Sublime

Harriman and Schiff pressed for the allowance of a one-third interest in the Burlington for the UP, to achieve a soothing community of interest. The Morgan-Hill forces turned them down flat. Such an accommodation, they purred, might represent an illegal “restraint of trade” under federal statute. To understand the fierce struggle that now erupted,

“There’s something about forty bucks,” Shader argued, “that has to do with the fact that’s the price above which you start getting nervous about lack of recourse.” He proposed a business that would provide eBay traders with escrow and payment services—“a branded infrastructure for safe and convenient person-to-person commerce.” It would make people

Farmers and big grain users, like Pillsbury, could make their deals even before the fields were planted, if they chose, and cover their exposures by hedging on the exchanges. Huge “frictional” costs, or pure economic waste, like the deep discounts once charged for the farmer’s trade bills, disappeared. Transaction commissions and costs were razor

It struck me as an instance of regulatory empire building—a classic Washington maneuver: recognize a new innovation in order to force ever more businesses into the regulatory framework.