Chapter 36. Gambling, Speculation, and Promoters' Profits

1. Do you think that store-keepers fix the price of the produce they buy of the farmers? If so, to what extent?

2. Can brokers fix the price of grain on the market? How, and to what extent?

3. What is speculation? Give examples you have seen.

4. Were they, on the whole, good for the community?

5. Give other examples showing the difference between a gambling-house and an insurance company?

6. Is the immorality of betting based on economic grounds?

7. Ought lotteries to be permitted by law?

8. Ought speculation in mines to be permitted by law?

9. Ought the profits of the farmer from a sudden rise in the value of wheat be confiscated to the public?

NOTE.--The ablest study of the subject is by H. C. Emery, Speculation on the Stock and Produce Exchanges of the United States, in Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Vol. VII, No. 2, 1896.