it worked. once the chains started, they found more stores and the book of the month club disappeared. >> you also had the published war about -- was it the left wing book club? >> left book club. >> yeah. i mean, something like that, people who live near a chain but don't feel they are getting the books they are interested in, maybe that would work. . .

by the history book club or whatever its 3,000 copies. >> how does the print on demand model fit i & some university press -- university presses already have back stock only made it available for on demand. does that solve the problem of putting books in bookstores but maybe it takes away a lot of the risk of doing their run of even 2,000 or 5,000 copies? >> you know, for years university press called university microfilm for copies which would give you a copy of the book is of print. but now the print on demand is such that any publisher can do

short run, and that's what we do. so a while in the case of epstein and others have the espresso machine in the bookstores and that didn't work because first people didn't come into the bookstore and say i want and out of copy per cent of the book but the technology worked so any of our books can be reprinted, 300 copies or whatever. go into the bookstore and it's an extensive fleet. >> so you've talked about the publishing industry in terms of the globalization and corporate, but i wonder if you can comment on its relationship to reading and whether you think it's, like, i think if it does a chicken and egg problem. reading in terms of publishing and publishing in terms of

reading, and i just wondering if you have any thoughts on that. >> well, you know, the figures are uncertain. i mean, most people spend as much time reading as they ever did, but have the time is spent on the internet, right, and what's your reading on the internet with her it is a point of sight, people don't know. so i'm not sure what you can tell from that. i think, you know, reading is based on in part what it is available you want to read. the more you narrow your choice, the more you're being given the choice of which of the ten fox programs are going to be replicated by harpercollins in book form. you're limiting your audience enormously, and if you still have a variety of people who are willing to publish stuff that's interesting in different and varying he will get her readers.

the new press has sold over 1 million copies, and that is a book called winds my teacher told me, which is a study of the 12 most widely used american history textbooks, and when we publish that book, our sales people said this is a nice idea and maybe you will sell a few copies, but if you print 5,000 copies you have a ten year supply, which is what we did print. and now over the years we have sold over 1 million copies, largely in the paper because people found this was stuff they didn't know existed. they were interested. and there was a huge audience of students who want to be smarter than their teachers or parents or whoever who were interested in buying the book. now if you had asked any market research person, as indeed we did when we talk to our sales people, either an audience for this book they would say no to. so part of the purpose of the new press was precisely to

publish stuff that people said nobody wanted to read. and we did that on purpose. we published, for instance, everybody said black people aren't going to read books about art, as we deliberately published a number of books in that field and they sold extremely well. so part of the difficulty that i'm talking about in the corporate control is that people just want to do the same thing. and very often in doing that they lose money because they are offering had lots of money to in author somebody else offer a lot of money to because they think it is a safe thing. i remember sitting in on meetings at random house were a pretty serious we are going to lose money on this bestseller but we need a locomotive to pull the rest of the list. soon you have a train with just a locomotive and no cars behind it.

>> i think everything is incredibly convincing [inaudible] techno utopian. you know, leaving aside for a moment the question of how and the class of the natural culture will and all that i think is actually very convincing. but if we just eat all you culture on its own merits, and we look as an analog something like the music industry say about fifer ten years ahead of publishing in this regard and it's been totally transformed the last couple of years. is there, you know -- and i think a lot of people would say and disagree that the music industry is a cultural asset of the musical production in the united states has not collapsed. there's a lot of interesting stuff going on. it's largely internet driven. they are showing no shortage of the avenues for browsing and advising and creating the useful

cultures. is there reason to believe the book culture is different? or requires a different kind of infrastructure that is not obvious to me? >> i think that is a legitimate question and i frankly don't know enough about how the music industry works. to be able to answer that in detail. i think if you look generally at the various fields, if you look at theater and film and music, performance music, books and so on, you will see that the narrow selection available, you know, the worse the situation becomes. and, you know, as i said i lived in paris for half a year. we can see more movies from more countries on any given day than he could and new york the whole year long. they have a huge variety of movie houses and a huge variety of foreign films that will never

