698
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: green heads guys, right, They're like, oh no, like no,

699
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 1: we're onion buddies, and you're a bad guy exactly, because

700
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 1: is like, well that's on y'all. I got God in

701
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 1: a and a gun. I ain't gonna let that stop me.

702
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: So come March, when the new trading season kicks off

703
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: for the futures. Kassuga went ahead with his plan. He

704
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: was like, well, I told him, they know what's happened.

705
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:22,879
Speaker 1: So he hadn't worked out so hard to control all

706
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,239
Speaker 1: of the onions in America to miss out on a

707
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: huge profit. So he and Siegel, they decided time to

708
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 1: release the Strategic Reserve of onions. It immediately wreaked havoc

709
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: on the market. On February one, totally, god, you caught

710
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: that ninety six, the price of a March future for

711
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: a fifty pound bag of onions was a dollar to

712
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: a dollar twenty five. That's on February one, right, Kasuga

713
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: releases the Strategic Reserve of onions, and then on March

714
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: tewod the price for a fifty pound bag was forty

715
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 1: four cents. On March five, I'm sorry, it was about

716
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 1: fifty cents. I'm March fifth and it falls to forty

717
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:04,359
Speaker 1: four cents and stays there. By March fifteenth, they had

718
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:10,840
Speaker 1: fallen to ten cents ten cents for a bag. He

719
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: got up to four dollars to ten cents, and dollar

720
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 1: six was about what market price should be. He going

721
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: around all the stores and where the price tag is

722
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: he puts a little sticker of him pointing that says

723
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: I did that. It's like the Cossuga special. But this

724
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: was the lowest price ever recorded in the Chicago merke

725
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: for fifty pounds onions. That's onions soup for everybody. Coincidentally,

726
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: this was just in time for Cossuga's future contracts to

727
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,919
Speaker 1: come do. That means the onions that he promised people

728
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: to buy at whatever the price was March he was

729
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 1: they were now worth a fraction of the price of

730
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 1: what anybody would expect. So he comes in and has

731
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: to buy up all the onions and he just turns

732
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 1: him over to the market. He makes a fortune, so

733
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 1: huge profits for Cossuga, none for the onion cartel except

734
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: for you know, his buddy Siegell And uh yeah. So

735
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: now the price for about go onions fell so low

736
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: it fell below the cost of the bag. The onions

737
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,839
Speaker 1: were sold bad. A fifty pound bag of onions cost

738
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: twenty cents the bag. It was the fifty pounds of

739
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: onions inside ten cents. So people were keeping the bag

740
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:15,839
Speaker 1: because it was more valuable. Like here it is dumped

741
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: the onions right. Consia's former partners in the onion cartel.

742
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: They lose fortunes, right because they're all holding up all

743
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: they're waiting to sell their onions. They you know, so

744
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 1: whatever they had not given him. So most of the

745
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 1: onion growers of America they also lose their shirts. They

746
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: had been buoyed by the artificial prices, thinking all, this

747
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: is gonna be a great season, so they're thinking of

748
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: taking out loans, doing stuff. Then the prices suddenly drops

749
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,399
Speaker 1: into like a one week time So now that when

750
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 1: the market craters, everyone's got all these worthless onions. A

751
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: fifty pound bag of you know, that's now we're ten cents.

752
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: That's about a four thousand percent fall in value. I

753
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: think I think it's four thousand percent. I'm not a

754
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: commodities brooke. I don't know these things. But whatever it was,

755
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,840
Speaker 1: no one was prepared for it, no one but Vincent CoA.

756
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: So this raised an interesting question, which is what do

757
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: you do with all the excess onions that are now

758
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 1: suddenly everywhere, like onions are essentially worthless and just plaguing Chicago.

759
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: They're just everywhere. There's loading docks, train yards, produced warehouses

760
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: jam packed with onions. The onion farmers in the area

761
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: are just giving up, dude. There was this cat up

762
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 1: in Hollandale, Minnesota who was so disgusted with the state

763
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: of onion markets he plowed under his whole field just

764
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 1: in protest. He destroyed the whole crop, like the hell

765
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 1: with this, like made a big scene and stink about it.

766
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm not wasting my time on some worthless onions.

