Barn Talk - Barn Talk Q&A Christmas Addition: Pigs, Tesla, Halo, Inflation, Value Of The Dollar, Barn Talk Merch

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

Welcome To Barn Talk! In today’s episode, we have a barn talk Q&A giving you our answers to the questions you sent in. Today we discuss the impact of inflation on farms, the best weapon in Halo, our prediction for the swine industry in 2022, is tesla gonna help the swine industry, & much, much more. Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 ADD US ON: INSTAGRAM ➱ https://bit.ly/3gaobdN TIKTOK ➱ https://bit.ly/3eJfftr ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're going to ask me one last question? Yeah, we're doing pretty good. Yeah. Well, why do you hate ethanol? All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to another edition of Barn Talk, folks. Christmas Eve edition.

We're getting ready for the holidays, getting geared up for the holidays. I got a lot of Christmases I got to go to. That's the perks of finance and significance. another you got a ton of Christmases you got to go to and then you got to go to yours too so I know there's a lot of people out there that can relate there um we thought today we jump into a quick q&A session before the holidays get here uh Christmas is going to be tomorrow when you guys see this so happy holidays to all you guys merry Christmas we're so thankful for all your support and all your generosity and subscribing to the YouTube or listening and subscribing on spotify or

or wherever you listen to really, really means the world to us. We started this thing, I don't know, like seven months ago. And it's been taken off. And the clips on TikTok have been taken off. And it's, you guys really seem to enjoy it. And we really enjoy doing it. We like interviewing people. And we like just dropping some value to you guys.

As you know, dad, dad can talk. And I like to listen and I like to talk to. So it's, it's perfect for us. So sharing is caring for barn talk. And we're in that time of year where you're sharing and you're generous. So pay the fee for us. Share the show if you get any value from it at all. That's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show.

We just ask if you get anything. You share it out with your friends, family, coworkers, whoever. That's kind of, that's our deal. So, Dad, you want to give them the torque market update? Yeah. So this is going to be the abbreviated edition of the market update because by the time you're watching this, all the numbers will have changed anyway,

and my crystal ball is kind of fuzzy. So I'll tell you that right now it's pretty good. I don't know whether we'll be able to close out the week as high as we are or maybe a little higher, but corn and beans, pretty much everything is on the way up, and crypto's coming back. And the stock market, I haven't checked recently, but this morning everything was still working its way back up.

So maybe a little Christmas present for all of us that everything is on the mend. So we're going to leave it there today because we're going to try to get as many questions in as we can and keep this one a manageable level because I have to go to the mercantile and help the onslaught of last-minute Christmas present buyers and then get our own stuff ready for Christmas. So we're going to try to keep it under two hours. Is that what you're trying to say? We're definitely going to keep it under two hours.

So maybe we'll keep it less than that. I'll try to talk fast and be concise. I'll be concise with my answers. I'll try to do the same. All right. So who wants to start? You go ahead. Okay.

So this is one that came up. And a lot of people have asked us this. And when we started, we kind of brushed it off. Yeah, we kind of, we didn't think about it because we really didn't think anybody was probably that interested in what we had to offer, but more and more people have asked for it. So when are we going to have a merch? Well, as you could see right now, what I'm wearing and what dad's wearing over there, throw that puppy off. We officially have merch. So if you guys want to buy some this

will do farm or barn talk or some just simple thistle do shirts, we got the website. We'll have the website down in the description if you're watching on YouTube or If you're listening, we'll have the link in the show notes below, too, for you guys to go check out our merch and purchase if you want. Yeah, it's one of those things that when we first started, we were like, oh, merch, everyone does merch. Does anyone want to do that, you know? Does anyone really want to buy that from us? And it's just one of those things that over time, more and more people have asked. And we might as well wear our own stuff and create our own stuff.

And I think it can do well. I think people want it. And if you want it, go get it. Wow, what a rookie. We got a rookie over here freaking having a cell phone on. What the hell? But anyway, we're going to do merch a little bit different.

