Chapter 540: Feudal Remnants Are Powerful
Changes in the grain futures market directly affected grain prices, and capitalists raised prices in unison.
This price increase was limited to transaction prices; grain purchase prices remained largely unchanged. For the effects to travel from downstream markets to upstream markets, time was needed for them to ferment.
Raising grain trading prices was, at its core, about making money. Since last year, persistently depressed grain prices had severely damaged everyone's interests.
The recovering grain prices held no substantive meaning. The problem of excess grain production capacity had not been fundamentally resolved. The capitalists merely wanted to seize the chance to make a profit and recoup their losses from the agricultural crisis.
Franz was not optimistic. If those running the market were all grain capitalists, then pushing grain prices sky-high and keeping them there would best serve their interests.
Unfortunately, among Europe's three major grain futures markets, only Austrian grain capitalists possessed relatively strong power and some say in matters. In the United Kingdom and France, financial capital was dominant.
Even Austrian grain capitalists lacked the strength to manipulate the market on their own. Only by adding in capital from related agricultural product processing industries could they barely muster that capability.
There was even less need to mention the United Kingdom and France. Unless all real-economy capital were tied together, the futures market would forever remain financial capital's territory.
Quick gains and short cycles had always been capital's greatest pursuit. Settling down to conduct business was never financial capital's goal, which meant the grain market could suffer a second collapse at any time.
Everyone was still joining hands to push grain prices upward. Once prices rose high enough to lure sufficient speculators in to take over the bag, doomsday would descend.
At Vienna Palace,