Could Hillary end inequality by teaching the poor how to earn $100,000/year in cattle futures?
At first I thought she could teach the poor to give speeches, but there's probably only so many $250,000 checks to go around. But what about cattle futures? Anyone can invest. The government could spot everyone $1000 and then they would just go to work futuring cattle or whatever it is one does. It can't be very hard because Hillary had no experience whatsoever in futures trading and she went from $1000 to $100000 in less than a year. Sure, it probably helped that the outside counsel for Arkansas' largest employer was helping her out just a little (or just a lot depending on whatever version of Hillary one believes), but he was just doing it to be a good friend and not to curry influence for Tyson Foods from government regulators. There's probably lots of other outside counsels who want to be good friends with people and why not be good friends with the poor? They could provide the requisite help to those in need and poverty could be wiped out in a matter of months. I don't know why Hillary, having seen the magic of futures trading, didn't bring it up at the last debate as an example of her experience in wealth creation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/stories/wwtr940527.htm
Hillary Clinton Futures Trades Detailed
By Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 27, 1994; Page A01
Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in
1978 although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.
The computerized records of her trades, which the White House obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, show for the first time how she was able to turn her initial investment into $6,300 overnight. In about 10 months of trading, she made nearly $100,000, relying heavily on advice from her friend James B. Blair, an experienced futures trader.
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A close examination of her individual trades underscores Blair's pivotal role. It also shows that Robert L. "Red" Bone, who ran the Springdale, Ark., office of Ray E. Friedman and Co. (Refco), allowed Clinton to initiate and maintain many trading positions – besides the first – when she did not have enough money in her account to cover them.
Why would Bone do so? Bone could not be reached for comment, but Blair said he thought he knew why. "I was a very good customer," he said, noting he paid Bone $800,000 in commissions over the years. "They weren't going to hassle me. If I brought them somebody, they weren't going to hassle them."
Besides, he added, Bone would not worry if he agreed with his clients' bet on which way the price of a given contract would go.
Blair, who at the time was outside counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., Arkansas' largest employer, says he was advising Clinton out of friendship, not to seek political gain for his state-regulated client. At the time of many of the trades, Bill Clinton was governor.
Hillary Clinton has said she made all the trading decisions herself and has tried to play down Blair's role. But she acknowledged in April, three weeks after her trades were first disclosed, that Blair actually placed most of the trades.
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Sure, it COULD happen. Kind of like the infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters would eventually write "War and Peace"... 