make it ever no matter how good they are. now in theory, you know, if your theory were correct, then the next week would have every korean film ever made available. part of the reason is people need to know something is there and the need to have the attention. and music there are not people who are sufficiently close to a given group, that they know they want the next song whatever the case but that doesn't apply in books and films and elsewhere so that is the closest i can come to answer your question. you know, on the other side, i mean, we have seen coming juneau, the last of the record stores have disappeared here. and, you know, that means that either you can download what you want or you are out of it. there's no way you're going to find the supply that you are

demanding. >> and of course your id to answer the infrastructure, the revealing is more for books i think in for records. a record you can listen to without investing much time. also the extent of browsing, and you never went into a record store and are like the songs sound interesting. you know, a band you like might have a record -- >> [inaudible] you can browse online. >> [inaudible] >> i mean, you look at amazon and they say if you're interested in a book x you might be interested in books y. question. yes a question over there. >> if i could kind of piggyback off that question and make a comparison to a different

industry, i mean, music -- when you listen to it in a fundamentally different -- you're hearing the sound with its digital, hearing record even if the quality might change. but there's another industry that i think maybe somewhat to the bookstore putting things in people's hands. the food industry has undergone a lot of changes in recent years and people kind of have to pay more attention to fighting products that are sustainable or local or environmentally sound, and i wonder if there's any it samples in the food industry model because they're seems to be a lot of growth in this sort of kind of nourishing and wholesome purchasing habits, at least in cities like new york and san francisco. are there any examples the publishing can take from the food industry in changing the culture? >> welcome the tried and there's a whole bunch of publishers in europe that have been pushing for what they call to giglio diversity into of biodiversity and there was an attempt to do a slow reading movement. [laughter] so people have seen the difference and it is harder.

the group was based on having a larger period of time. that is as much time as you can keep a tomato and it hasn't worked that well. they are nice ideas and i am all for them and i quote them. but in reality, people haven't made the liberation from one to the other. hopefully they will. >> questioned? >> we will take two more, okay? >> i just have a question about distribution i guess. in 2007 when the publishers group, the parent company went bankrupt and disturb a lot of independent presses and they got bought out by perseus and consortium and other distributors, and then i know of the new press went to perseus as well. like, how -- are you frightened

by that at all? i think they are owned by hedge funds. how perilous is that? and then sort of being responsible for so many small press, and then just to jump off of that question what you think of the distribution for a publisher like the o.r. books where they seem to be appealing directly to consumers and like they don't deal at all with amazon, so i guess what do you see as the future for the book distribution? >> yeah, well, i can't give you a long answer on that. i think it's the scariest part of what's happening. i think distribution is harder and harder. in europe and france for instance you need to have 300,000 euros for a major distributor to be willing to look at you, which most small town interests can't even dream

of. so it is a real problem, and hopefully at some point people will start coming up with the cooperative distribution agreements where small publishers can get together, but getting small publishers to work together is like herding cats. it is very difficult, and we have tried and not succeeded. so, you know, ideally, this -- some alternatives are going to come up, but at the moment i think it is very scary. i agree with you. >> okay, we have the last question. >> lithwick zipf you talked about the risk the publishers take and how it's smarter for a publisher to take risk now than it was back then. but talking about distribution online, whether that be from demand for electronic information. i'm wondering if on the counter side that not be able to or if

the risk is less to a certain extent that the quality of attention is given to a book is going to change. if it's so easy to make available whether that be online for free information, you talked earlier about writing. the information for free online, and i'm wondering if that is the direction we are going where there is free information of the rules of the publisher to provide attention as far as distribution and promotion if it is going to change at all. >> well, you know the head of google refers to the internet as a cesspool of misinformation. you know, do have a lot of bad stuff on the internet and it's very difficult to check it. one of the end and the jews of the publisher's logo used to be that was a guarantee of some kind, that people believed in it, they thought was accurate. on the internet, you know, you have a deliberate account

