Was Chicken Libor Manipulated Too?

Chicken Libor!

We have talked a few times before about what I like to call "Chicken Libor," the alleged manipulation of the Georgia Dock index of chicken prices. The Georgia Dock index was a sort of country version of Libor, in which an employee of the Georgia Department of Agriculture -- his name is Arty Schronce -- would call up chicken producers each week and ask them what the price of chickens was. As with Libor, there was no market check on this data, and so the chicken producers could make up numbers if they wanted. As with Libor, the chicken producers could profit by manipulating the number: They had contracts to sell chickens to big customers at floating prices tied to the Georgia Dock price, so submitting a higher hypothetical price to Arty Schronce could bring them higher real profits.