So I already knew about this from before, but one thing I never understood was instead of banning it outright, why not just put in a rule that says your futures are invalid if you control X percent of the underlying asset?
A requirement like that incentivizes people to find a way to work around it and requires enforcers to be able to prove someone did indeed own X percent. It also makes it harder to pursue cabals that collectively corner a market without any entity involved being over the threshold.
In many ways, it's easier enforcement-wise to just ban the thing, especially if you don't think it's actually important to have in the first place.
That was my thought. It seems like it'd be similar to enforcing fractional reserve bank loans--audits and accountants and judges to determine if people are colluding, etc. It also seems similar to anti-trust.
Another possibility might be something like a tax on hoarding large amounts of food e.g., each day it sits around without being sold or consumed past some grace period like one year. Maybe only tax profits achieved by hoarding food, similar to long term versus short term capital gains, unless you sell after a crop failure.