towards this disinformation as we have seen with obama and the health care program and so on and so forth. so it's very difficult to know what's going to be there. and what's going to be something you can believe in that you can control. the risks that come from publishing hour largely by paying too much money for not very good books. and those risks are increasing because there is always somebody who is willing to offer more money than a best seller should come and the big firms fall when the policy haven't necessarily need that money. when the takeover and random house, the whole policy is based on that. they lost more money than they ever had in the history of the firm. so that's, you know, that is the kind of risk that people are willing to take. the risk of a new idea or a new ultra isn't willing to take, so you have a problem. the internet, you know, publishing on the internet works

if you have a highly targeted audience and a specialized book. the university press is now publishing the monographs, nearly entirely on the internet because they know they have 350 customers, and that disease in the university libraries throughout the world that what the latest university book. and those people are willing to download at and they don't care that much what it is as long as it is from a proper university press. so the system works extremely well. but if you are trying to reach an audience that doesn't know the book, hasn't heard of the author, isn't familiar with the subject, it's not going to work. maybe we should stop at this point. >> yes. thank you very much. [applause] again, thank you who -- >> for more information on andre schiffrin's book words and money, visit the publisher is

website, versobooks.com, and search his name or the book title. coming up, emily lambert, senior writer for forbes magazine, examines the history and purpose of the trade exchange and other futures markets. she speaks at afterwards bookstore in chicago. it's about 45 minutes. [applause] >> so, i am much more sensible what interviewing people than i am at speaking, i'm sure that will car come across very quickly. thank you so much for coming and to beverley for having the seat and an effort hosting it. this just happens to be my favorite bookstore. i have bought many books here. i love coming here. and of course, it turns out that beverley has a connection to

this industry in chicago, who doesn't, and i started talking to her and she says yes, my uncle grew up with mohammed and i went to breakfast the other day with a director from the board of trade who said he used to work for beverley's softer. and i thought of course, again, it's chicago and everybody seems to have a connection to the trading business. so, i just thought i would say a few things about writing this book, and then i'm going to interview a trader because that seems much more fun than listening to me talk. so first of all, why i wrote this book. i moved to chicago and 20044 forbes, and it just seemed to me i seemed to need a lot of traders everywhere i went. we rented an apartment to start in lincoln park and took up tenants, which we paid a very

badly and played tennis on the court regularly, then another time we went to the lake front and i was reading a book about the dummy is a guide to futures options because it seemed to was a big local business and i should learn more. someone came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and was like it's going to get easier. i said that's a good because i was reading about some i think it was a butterfly trade and options and it just seemed like crazy. a meeting all these traders it's really interesting and, you know, just curious command of course the chicago board of trade is beautiful and i was curious what went on inside and they're seemed to be a lot of news going on in the industry, which anybody in the industry of course might find kind of obvious that in 2004 there was a lot going on. so i started covering the industry.

and then i wrote a couple of stories. i wrote a story about the merger of the two exchanges. i got a call from a book publisher who said do you think that there's more to say about these traders? and i thought well, of course, because eight -- the traders are such interesting people there must be something, and this was 2008 when the financial crisis was happening, when oil prices were going crazy, food prices were going crazy. i wasn't sure where i was going to write, but i thought it sounds like fun. write a book. and in retrospect that was the most naive thing i could have possibly ever, you know, could have done because the more of it i learned about the industry, and learned about traders and learned about the history of this place, the more i felt like i was taking on just a very big

project and also a very kind of personal project for people in the industry. i mean, there are people here whose families have been here for generations, and i suddenly thought who am i to be coming in and writing this story? but i'm glad i did because really the futures industry is all about risks, and i guess in my case it was one of those 90 frisks that i hope paid off because i have really enjoyed it and enjoy meeting the people who live met. so, -- >> i just want to say how i had the good fortune to meet up with emily. it turned out monday i was out having lunch with a good friend of mine and represented a generation ahead of mine, morgan

schmieder. >> whose son is here. >> i was telling him, you know, a third-generation trader myself. you know, the older guys are fast disappearing and i really wish that somebody out there was collecting stories to write the history of this very exciting industry, something that was such an important component of the chicago economic history. and he said to me what are you talking about? there's this gal doing it right now. so, of course, the first thing i did is, emily's phone number and call her writing and our leader and introduced myself because i really wanted to do what i could to help her to make this a very successful book that she is writing. >> which we appreciate, and which also i should add that this does not come to me this feels like -- first of all, it's more than chicago economic

