Dear Sir,
Here we go again. I sold February cattle this week in Hereford, Texas, for $63 per hundred. I try to get out of my hedges and they are at $65.80, 280 points over what they really brought. I had about a $30 profit locked in once; guess who got the $30 per head? You guessed it. The Mercantile Exchange.

We wonder where all the profit in the cattle business went. I can tell you: to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I can’t see why we can’t get control of the cattle business back in the cattlemen’s hands.

I’ve been in this business for 50 years. I was in it long before they had futures, when we took a loss feeding. It might $25 or $30 and we thought that was awful, but never $100 to $150. If you ask why we have to put up with the futures market, everyone says we just can't get rid of it. Well, the potato people were able to get potatoes delisted; why can’t we get cattle delisted? If our trade organization would send out an honest poll to the real cattlemen I think they would be surprised how many people would like to get rid of the futures market.

The cattle business used to belong to the ranchers and farmers, but we have given it over to Chicago without firing a shot.

You can hedge your cattle and when you think you are safe, here come the Funds with all kinds of money. It’s just like being in a $10,000 poker game and you only have six dollars. They will run the futures up artificially and run you out because you can’t or won’t put any more margin up, and about the time you get out, here it comes right back down and scares you to death again.

There is no such thing as a real hedge. You may say, "you don’t have to use the futures," but they still affect what you do, like it or not.

If something isn’t done pretty soon, the giant corporations will be the sole owners of all the food in the nation, and God forbid when that happens.

Wade Choate
San Angelo, Texas