So if you go on the website now, you can see that we have like very, we only have a few items on there. We got this will do farm stuff, barn tuck stuff, and just this will do stuff. It's pretty simple, pretty plain. And that stuff's going to be available all year round. And my plan with the merch is to kind of do drops. So kind of probably four drops a year, maybe five. drops a year. We'll drop some new pieces that are super limited that will be like merged out. You know, we'll have some barn talk merch that's limited. We'll have some this will do farm stuff

that's limited. And then we'll just have some cool items that I think people can wear that's just this will do that relates and stuff like that that's limited. But you can buy this stuff all year round. And that's kind of my plan with it so far. Yeah, it's been kind of a, everything that we do, you know, we don't know what the hell we're doing and we kind of figure it out. And this was one of those things that I was just like, I got to figure this out. So I sat down like probably three weeks ago and I just, or two weeks ago, and I just kind of went to town and got it figured out. And now we got merch. So go get it if you want it.

And I'm kind of lived a little late to the game because I should have got this out maybe before Christmas, before the holidays rolled around. With any luck, we'll still all be here next Christmas. So we're ahead of the game. We're ahead of the game. Some people would look at it as we're behind, but we're actually just that far ahead. for next year. Oh, one other thing I want to say about the merch, if you want to get sweatshirts and you're like a large, I would get an XL. That's kind of what I've learned with what we got. So it's, it's a little, the sweatshirts are a little, they go run a little small. So if you're a guy that

normally wears a large, I'd probably get an XL. That's what I found and so on and so forth. But everything else seems to fit really good. T-shirts fit good. If you're a large, they'll fit really well. So that's, I just want to throw that in there too. I wear a medium, but a large, uh, a large, feels so good that I get an extra large. That's how I roll. That's how you roll. That's a good, rule of thumb there. Okay. So that's, that's the merch talk. We're not going to talk about it anymore for this episode, but what happens to America if the world loses trust in the dollar, Dad? What the hell do we do? Well, we kind of went, we went from a little, happy little fun times to the joy of capitalism to the collapse of. And shout out to Dan Lewis for asking this question.

Yeah. Dan is a loyal, loyal, loyal barn talk follower, and this will do farm follower. He supports us from day one, and we really appreciate you, Dan, and this is one of your questions. That's a wide one. So I guess the first thing I'll say is, I don't think anything good comes of that. And kind of the problem that the United States has right now is, so we are the reserve currency for the rest of the world. And in times of trouble and in times of uncertainty, many people around the world, they put their money in the U.S. dollar. And today, there are a lot of countries that would like to unseat the dollar as a reserve currency, the Chinese and the Russians being the top of the list. But the cushion to

having that title is if you are the reserve currency of the world, you can pretty much print as much money as you want and run in a deficit as long as you want, and nobody's going to do boo to you because it's still the safest place to put your money, and that's what the United States has been running on. The problem with that is, and this is where it gets really tricky in my mind, because if you were in a situation where there was no crypto and you had a country like China or a country like Russia that somehow unseated us and they got oil traded in their currency and they got gold traded in their currency or whatever, that would be a huge problem. And that's what they're working towards.

but an issue that is going to be really interesting to watch is if we transition from the U.S. dollar to let's just say Bitcoin as the currency that the world trades in, well then it's a whole different ballgame because then nobody still has the upper hand. The Russians don't have the upper hand, the Chinese don't have the upper hand, the euro doesn't have the upper hand. And so I think that's the most interesting issue that I don't know if anybody has an answer for. However, we've got a major problem, and that's why you've seen the Fed dancing around, kicking the can, not giving a straight answer when it comes to inflation, and they put off tapering or easing. So they've been buying, they've been buying up bonds like they're going out of style and printing money, so they've been

playing both sides of the fence and pumping liquidity into the market. And when the stock market took a hit here a few days ago, it was because everybody was in a panic over the next version of the coronavirus, but also because the Fed came out and said that they were going to stop buying bonds back and they were going to raise interest rates. well they can't raise interest rates very much because all that debt all that debt they have to pay interest on and when interest is incredibly low it makes it a lot easier to pay that debt but you start raising interest rates and it makes our debt a much larger piece of GDP and it gets a lot more complicated

on how they're going to manage to pay that back it's a complicated it's a complicated deal but I guess the short answer to your question is it's not going to be good. If we lose reserve currency in the world, we have even bigger problems than we already have. I guess the question is whether or not, one, who we lose it to, if we lose it, and if we lose it to a cryptocurrency that nobody controls, is that better or worse? And I don't have the answer for you. Well, I think it's probably better than letting China have it, you know, or Russia. I mean, I would take that over them having the reserve currency of the world. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know a solution. You're smarter on that subject than I am. I don't really know what the hell we do about it. But do you think the U.S. dollar will go digital? Because we've said that many times that we think that's, I don't know if a cryptocurrency will become the reserve currency. I think that they won't want to lose that and they want to make the U.S. dollar crypto, but it be just digitalized and not really. They won't have like Bitcoin be the currency.