history. it is chicago economic history, but futures have transformed the financial system in ways i think people won't be fully appreciate and don't realize. and that goes for traders as well as for people now who are wrestling with these big concepts like derivatives and understanding where they came from and understanding what happened here i think is a story that really hasn't been told the jury much, and i'm not so to think that it's completely told in this book out there. i mean i'm hoping that this is scratching the surface of what is interesting history and it deserves a lot more attention, and i know i have more stories in my notes that didn't make them and, so i hope that i can sort of add to this record after this and another time because they're just is so much here. so i asked bill to talk because i was hoping that he might be

able to explain to people who aren't in the industry or hear what i'm even talking about all because his family very much mirrors the stories industry in chicago. so there are -- maybe you could just start, if you don't mind, by what is the futures contract? >> i know a lot of people think it's a very mysterious and arcane type of business. but futures contracts already essentially insurance products. the was the reason that the industry first developed. it was futures contracts are a way to offset risk on the part of both people who need to use commodities and people who produce commodities. and very simply, a futures contract is a contract between a buyer and seller for a specific

commodity and a specific price for a specific future delivery date. and i guess of the easiest way to explain it in terms of how we is used by people to offset risk, the one of the simplest examples is you take an airline company, someone who needs to use a lot of fuel on a regular basis, and of course the fuel prices go up it can have a severe adverse impact on the profitability. so, an airline company realizing that the crude oil is at $80 a barrel, and they are concerned it might go to $100 a barrel, they have the ability to purchase all they need at a given price at $80, knowing that that will be the final cost for the product. -- of the use futures because they have too much risk, right, they want to show for it on some of the people and i see what makes this such a fun business is that chicago has all these people willing to take that risk. >> that's the other side. you know, the real economic

reason for having futures contract since for those who want to avoid risk, but it certainly also provides a great opportunity for those who want to assume risk in search of profits in a. that's the speculator. estimates of is the hedge and a speculator. there are -- for people who are treaters this is boring stuff because you know it, but for people who aren't in the business, this might be interesting. there are two exchanges that are very different places. your family was at one of them, the chicago. so who came first? >> the board of trade came first. >> let me ask that, who in your family came first? >> my grandfather was the first member of the henner family to trade, and he went to the merc in the early 40's i believe that when they were still trading

onions, but i think he primarily treated in the eggs market leave >> and what was coming to your knowledge what was the merc like? >> it was much, much smaller. actually i went to work for the first time at the old merc in 1969 when i was only 16-years-old and a summer job working there and at that time i think there were a total of 500 members, most of them were there on any given day, so it was probably three, maybe for, 400 or so actual light traders on the floor. it was much, much smaller. i remember there were only three products we were trading. they were hogs, cattle, and the most important which was frozen pork bellies. >> tell me about the pork bellies. how did people trade, talk about that, and then you had your

uncle that was in the port business. your uncle as far as i know was the meanest person to ever walk through. >> he got that reputation. [laughter] i don't know if it was deserved. but certainly i think that it was the game face. his persona, one of the guys that felt we had to really put on a tough front and he wasn't afraid to use intimidation to further his business interests. it was very funny because my uncle, after getting better reputation, it was a very common among the order desks on the floor. whenever there was a new clerk who was just starting off at the exchange, the kind of right of passage was to give this poor kid a bad order and sent him to my uncle, bill henner. essentially would give him a live cattle order and send it to my uncle in the pork belly pit. and then they would watch the

ensuing fire works that would go off and my uncle with browbeat this poor kid who was a complete moron and didn't deserve to be at this place and so on, and of course the order desk would have a great bit of amusement around that. >> and these are the kind of stories that it took me awhile to understand what that meant because there were different pits where different things were treated, so if you have an order for live cattle it had to go to the live cattle pit. so when someone to get order from the live cattle pit to the wrong pitch, then -- >> it wasn't generally speaking of the live cattle you need to to get over there, young man, but my ogle reactor a little more interesting than that. but, you know, in his defense, when he was not treating he was a very generous man. he helped lots of people in the industry, and he wound up -- he

had four wonderful children that are all very good people as well. >> and i spoke to the clerk for your uncle who said she loved being a clerk for your uncle because everyone had to pay their respects because they didn't want to have her go and get bill. the head to be nice to her. so you were there also when futures kind of left the world of agriculture and moved into the world of finance, and this is a big -- this is a big step to leave what was essentially the world of commodities and get into the world of money. ..