767
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: But still if you're not, If you can't plow under,

768
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: what do you do? You go to bird's eye and

769
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: you say, freeze them. Well, there's millions of metric tons

770
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: of useless onions that are on the market in Chicago. Elizabeth,

771
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: to sort through this, I'd like you to do me

772
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: a favorite. Close your eyes and picture it. You are

773
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: the head nun in charge of a Catholic orphanage on

774
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: the South side of Chicago. As the mother's superior, you

775
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: could send one of the novices out to get groceries

776
00:39:57,880 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: and around errands, but you like to keep a spirit

777
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: of human so at the orphanage you insist everyone takes

778
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: a turn getting the groceries and running errand today is

779
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 1: your turn. You head out into the Chicago streets a

780
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:11,240
Speaker 1: stiff cold breeze rushes past you. You clutch your bags

781
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 1: to your side to brace against the winter winds. After

782
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 1: a short johnt you catch a street car and head

783
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,360
Speaker 1: to the local market. At your local market, you discover

784
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: something odd is happening. The green grocer is standing outside

785
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: the store. Next to him is a pyramidal pile of

786
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: bags of onions, and he's practically begging people to buy

787
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 1: a bag. When you pass them, he shouts, hey, sister,

788
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:33,879
Speaker 1: if you buy a dozen eggs, will throwing a bag

789
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: of onions for free for the kids. If he knows

790
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 1: you've got the orphanage. The same is you already have

791
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:40,959
Speaker 1: all the eggs and onions you need, you bottom ahead

792
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: of time because you know the kids are gonna want them.

793
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, these prices are amazing. After you do

794
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: your shopping, you plan to head down to the cobbler

795
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 1: to check on some shoes that you had a novice

796
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:51,800
Speaker 1: drop off. You want the kids to have some fresh

797
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 1: sold shoes when they put their winter shoes away at

798
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: the end of the season. Spring is arriving fast. It's

799
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: mid March, and you can practically smell the coming blossom.

800
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,319
Speaker 1: You think to yourself. The poet Pablo and Neruda would

801
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: be beside himself, I think, and with onions. So as

802
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 1: you walk past the gas station, you hear the owner

803
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: of the station calling out to people like a carnival barker.

804
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: He shouts, you fill up your tank, I'll throw one

805
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:19,840
Speaker 1: a freight bag onions. Like, shake your head and wonder

806
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: if you missed a new bulletin what's up with all

807
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: the onions? As you watch some kids throwing them into

808
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: the Chicago River just like Duncan. Later on, on your

809
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: way back home, you top on the street car. You

810
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 1: pass by where the stockyards run off to the distance,

811
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 1: and you see a flatbed truck loaded down with onions.

812
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: It's backs into a feed lot. The stockyard guys begin

813
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: to toss the bags of onions into the hog pens, right,

814
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: but they're careful to keep the bags. The bags are baptable.

815
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: But there that's the most valuable part of this operation.

816
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: And you wonder if this onion diet will result in

817
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: a more savory hand. Probably. I mean, think about all

818
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: the hogs that eat like wild like the acorns and stuff.

819
00:41:57,560 --> 00:41:59,839
Speaker 1: Oh yeah in France. Yeah, so you're about that life,

820
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: you know, you're like, that's gonna be some delicious asshog. Yep,

821
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 1: I'm just like licking my lips looking at them pigs

822
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: and their own films, which you're also wondering, where are

823
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 1: all these onions coming from? Chicago is getting back to

824
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: its roots? So how much was all this market manipulation

825
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:20,880
Speaker 1: worth to Cassuga? Now these guys all of Chicago, right,

826
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:23,800
Speaker 1: he make how much did he make? Well, all told

827
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:27,280
Speaker 1: said and done, he pocketed about eight point five million

828
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: from his great onion scams, and that's about nine million

829
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: off of onion future. Now when you make that kind

830
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: of money off of market manipulation, and there's evidence of

831
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: what you did because you called together an onion cartel

832
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: and you decided to betray those same men and bankrupt

833
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: some of them buddies. Yeah, well, some of them are

834
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: going to sue you. That's just what they're kind of do,

835
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 1: which is what happened to Kassuga. But if you can

836
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:52,839
Speaker 1: believe it, Cassuga is like, the hell with that, I'm

837
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: suing you for breaking breach of contrast to everybody. So

838
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 1: Kasuga's lawsuit is going. Oh, he winds his way through

839
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: the courts. The lower courts affirm cassuga side of the lawsuit,

840
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: the defendant appeals, the case goes all the way up

841
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,320
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has to decide

842
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:14,280
Speaker 1: the onion futures case. In a nineteen nine the Supreme Court,

843
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: here's the Cassuga onion cartel lawsuit, and in January they

844
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:24,919
Speaker 1: sided in favor of Cassuga. That's just some good capitalism.

845
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: So but that's not the end of the story, because

846
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,879
Speaker 1: before the Supreme Court decided to take Cassugas back in

847
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: the in the cartel lawsuit, a future American president got

848
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: mixed up in the onion mess. Can you guess which one?

849
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: I'll give you a hint, Michigan. I don't give another hint.