No, I think every country, every major country will. They'll be a digital euro. They'll be a digital dollar. They'll be a digital yen. Yeah, all that. There will be. And the reason for that, like we've talked before, is you can program that money. So today you send out a stimulus check. we sent out all these stemless checks and most people either waste them on stuff that they didn't need or they invested them. I think most people did invest them. Yeah, a lot of people invest. I don't remember what the stat was, but a lot of people, I mean, I wouldn't mess in mind. So what that tells you is a lot of that money that went out didn't go to people that actually needed it.

Right. So if you go to a digital dollar, you can program that. In other words, you can use demographics, you can use tax returns, you can use whatever. Analytics. and you can dial that in as you can decide who gets that stimmy who gets that stimulus um and so they're all going to be about that because it gives them more it gives them more it gives them more but at the same time and get well if you're you're talking if they just go digital with their own currency right if you go with bitcoin then they kind of lose power oh yeah it gives them power in that way where

they can do that kind of stuff but then they also lose power because they can't really control it don't kid yourself. This whole song and dance floating around where the Fed comes out one day and says something positive Bitcoin or positive crypto and then the government drags a bunch of crypto

people up on Capitol Hill and they ask them a bunch of questions and they're all feeling it out but don't kid yourself. Government, there's no government that is pro-bitcoin. They're not because it's a decentralized currency and they can't

control it. And if you went the way, if Bitcoin runs its course to its logical conclusion, you don't need a World Bank. You don't, you don't need central planning. It, it is so anti, it's anti-s central government that, yeah, no government is pro-crypto. El Salvador. Well, right, but the reason they are is because they were beholden to the United States because they traded everything in the U.S. dollar. So you're saying the top players. No, None of the top playing governments want to mess with crypto or Bitcoin because. But the problem is, none of them, most of them aren't knowledgeable enough to know. They don't know how it's going to work.

And really nobody knows exactly how it's going to work. The only thing that is a given is it's very decentralized to where no single country can manipulate it. And that's what scares them. That's what they don't like. So you think the conclusion is they're going to end up raising interest rates even though it's going to hurt them? Yes, they have to. I mean, that's the only way. That's the only solution I think.

Because inflation is running rampant. This is kind of a little off the subject, but how did he address this? How was the White House speech he had yesterday? Yeah, it was nothing. He basically came out and just said that everybody was vaccinated, that he's happy that you're vaccinated. And if you weren't vaccinated, you're probably going to die and you're going to flood the hospitals and he didn't think very much of you.

And something about... Way to bring us together. Oh, yeah. He's the president. Way to bring us together. Well, it's kind of, it's elder abuse. Or it's, it's some, but whoever, whoever's pulling his chain, they should be, they, if you voted for Joe Biden, you should really

feel sorry for him because he's being abused as an elderly person, because he is in control of his, I don't think he has a clue. He's reading it off the teleprompter and they've got him on enough stuff. I mean, that guy is old. That guy is old, he's not in very good shape. He's awfully wrinkly. And his cognitive ability is somewhat questionable, I would say. So anyway. A lot of video evidence out there. But yeah, whoever wrote that speech wasn't all about it. trying to unite us. Yeah. So this kind of goes off a little bit on that too, but one thing I thought of the other day is,

don't you think it's ironic that here we are, we're at the beginning of inflation really going up, and you've got the Russians talking about invading Ukraine, and the U.S. is talking that if they invade Ukraine, that we're going to do a bunch of sanction against them. And I was just thinking, you know, the last time we had inflation go sky high, it was when... I mean, isn't it the record high right now? I'm pretty sure it's not for, no, not for inflation. Okay. But it's the highest in a long time, but the 80s.

So the last time this happened, a lot of farmers will remember this because it was beginning of the farm crisis. Russia invaded Afghanistan and Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter, what a great guy he was. I think he's a really nice person, but he's a horrible president. So he brought on, he helped usher in the farm crisis because at that time we traded a lot with Russia. And he put the sanctions, the grain embargo against Russia, and then interest rates took off. And we had all this. And I thought, that's kind of ironic that we're sitting here worrying about whether Russia is going to invade Ukraine.