>> when i came back, not only there was the agriculture markets, but a gold futures contract. they were doing enormous volumes. there were five currency contracts each doing very well, and within the first year i came back, they introduced a treasury bill of futures contract which was kind of e precursor for the year row dollar -- euro dollar contract in 1982.

>> when were the big traders when you came back? >> well, when i came back, you know, there were some certainly big traders. i think the cattle market was certainly being dominated by refco. i remember the rumors were going across the floor, they're buying cattle, and people would run to the cattle pits to coat tail him. i remember in the hogs and bellies, joel greenberg was a real big player. i remember joel greenberg actually moved into the treasury bill pit and became a very large trader there as well. >> what did you trade? >> i started off -- i came back to chicago. i worked as a clerk for a few months, leased a seat, and i started trading gold's future. gold futures were actually the second largest volume product at

the america tile exchange. part was due to the fact in those days people were utilizing what they called gold spreads. buying one contract and selling another as a vehicle to actually defer taxes. >> by defer, you mean not pay? >> yes. >> okay. >> they were able to use gold contracts to essentially take a tax liability from one year and move it into the next year, and some people did that year after year after year. the problem was eventually the government changed the regulations and people could no longer roll their taxes as they say, and some people had multimillion dollar tax bills that were immediately due. >> okay. >> and quite honestly, i think that was the end of the ability to roll taxes through gold spreads and the begins of the

end of the gold contracts at the mer k. of businesses moving to new york. >> so now keep going forward in time. the 80s, they were the hay day of trading in chicago; right? >> right. absolutely. >> what was that like? >> well, i think the two most important new developments at the merck in the 80s were the future contract and the introduction of the s and p500. >> can you describe what that euro dollar was like? >> it was incredibly packed with people. it was a place where there was absolutely no extra real estate available. in fact, at one partnership, a big broker there decided he was going to leave the business, and he was able to sell his spot in the pit, just enough room for one person to stand for $1

million. it was -- >> what made -- sorry to interrupt you, but what made that spot so fantastic? >> they were doing so much volume in the euro dollar contract, that they made more in a month than a cattle broker made in a year. it was so busy that clerks who were processing orders from the desk telling the brocker what to do were paid six figures at one time. >> you told me once about a lunch you went to. how much you spent on that. >> back in the days when we were doing quite well, we took turnings buying lunch for the people in the group, and the running joke was to see how high they could run the bill, you know, expensive champaigne, old vintages, things like that along with a fancy meal.

>> how much? >> in excess of a thousand dollars for a lunch, but times were good back then. [laughter] you know, the markets were very inefficient, and being on the trading floor was just an incredible advantage. i mean, if you were willing to be disciplined and be careful, you know, you could make a lot of money without taking very much risk. some people managed to do it without taking any risk i think. >> so now things have changed. the floor is not what it was. certainly the markets are more electronic. the board of trade which we vice president talked about -- haven't talked about and maybe we can at least in question, and the markets are one big company now. it's 5 very different situation. the henner family has been there for three generations now. is there going to be a fourth in trading? >> i think it's unlikely honestly. you never know.