850
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 1: Not Nixon, Enter future president Gerald Ford, the congressman at

851
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 1: the time from Michigan. We always forget about for I did,

852
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: and it's right there for again, and yeah, you know,

853
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: we're just always gabbing about that. And it's like every

854
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: time I walk into the headquarters or read our stitching

855
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: bitch sitting there, I'm like, let's just list the presidents

856
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:14,320
Speaker 1: and then you go and then we forget. We skipped,

857
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 1: we're missing we skip poke again. Now forward. He's like

858
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 1: from a place where there's a ton of onion farmers,

859
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:23,800
Speaker 1: and he's a young congressman, so he's gonna do the

860
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: business of the people. So Forod gets in there and

861
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: he's got all these angry Michigan onion farmers on his line,

862
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: and he's like, damn it, you can't bankrupt and nearly

863
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,399
Speaker 1: bust all these good farmers. And so he goes after

864
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 1: Kassuga the market manipulations. He goes to Florida Congress. He

865
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: drops some fresh legislation. He's like, look at this, and

866
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: it's there. It is the Onion Futures Act. It's gonna

867
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: be a bill he proposes to protect onion growers from

868
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: the greed heads like Vincent Kasuga, the congressman forward. He

869
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: puts to forward his bill to make all these type

870
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: of market antics illegal. And the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

871
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. Yeah, I know, he made us look bad.

872
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 1: He busted a lot of people. But that's anti capitalism.

873
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,360
Speaker 1: So they fight against it. They're like, they file a

874
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 1: lawsuit trying to block it. They alleged that this will

875
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: restrict free trade. So it's the same line you always hear,

876
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: which was total horse pucky. But anyway, the Onion Future

877
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: Is Act. It made a lot of good market sense,

878
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: and so the bill gets brought to the floor, it

879
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 1: gets voted on, it passes presidents, and Howard signs it

880
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: into law. And the onion farmers were like, yeah, we

881
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: like ike. Yeah, well, I mean it's like you have

882
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:34,319
Speaker 1: that we like well, you know, because it's anyway. They

883
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: they say, it's going to get in the way of

884
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: free trade. Suga is getting in the way. He is

885
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: free trade. That's what free trade looks like. The Onion

886
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: Future Is Acting makes it illegal to sell a futures

887
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:48,439
Speaker 1: contract on a load of onions anywhere in America. Right,

888
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: So that same yere N six, the Commodities Exchange Authority,

889
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 1: it brings an action against Cassuga and his business partner Siegel.

890
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,879
Speaker 1: The complain alleges that the two men had conspired quote

891
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: with a group of other persons connected with growing up

892
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: or trading onions and actions allegedly designed to increase or

893
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 1: to prevent a decrease in the price on the mercantile exchange. Basically,

894
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 1: they conspired against everybody because Soga being the plane crashing,

895
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: market manipulating spark plug of a man you know who's

896
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: cool with the and Ability club. He's like, I'll fight

897
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 1: you all. So he goes and he hires a fanciast lawyer,

898
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,879
Speaker 1: and he fights the case, all of the cases, any cases, right,

899
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: And he cites the uncertainty of whether he says, this

900
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 1: is the nature of farming. Crops fail. What are you

901
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 1: looking at me for? I think this is my fault.

902
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: Sometimes crops are bountiful, sometimes they're not. All I did

903
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: was make big money on market dynamics. He even says,

904
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: and I quote, if it's against the law and make

905
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: money in the United States, then I'm guilty. WHOA I

906
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 1: told you guys, he's got back bumped. So yes, sir,

907
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: I would say, you are, you are guilty. But he

908
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,800
Speaker 1: you know, since he's now stolen essentially ninety millions or

909
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 1: siney something million dollars about ninety four from small farmers

910
00:46:56,680 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: and other distributors and wholesalers, you know, this is like

911
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 1: stealing toilet paper from Walgreen. So the cops don't go

912
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: after him. No, nothing happened to this dude. He doesn't

913
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,720
Speaker 1: go to jail. True to the nature of justice in America,

914
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: and according to the American law and Ordercausuga is able

915
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: to essentially steal ninety four million dollars from small farmers

916
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 1: and all these other people, and all us to do

917
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:16,800
Speaker 1: is just hire some lawyers to fight a couple of

918
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: cases in court, goes at the Supreme Court and they're like, yeah,

919
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: give him the big thumbs up, and nothing happens. The

920
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: Commodities Exchange Authority they bring a lawsuit against Cassuga. They're like, well,

921
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: maybe our lawsuit will work. Nope. C A loses in

922
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 1: court to court ruled that c A what had failed

923
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: to show Kassuga attempted to manipulate upward prices of November

924
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 1: futures on the Chicago American Dollar Exchange and prices of

925
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: Bunion cash. Blah blah blah, what how they had receipts

926
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: had to do like, you know, get anybody to say it.