And we're talking about sanctions against them. And we've got inflation headed up. So I don't know. 22 could be a little murky. Aren't you going to have to go in more debt if you're going to go? Oh, yeah. But I don't, we're a long ways off from whether we're actually going to confront the Russians or not. I don't, I don't see.

With Trump, I would have said yes, but with Biden, I don't think so. I don't see that the American people have much stomach for going toe to toe with. The big loser and all that's going to be Ukraine because the Europeans, they're broke and they're sworn to defend them. We let you, we put Ukraine into NATO. And now then NATO is. NATO is not a very tight, not a very tight group. Putin's a mother savage. So we would get into this in some of the questions that are upcoming, but basically,

what do you say about Russia and China? You tell me this all the time. They're long-term thinking it we're not. We're thinking about the next four years, and we're thinking about the, we're thinking about the problems that only affect the U.S. It's just like in last episode with Matthew Rota, we talked about kind of global warming a little bit and how the U.S., people of the U.S. always focus on what we can do, what we can do, and that what we got to do our part. But then we look around the rest of the world,

and they're not even close to where we are, where we are as far as giving a shit about the climate or whatever, you know. And it's just like this whole idea that it's just we always focus on us. We're playing checkers. Yeah, we're playing checkers. They're playing chess. We worry a lot about election cycles and politicians are worried about election cycles. Putin doesn't care because he quit having elections a long time ago. That's the difference. So he's been sitting over there and the Chinese is the same way. They've been working on, they've got this 2045 plan that they've been running and they don't have ethics and they don't care about the little guy. It's world domination. They want to dominate the world. Yeah. That's what they

want. I don't know. It's going to be interesting to see. But it's, I don't feel like that, I don't feel like we've got the stomach right now. Um, something's going to going to have to happen if if they do go into ukraine i don't know what will happen but i it won't be good i know i mean i know it won't be good but it's just going to be all and all dan we we don't really know what to tell you it's it's not good either way well all this is not good but we probably see interest rates going up interest is going to go up bitcoin interest is going to keep growing the dollar i would, if the world, so that's the other thing though, if, if Russia does go into Ukraine, the United States dollar will strengthen. And so we'll be able to kick the can further down the road

because the rest of the world will depend on the United States and it won't be an issue for a while. It'll just kick it a little further down the road. Why? Why? Because in times of, in times of problems with throughout the world, the rest of the world, they look to the United States dollar for security. So that makes the dollar higher against so a dollar a euro's worth less to a dollar the yen's worth less to a dollar a peso's worth less to the dollar the dollar is stronger and that's what'll happen and so if that makes it stronger our debt and our ability to print money and borrow against our the the value of the dollar gets stronger and so for the short term it's we're not people the world is not going to lose trust in the dollar short term if there's major chaos in the world. However,

over time, as other countries get more powerful, China, whatever, and the dollar weakens, then we have major problems because we can't just print money until the cows come home because somebody is going to call that bond in and want paid. So we rambled a thousand different ways on that. And at the end of the day, I don't think we answered the question. If you're listening, you're like, oh my God, it's doomsday. We're screwed. What do I do? I'd put a little bit of your money in crypto. This is not financial advice, but head your bet a little bit.

You know, if you don't believe in the dollar, if people start to really disbelief and not put their faith in the U.S. dollar anymore, well, the only option I can see is put it in hard assets or put it into crypto. And that's one thing I think we can all... Just a little bit. We can all agree on is if you have inflation coming

and interest rates going up, don't leave your money in cash. No. You got to put it in some... something put it in land put it in commodities put it in bitcoin um real put it in real estate put it in good companies don't just throw your money in the stock market because the stock market's probably headed for a correction too but there's good companies that uh their stock over time will continue to grow because they're sharp and they're good at what they do right so do your research on

that too somebody asks us what our predictions were for the swine industry in 2022 i would just say I don't think a lot's going to change. Corn and soybeans are high right now. Labor is an issue, not just in the hog industry, but kind of all over agriculture. And it's hard because if you're somebody, hogs are high right now, aren't they too? Hogs are high, but your corn and soybeans, your inputs are high, so it's really not doing you any good. I mean, if you're an independent hog farmer, it's, I mean, it's tough sledding right now. I think hog prices are going to stay good because health-wise, there is, we're short on pigs.

