The Problematic Hunt Brothers

Nelson Bunker Hunt, the leader of four brothers, was charged in 1985 with manipulating and attempting to manipulate the price of silver futures contracts. (The eldest of the brothers, Haroldson Hunt, was never involved in the silver incident at all - because he had been lobotomized for 'erratic behavior.' He lived to old age).

Nelson Bunker had, for more than a decade earlier, been accumulating large amounts of silver - to the extent that the media regularly says that he tried to 'corner the silver market' and to 'gain a silver monopoly.'

There's some silver for you...

Well that's an impossibility for several reasons - the chief one being that the Earth, the ground, rocks and stones, are the source of silver, not some human being. To have an actual monopoly, you need to be the sole source of something, to be able to control the source, and not merely to have the power to constrain delivery. Because as every economics student knows, it is the hardest task of all, the be able to protect a real monopoly.

Generally speaking, governments too don't like you to have a monopoly. Not on anything people really need. So you'll find you are up against them as well.

To make money from a monopoly, you have to possess the actual source, and be able to disguise that you have it, and then, give the impression that no one really wants the thing anyway... ...all the while taking advantage of selling into a steeply rising market, and controlling supply as you go so that the steepness of the demand curve versus its supply, is not negatively affected.

It is very very hard to even give examples of real monopolies - usually, you have effective monopolies, and still, academics will argue over definitions and various nuances of the thing.

Through the secret door, right? To the
magical realm of mythical 'profits...'
You have to be able to find such a door in the first place! 

Here is an example of a current-era effective monopoly - it's something that comes from only one place with respect to the nomenclature (similar to what the French government has achieved with the word 'Champagne'), and has been 'owned' by the Chinese government for at least ten years now, placing the actual supply and processed output, into, well, in fact what looks like exactly zero worldwide supply whatsoever. Just what they are doing with any new production I do not know.

Technically, the Chinese government cannot 'own' the sandalwood trees nor even their output in India, but reports put the whole situation down to 'widespread corruption.' All that actually happened was that the supply itself became ridiculously minuscule, even though in reality, the auction prices themselves actually fell.

In the commercial, the retail scene, the world's acknowledged number 1 producer of a product known as 'Mysore Sandalwood' cologne and aftershave - Evelyn & Crabtree, an American-owned originally British manufacturer, seems to have either literally gone broke, or been split up into a Canadian arm which produces a different style and branding level, of product, while the American arm has completely abandoned its previously top selling lines.

There is no suggestion of 'China corruption' there, of course. Right?

Anyway, a few of us over here, ten years ago and more, would go through at least one to two bottles of this concoction each every year. It was okay, well, yeah it was pretty good, but frankly, I am not the world's greatest fan of sandalwood, though this particular product was very good in its own right. I used to complain when it was going for around fifty dollars a bottle at the end of production - when it was oh perhaps twenty or thirty for many many years previously.

And the price? Well go on then - you look it up on Ebay...

Could I find something of exactly the same standard and quality somewhere - elsewhere -  today? Yes absolutely. Apparently no one else knows how though - since you can see what the prevailing price is for 'old stock' and that is, if you can even get your hands on any!

Is this the monopoly I was earlier speaking of? No, it is not. I don't even think this really is a monopoly as such - it's more of a 'collector's rarity' thing with a limited market. But, it will serve to show what utterly ludicrous prices are commanded by such things where somehow, the market, or 'a' market suddenly takes it into its head to go after that thing with a fervor.

Bunker Hunt also funded a bunch of Christian University Campus organizations the largest one being what is today known as CRU, which is a so-called 'New' Evangelical Christian organization. They are going to secure a monopoly on God, salvation and you going to heaven, by re-branding Jesus. I say these things quite deliberately to provoke not necessarily you, the reader, or at least that one who may be a Christian and an Evangelical and so on - but just those guys with a ton of money and unlimited stupidity. Too much money, really, for one to suspect that they really have a purchase on what it is the Good Book teaches.

'Sufficient money' will do. And let it fall as the morning dew... Of course, this is in Christianity - in Islam, adequate provision is called 'rizq' in Arabic. Sadly. So we don't need any of that today. No 'rizq' today, thank you.