927
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:45,800
Speaker 1: Everyone knew what he did. It has been an open secret,

928
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: but they couldn't prove it in the courts, Like we

929
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: don't care. If that's the facts, you gotta prove it,

930
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,799
Speaker 1: Like this sucks. But Kassuga is like, yeah, that's why

931
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 1: I pay for the good lawyers, and so he has

932
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 1: to pay. Eventually, a very small price for this injustice,

933
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 1: he loses his license to trade commodities for a whole

934
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: ten months, slap on the wrist concent and then he

935
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: has to pay a modest fine. And that was that.

936
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 1: He never spended hand jail, never had any real consequences.

937
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 1: He pulls off the biggest scam in American farming history

938
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 1: and is padded on the back by the Supreme Court. Then,

939
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: in America, the message has always been the same. If

940
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 1: you're gonna steal, steal big. It's just the thing, right

941
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: And by the way, the Gerald Ford Onion Futures Act,

942
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: that's still a law, and it gets cited as precedent law.

943
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 1: In two thousand and ten, motion picture box office receipts

944
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 1: were added to the Onion Futures Act, making it illegal

945
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: to speculate on future box office earning because people are

946
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: starting to do that. Yeah. And then in the next year,

947
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven, that's when the Chicago Mercan Dogs

948
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: Change stopped selling pork billy futures because they're like, look,

949
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 1: we just want to get off this whole yeah. Yeah,

950
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: so you know, but it's not illegal to sell a

951
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,479
Speaker 1: pork belly future. It is illegal to sell an onion

952
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 1: future all thanks to Vincent Cassuga. Right so, and also

953
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: you know Gerald Ford, So thank you Gerald Ford. Well,

954
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 1: he's gotta gotta fun to me. It's always funny. Gerald Ford.

955
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:01,640
Speaker 1: The dude pardon Nicks. And he fell down the steps

956
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:03,720
Speaker 1: of Air Force one a bunch, and he made onion

957
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: futures illegal. That's quite a legacy, just I'm telling you,

958
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:12,919
Speaker 1: Kick Rocks Coolidge. All right, Well, one final interesting twist

959
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: for you, because Suga went back to futures trading after

960
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: all this once he got his license back after the

961
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:19,439
Speaker 1: ten months in the like you know, the penalty box,

962
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: and he primarily focused on pork belly futures and potatoes

963
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: at that point and eventually went back to farming and

964
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 1: commodities broken. But he also did something kind of fun

965
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:30,240
Speaker 1: in the sixties. He built an inn in Pine Island,

966
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 1: New York. He named his place the Jolly Onion in

967
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 1: just to screw with people. And then he was the

968
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: chef of the restaurant and he ran the spot for

969
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: years and he even had like, you know, like a

970
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 1: really great sweet onion soup recipe that they still sell.

971
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: So he sold the restaurant. The restaurants still open. So

972
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: if you're out there in Pine Island you want to

973
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 1: go check in hit the tastes like scams. What is

974
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 1: your ridiculous takeaway? My ridiculous take boy, thank you for

975
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: asking the first time so quickly. I don't have one. Okay,

976
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 1: so what's your ridiculous take Okay? Now my ridiculous takeaways

977
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 1: the same thing as from the beginning. Capitalism is some bow.

978
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: My ridiculous takeaway is God, I love French onion soup.

979
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:23,319
Speaker 1: That's ridiculousulous. Well, you know, thanks for listening. This was

980
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:28,279
Speaker 1: the Vincent Kassuga onion scam. You know, folks, you can

981
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 1: find us online at Twitter, in Instagram. If you want

982
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 1: to bother, you to connect with us, you know, maybe

983
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: like get cozy and comfortable and talk about life. Hit

984
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: us up. You can also email us share with us

985
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 1: anything of your thoughts, your feelings, your observations. We're here

986
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:50,879
Speaker 1: for you, folks. That's all we got for you. Thanks

987
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 1: for listening. Ridiculos dryings listed by Elizabeth Dunton and Zarin Burnett,

988
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 1: producing did by by davea Onion Cousting researches by Marissa

989
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: Walla Walla Sweet Onion Brown and Andrea song Sharp and

990
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 1: Tears in My Eyes From All of the Onions. Our

991
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 1: theme songs by Thomas Onion chut Lee and Travis Spring

992
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Speaker 1: Onion Dotton. Executive produces are Ben A Fresh Bowling of

993
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Speaker 1: Fresh Onion Soup and No Gotta Get the Onion Rings

994
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:33,919
Speaker 1: at the Varsity Brown Quiet Say It One More Time.

995
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 1: We Dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime is a production of I

996
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997
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