i don't have any children particularly interested in trading, but, you know, electronics has completely changed the industry and changing the way that u.ly has -- ultimately allowed the volume to go to numbers we couldn't have imagined 20 years ago, and ultimately is provided a much fairer even playing field for most of the participants. you know, the professionals in the game no longer have the ability to react faster to get better prices and to have any real advantage over the normal retail trader. >> and so what did the merk people think about the board of trade, and perhaps someone from the board of trade here can address that. >> i'm not sure why there was essentially such an ongoing culture clash. you know, but the board and the

merk could never seem to really get together. there was talk of merging the two exchanges back when i started in the business, and for one reason or another, they could never get together. i don't know if it was the egos of the people running the exchanges. it was always an interesting thing that the board of trade people i think always had an attitude that they were first and their exchange was the more legitimate entity than the merck. i think there was that attitude that the merck was the second rate exchange down the street. >> we were saying that the merck was the juvenile exchange. that was the nickname for them. did you have a nickname for the board? >> not that i recall. you know, actually my father had memberships at both exchanges. he had his office in the board

of trade building, and, you know, i think even though he predominantly traded merck products, he liked the board of trade better. in fact, he had originally encouraged me to go to work at the board. he said-a more civilized -- he said it was a more civilized place. >> why did you end up at the merck? >> i think part of youthful rebellion. [laughter] that's honestly why i think i -- when i started in the business, i didn't want to trade agriculture products. i was really excited about the new financial futures markets, and i felt ultimately they would be where the big volume was going to occur, and that's why i started off in gold and soon moved into foreign currencies because i realized that the foreign currency market was potentially the biggest trade of all. >> and do you think -- what do you think people -- do you think

that people today understand what futures are? >> outside the industry? >> outside the industry. >> no, i think there's still that same confusion in the minds of most people. you know, that's why, you know, you know, there's been so much fun with it in movies. future industries has been this arcane subset at the financial industry, and very few people understand it even though it is really not that difficult of a concept once you sit down and take a look at it. >> thank you. does anyone have any questions? if not, i might target people. [laughter] >> i wanted to say one more thing. that is when i was working as a runner before the financial futures, the biggest trade was pork bellies, and it did actually i think 90% of the volume in the 60s, and the pork

belly contract actually this year, 2011, is the 50th anniversary of the introduction of that contract, and just last month there was an article in the "wall street journal" talking about pork bellies, and how pork bellies were actually the merck exchange was referred to as the house that bellies built. >> uh-huh. >> and as of last november, six contracts traded in pork bellies at the chicago merck exchange. you know, it's one of those things that is not as certainly -- it appears to be on its way out. i noticed that, and i also realize that, you know, last year, i think was the first year in 70 years there was not somebody with the last name of henner trading at the chicago merck exchange. it's sad to see things change, but certainly the exchange itself, the volume, is healthier than it's ever been. >> it's a story of market

evolution. >> absolutely. >> your family was there during an amazing time of innovation, and now it's almost a new era of innovation. >> yes, it is. >> but, questions? >> any questions? >> yes. >> emily, you mentioned you're not from around here, and someone from a trading family, a broker family, i want to ask you, you know, you do a good job in the book talking about how the exchanges are sort of clannish, and when there's generations of people, there's family secrettings and stories and -- secrets and things, but not always what they want the general public to know. how did you get people to open up with so many good stories and somebody something you can tell us later? [laughter] >> over drinks. [laughter] >> didn't sleep with them?

[laughter] >> no, no i did not. is my husband here? first of all, i covered the industry for a couple years already i wrote the book, and i think that was helpful because people knew who i was and then were able to vouch for me because, you're right, this industry is incredibly clannish, and you have to have people say, you know issue essentially make an introduction to other people. it was, for example, and everybody knows someone, but it's all about introductions. the way i found bill was through the schniders. it's all -- it really is just a game of telephone where everybody knows someone. i think this was just a unique time where the because things are going electronic, because the clubs are no longer actual

clubs and they are publicly traded companies, because there's a period of transition, people are able or at a point where they are more willing to look back and talk perhaps more than they were before so i think that that helped. >> i also think to emily's credit, she has to write. we didn't know it was going to be a burn piece. a lot of people want the dirt on somebody. i think she has some very good, well organized questions. it took me five or six meetings with her before i told her the truth. [laughter] >> this is true. [laughter] >> you just had to see the angle she was coming from. a lot of people come into the business, want to write a book on the negative. same with the "wall street journal". to her credit, she did her research and homework. >> i doment to say that -- i do want to say that it's easy

