美国国家公共电台 NPR How Wall Street Brought Down Georgia's Suspicious Chicken Price Index

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

And now to a story about the battle between Wall Street hedge funds and the companies that produce America's chicken. With one man caught in the middle, a bureaucrat¹ working for the state of Georgia, NPR's Dan Charles with our Planet Money team has the story.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE²: It's 2016. Stephanie Strom is a reporter with The New York Times, and she gets a hot tip from some Wall Street contacts - big investors³, hedge fund guys. They think chicken companies have grown too fast and the nation is headed for a glut⁴ of chicken.

STEPHANIE STROM: They were betting that the price of chicken was going to fall.

CHARLES: They were betting that the price of chicken was going to fall and that poultry⁵ producers are going to be losing money.

STROM: Right. So they shorted the stock.

CHARLES: These investors had put a lot of money on a bet that the stocks of chicken companies would fall. But they were frustrated⁶ because their bet was not paying off.

STROM: When you went to the grocery store, the price of chicken was either stable or even going up slightly, which was probably driving these guys crazy.

CHARLES: And they had a theory that the chicken companies were keeping prices artificially high, using a guy sitting in an office at the Georgia Department of Agriculture, Arty Schronce. He was the department's gardening expert. He'd do things like celebrate Georgia's native flowers in videos that look like they were shot on a cellphone.

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ARTY SCHRONCE: Even though it's a cloudy day here in Atlanta, I feel like I need sunscreen standing⁷ next to all of these sunny blossoms, and the fragrance⁸ is divine.

CHARLES: But then he got another job compiling Georgia's official price of chicken, an index. This was a super low-tech operation. He'd just call up big chicken companies and say, hey, what are you selling drumsticks for this week? He'd put the average price in a newsletter and send it out. And because Georgia is the biggest chicken producing state in the country, Arty's prices were used across the industry. Sometimes, they were part of a formula that supermarkets and big-chain restaurants used to set the price that they paid for their chicken. And what these frustrated Wall Street investors noticed was Arty's numbers looked strange. Other indexes of chicken prices were down. Arty's numbers were high - 30 even 50 percent higher than other chicken indexes.

So The Wall Street guys hire a lawyer to start investigating. And eventually, that lawyer gets his hands on a document, a memo⁹ that Arty Schronce wrote to himself about this chicken price index. It's a bombshell. Arty Schronce says he doesn't believe his own index anymore. When he calls those big chicken companies and asks for prices, they're like, eh, put down whatever you put down last week. And Arty just has to trust them. That's the way this works. Even though millions of dollars depended on those numbers, nobody had ever asked for invoices¹⁰ to verify that chicken sales actually happened at that price. The companies could just be making up those numbers, keeping prices high - just what the hedge fund guys thought was going on.

Within a day of the lawyer getting that memo, it's been passed onto The Washington Post. When it's published, it destroys the reputation of that price index. Georgia stops publishing it, which is what Arty Schronce had proposed in his memo. It just took some short-selling Wall Street guys to make it happen. So the Georgia price index went away. And the funny thing is, chicken prices still didn't fall. There's now a big court battle going on over the reasons why. Some big buyers of chicken - supermarkets, restaurants - they say the chicken companies were fixing prices, and they still are. The companies deny it.

By the way, I tried to reach Arty Schronce. He didn't return my calls. I do know he's now retired¹¹ from the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

Dan Charles, NPR News.

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1 bureaucrat   

n. 官僚作风的人，官僚，官僚政治论者

参考例句：

• He was just another faceless bureaucrat.他只不过是一个典型呆板的官员。
• The economy is still controlled by bureaucrats.经济依然被官僚们所掌控。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

4 glut   

n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽

参考例句：

• The glut of coffee led to a sharp drop in prices.咖啡供过于求道致价格急剧下跌。
• There's a glut of agricultural products in Western Europe.西欧的农产品供过于求。

5 poultry   

n.家禽，禽肉

参考例句：

• There is not much poultry in the shops. 商店里禽肉不太多。
• What do you feed the poultry on? 你们用什么饲料喂养家禽?

6 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

8 fragrance   

n.芬芳，香味，香气

参考例句：

• The apple blossoms filled the air with their fragrance.苹果花使空气充满香味。
• The fragrance of lavender filled the room.房间里充满了薰衣草的香味。

9 memo   

n.照会，备忘录；便笺；通知书；规章

参考例句：

• Do you want me to send the memo out?您要我把这份备忘录分发出去吗？
• Can you type a memo for me?您能帮我打一份备忘录吗？

10 invoices   

发票( invoice的名词复数 )； （发货或服务）费用清单； 清单上货物的装运； 货物的托运

参考例句：

• Take the example of a purchasing clerk keying invoices into a system. 继续说录入员输入发票的例子，这个录入员是一个全职的数据输入人员。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Consular invoices are declarations made at the consulate of the importing country. 领事发票是进口国领事馆签发的一种申报书。

11 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。