Years ago in my irresponsible youth, I traded futures. Fingers appropriately burned, I gave it up. But in talking to a friend who thinks he can cash in on continuing high inflation by speculating on some future prices, I learned a few things. For instance, you can trade in tomato futures, but onion futures are illegal. You can speculate on future treasury yields but not on movie box office receipts. I can think of no reason why this should be so, except for the power of lobbyists. And even so, why would Big Onion be opposed to hedging future onion prices?