to find the negatives in this business, and i'm not trying to hide them either, and i think it's part of the history of the place, but i feel like a lot of people focus on the negative, and we miss what works about the industry, and i think especially now when we look at what's happened with the derivatives business and things, i think it's important to go back and learn from history also about what works in history. larry, can i ask you a question? >> go for it. >> which is that you've started -- when you started, it was also the 60; correct? >> a runner in 1967 at 110 north franklin. >> how little did people know about the industry at that time? how little did people know about the merck? >> nobody knew anything about the industry. nobody knew anything about the merck tile exchange.

many were new yorkers. the board of trade had 1300 members, and, you know, there was a handful of each brokers. the story that you're leading up to, it's 1968. i'm in the elevator at 110 north franklin, and two women come in and one says to the other, isn't there some stock exchange in the building? yes, but it's a small one. i wanted to stop the elevator and say excuse me, ladies, it's the future exchange. it'sed world's second largest, but nobody knew this. go up a couple of years, i'm a senior in college and people said what are you going to do? i'm going to work at the merck exchange? that's great, can you get me in? i have to buy a sofa. [laughter] i had to say it's not the

merchandise mart. i had to explain the difference. imagine trying to explain that to your future father-in-law and how you will support his daughter. there was activity in cattle, and there was a lot of protests. i forgot whether that was the year prices were too high or too low, but suddenly the channels in chicago, the news team had stock footage of the trading floor, and then people said, oh, are you one of the people who shouts and waves your hands? you would say, yes. they would walk away and had a sense of what you did. i think that plus the currency trading really helped change things. today, if you called up channel 9, they would have a massive collection of stock footage on the trading floors, and that really started to change things. up until the 70s, the only school who taught future trading

were in illinois and iowa. that was in the economics department. there was one book on the futures business. if you walked into any bookstore up until really the early 1970s, maybe even the mid-70s, there was nothing at all on futures trading. you would have to look very, very hard, and so that became part of my mission was to help educate and become a cheerleader for the industry. >> and in the 80s, you taught classes; right? when there was a much bigger interest in futures when people thought they could come to chicago and make a mint; right? and then spend $1,000 on lunch. >> right. when i was there in the mid-70s, we noticed there was a huge number of summer employees coming in, and granted many of them were children and nieces and nephews of members, but peoplement the to know --

people wanted to know what they were doing. i order, answer this phone, and so i was part of a committee that created a one class, an introduction to futures, and it was so well-received that the exchange said maybe we should do this on a regular basis, and they eventually built a catalog of 2 dozen classes that were offered on a quarterly basis, and i kind of took over introduction of futures and a few other course options for beginners. we would have so many people taking this course in the summer, that we would have to represent out the little auditorium at the civic opera house, and people were moving to chicago to learn about this business. there was no electronic trading, and if you wanted to really know futures, you had to be on the floor. there was no two ways about it. at the time, and now we're moving into the early 1908s, mid-80s, and i was running the

retail futures department. i would have mba graduates come to me saying i will move to chicago, work for minimum wage, 30 hours a week as a runner just to learn the business. their intention was to leave after a few months, and that was fine by me, but they needed to make connections, meet people, understand how it works, and you wound up with suddenly a situation where you were no longer there because you were somebody's son or daughter or niece or nephew, but because you had an advanced degree and you saw the potential for all of this. >> thank you. at the risk of being too heavy, i want to target one other person. nancy? you were -- are you -- i know there's some debate, the first woman to walk on the floor of the exchange; right? >> oh, yes.

