Word: wheated
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...since insisted that Communism would win in an economic rather than a thermonuclear sense. But last week Khrushchev had to seek U.S. help to prevent his own economy from being buried. A Soviet trade mission asked to buy about $170 million's worth of U.S. wheat...
Faced with a bitter harvest for the fourth year out of the last five, the Soviets have been shopping for wheat in every major Western market. Two weeks ago they ordered about $500 million's worth from Canada, and last week $100 million's worth from Australia. They also dropped broad hints that they wanted to buy from the U.S. With that, top U.S. wheat dealers formed a negotiating team whose spokesman was Burton Joseph, president of Minneapolis' big I. S. Joseph Co., Inc. The team went to Ottawa, got a bid from the same Soviet traders...
Sticking on Subsidies. At first blush, a U.S. wheat sale seemed like a good idea. It would cut the nation's 1.2 billion-bushel wheat surplus-if only by 75 million or 100 million bushels. It would narrow the U.S.'s $5 billion deficit in the balance of payments-if only by a small fraction. A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany, an opponent of any deal with the Reds, was for this one. So was Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges. So were Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Allen Ellender and House Agriculture Committee...
...Administration was eager to close the deal. But it had several bushels of problems. The Soviets like to pay only 25% down for their wheat, and the rest over 18 months. But U.S. law forbids credit sales to countries that have defaulted on their debts to the U.S., as the Soviets did on their lend-lease debt to the tune of $800 million. Beyond that, the U.S. taxpayer would be subsidizing the sale: to make up the difference between the high-propped U.S. price of about $2.30 and the world market price of about $1.75, the Government pays U.S. wheat...
Profits can be big; a contract for 5,000 bushels of wheat costs only $500 down, and every rise of a cent a bushel adds $50 to the contract's value. But losses can be horrendous because, as the commodity's price drops, the speculator is called on to put up more margin to cover his investment. Often no one will buy his contract on a sharp price drop, and he is unable to get out. When the sugar price broke last spring, one New York speculator was getting margin calls for $20,000 a day, with...