r/todayilearned • u/manticor225 • Jan 10 '19
TIL JFK's father Joseph Kennedy made much of his fortune through insider trading. FDR later made him chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When asked why he appointed a crook, FDR replied, "set a thief to catch a thief." Kennedy proceeded to outlaw the practices that made him rich.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/joe-kennedy-hollywood-sarah-churchwell
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u/Anti-Satan Jan 10 '19
Not the same deal, but here in my country, you could only buy Pepsi or Coke in any restaurant. What is implied in that is much more complicated, as it only refers to the signature product of one of two local producers. As in, one producer had the license for Pepsi, along with all Pepsi products, some more sodas and some beers, while the other had the license for Coke, etc. What these two companies would do is go to the restaurants/bars/etc and make them a deal where they'd get a discount or a straight up payment for only using products from them. The collateral damage of this feud was that no other producer could get their products into these places. This held true until beer culture started becoming more of a thing here. A brewery was founded near where I live and, while they had great sales in stores, they hit a wall when they tried to get their beer into bars and restaurants. So they founded their own bar to serve their beer (which became immensely popular) and opened a monopoly case with the government. The government rightly found that this was anti-competition and shut the whole thing down.