KING OF THE HOGS

Congratulations to Dylan McCafferty of Sherman, whose show hog won Grand Champion Barrow in the Governor’s Sale of Champions at the Illinois State Fair on Aug. 18. The hog sold for a record $76,500, demolishing the old record of $25,000. Who would spend $76,500 on a single pig? The buyer was Terry Duffy, executive chairman of CME Group, which runs the Chicago Board of Trade and other lucrative companies. CME threatened to leave Illinois in 2011 unless given a substantial reason to stay, and state lawmakers dutifully complied, lopping $100 million off of CME’s corporate income tax bill. The company’s 2014 annual report fi led with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows $3.1 billion in revenues that year, with expenses of $1.3 billion. Duffy will donate the meat from the hog to the University of Illinois. While it’s not quite pork politics, it is certainly a lesson in how money works: if you have a lot of it, you can get the government to let you keep more of it, and then you can make a grand gesture with some of it. Be sure to take notes, Mr. McCafferty.