2. Explain how the pearl buying and selling market is a setup.

The pearl dealers act in collusion. In practice, they all work for one dealer. They try to get the best price for their boss. By doing this, the pearl traders ensure they cheat the already poor fishermen out of their meager earnings from the small pearls they catch. The last pearl dealer offers Kino 1500 pesos, but Kino leaves. This, of course, is very unfair but Kino cannot reconcile that this is the way of his people. They expect to get cheated, and they take what they can. Kino is breaking with tradition and upsetting the status quo that has been around for hundreds of years.