House Speaker Davy Carter distributed a letter Friday that reflected a report I’d received earlier in the day of a brewing financial scandal in the Delta.
Carter’s letter refers to breached contacts between farmers and a commodity broker and said tens of millions could be at issue. He said it could be a subject for future regulatory efforts.
Intriguing, to put it mildly. I’m out of pocket in upstate New York but I can add this scrap of information on what’s going on from a reliable source.
The case focuses on a grain broker who’d “book” grain for farmers. They’d accept his promised price and he’d pay them, taking a commission from the sale. But this particular broker may have been running something akin to a Ponzi scheme — or at a minimum unable to cover contract commitments. Losses are said to be as high as $40 million. Losses to individual farmers could be huge.
Lots more to come on this obviously.