i was the first woman allowed on the floor at the exchange. that was in 1962, and in fact the chicago merck was the first exchange in the country to allow women members, and my husband wanted to open his own business, and so he chose me as his partner and bought a membership for me, and of course, at that time, they were really anxious to sell memberships to, you know, whoever came along, so they were willing to sell one to a woman, and the first day that i went, after i went before the board, and i was approved, my husband said to me, well, now you have to go out on the floor. at that time, they didn't even allow women employees. we took the elevator, went down. i kept saying to him, but women are not allowed, women aren't

allowed. when we got to the gate, the guard who used to be there said, oh, no, no, nancy can't go out on the floor, and he ran for harris, the president, and he said, oh, yes, nancy can, and in the meantime, bud led me out on the floor, so i was the first woman to go out on the exchange floor during trading hours, and there were some long faces looking at me, but all of bud's friends congratulated me, and that was the end of that, and then i think it was probably a few months, maybe -- i did go down and answer the phones for awhile for him and work at the desk, but, you know, i had four very young children at home, and, you know, it didn't work out, so i think in a few more months maybe, six months after that, they did allow, someone did start, a woman did start

working down on the floor, and from that point on, it was history. >> then actually bill's cousin was a woman in the euro dollar pit and perhaps the most successful female trader? >> arguably the most successful woman floor trader in history i'd say. she did very, very well. she had a great mind for mathematics and she could do numbers so well. she traded the back month spreads in the euro dollar contract. >> which is one of those things when i started this book when people said back month spreads i just -- >> that essentially means contracts are basically, you're trading the very short term interest rates. >> i'm going to stop you there because people who understand you understand you, and people who don't understand you are not going to get it. >> okay. >> so are there any other

questions? if not, i hope you get a chance to mingle and talk to people because there are some really fascinating people here. charlie andrews is the whole start of the book, the whole end of the book is about charlie. he came in from kansas which i so appreciate. he's a really interesting guy. board of trade people who may have gotten the shaft in this conversation i'm sure have interesting things. i really appreciate you all coming. it's really sweet and charlie? >> two great stories. one about dan, and one about his uncle. when the cattle mark boomed, all the cowboys wanted to come to town to see what was going on. there was a fellow by the name of frank booth who ran the biggest cow holler in the united states from greeley.

frank had thunderstorm watch height on me an 100 pounds, and he came to buy a seat, but they said, let's get you a yellow jacket, and let you get the feel of this before you buy a seat, and so here was this giant old man among all these young runners running around the floor whispering who is he? his uncle bill called him over to the pit, and he said, sonny, i see you're a little older and bigger than the runners. to get you on the same plain, i'm going to buy you a boy scout knife. his dad had the greatest 6th sense of the market of anybody. they were out on a new yacht, and the yacht sank, and they were on this life raft, and on

the 2nd day, his dad, david, disclosed to his wife the worst part of this is i'm sure the soy beans are living down today. [laughter] he had great, great humor that happened among all the things, but what we built is a gigantic market of the world, and it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and i'm really pushing emily to come out with the next book because we have to have counterparty risk. it cannot go off into derivatives into thin air, and we must have the contracts designed or redesigned to fit the marketplace today, but this place will grow like nobody can ever imagine.

today, they traded almost 100,000 cattle. big day we ever had was 35. the corn trades 400-500,000 contracts a day. we couldn't get over 50,000 in the pit because physically we couldn't handle it. electronics are putting us into the future, but the big thing to remember, there's 408 million people in north america and maximum 200 million people in south america. outside of our boundaries are 6 billion people. you got two sides of the hemisphere. we're the food producers of the world, and they are the producer of industrial products, and we develop this swap market which is what i learned how to do swaps there which was the most valuable thing i could have ever

learned in my life, and we will propel, we will build jobs around the food industry just like china with their 17 vital trace elements will build steel and all of these things, but it's got to be a world of swaps or it's world war iii and we nuke each other out. >> and i have to say when i started writing this, i would have no idea what you just said, so hopefully if you read the book, you'll go back and say, oh, now i know what charlie's talking about because they started with very simple markets, grew into something that sounds complex and scary, but charlie knows this because he knew it when they traded cattle, and there really is a progression so that's what he says starts to make sense. okay. thanks again, everyone, for coming. we are open for several more

hours. stay, have some wine and food. emily has graciously agreed to sign books, and we're going to start that right now, and thank you both. that was really fascinating. >> thank you, jill. [applause] >> thanks, bill. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> emily lanbert is a senior writer at forbs magazine. visit blogs.forbes dick/emilylambert ..