I saw the pig report Monday, and slaughter weights are down 6% from a year ago, maybe more than that. And then slaughter is down 6% or 7%. The number of sows is down. and I don't think this number is tracked or I haven't seen this number, but the level of mortality and grow finish across the country is way higher than average because Per's. Purrs is just ravaging.

What if somebody doesn't know what Purrs is? Purrs is basically, I equate it to like... Cancer for humans? Well, it's like AIDS for pigs in the fact that it, you don't, pigs don't die directly, purrs. Well, I shouldn't say that because if they have it severe enough in a sow unit, it will kill sows, it'll kill pigs. But they typically die of something else. It ruins their immune system to where the secondaries just ravish them. And there's different strains of it, different

strains, just like we have different strains of the coronavirus that we can't seem to figure out that that's going to keep happening because it mutates all the time as it has for thousands of years. And also throw in there. How long have we been trying to cure coronavirus and pigs? For a long time. Have we ever cured it? Ask any drug rep that sells. Ask any vet.

Yeah, ask any vet about it. Because so coronavirus is in swine also and has been for as long as anybody's been doing it, I guess. And I think every major animal drug company has tried to make a coronavirus vaccine. But they couldn't do it. And you know why they couldn't do it? Guess why they couldn't do it? because it kept mutating. Every time they would get a vaccine,

it wouldn't work because it mutated that fast to where they couldn't do it. And we're in the same boat with this. And I am a big proponent of technology, and I know that the technology they're using is state of the art, and that's a lot better than it was. But if you think that here we are on our fourth people, they're getting ready to give people their fourth booster shot. And when this all started,

people were making TikToks talking about how, you know, fast forward in the future, their face was swallowed up the size of a basketball and they were like, I'm having my 27th booster shot. Well, guess what, people, you could easily be in a deal where a year from now, you could be on your eighth booster shot because it's just going to keep mutating. Yeah, my thing is modern medicine has brought us as far as we can go. This isn't going to stop. It's going to keep mutating. This whole idea that it's the unvaccinated fault, it's there, you're the, you're the problem for your unvaccinated. That's kind of getting debunked because these vaccines isn't really stopping the spread.

I mean, you're getting it regardless. And so are we going to just live in fear and panic for a decade? I don't know. I mean, that's the thing. I don't trust government on much of anything, and I sure has held on trust them when it comes to this. This whole thing is just, it's just been fishy. They're trying to entice you to go get a free hamburger to get a vaccine shot.

When's that happened? If it was so bad, if this disease was so bad, people would have been lining up at the door to get this thing. They wouldn't have to incentivize you to get it. That's my thing. Why do you ought to incentivize people to go get a shot? If it's so bad, if it is so bad, every American would be lining up to go get it. There's a lot of misinformation out there. It is.

That's just all there is to it. But at the end of the day, veterinarians are, if you're talking between a regular family, physician and a veterinarian. A veterinarian is a much better epidemiologist than a family doctor because in the swine business, we deal with epidemiology all the time because we have viruses mutating within the hog population and we have for years. And vets are on the front line of that and they're always chasing, they're always chasing behind because you're always trying to find what's going to work for this virus as it mutates. And PERS is a perfect example.

PERS has been around for a long time and it keeps mutating. And the coronavirus is the same thing. I mean, we've had coronavirus in swine for a long time. And like I said, it's nothing new in that side of the thing. It's killing pigs. It's killing pigs. That's the short, I don't know what you say.

That was the long version. Yeah, that was the long version of the explanation. So labor's down. a lot of pigs are dying. Input costs are high. Hogs are high, but it's really not doing much for you. And I'll just say this. It's a good year to be a contract grower.

As long as your integrator doesn't go broke. Right, as long as your integrator doesn't go broke. If you've got a solid integrator, then you're going to be okay. And the other side of it is the cost of capital is going to go up. So for the people that, you know, whatever business you're in, if you've got money borrowed and you have an operating note or you have a line of credit, or you have a variable rate loan, all that's going to go up. So it makes the cost of money higher.

It makes lending standards tighter. So it's just going to be more challenging. I think that's my two cents on it. So I don't know. I mean, prediction is I think it's going to kind of stay the same. I think everything that you were fighting in 21, you're going to be fighting in 22. Maybe you can help. We can maybe stop the purr spread a little bit and that might help.

I think it will get better and I think prices are going to be good, but I think you're really going to have to manage your costs. Okay. So let's go into number four. How does inflation and input costs affect your farm in 2022 to work? I think it's the same deal. So in my situation, my crop inputs were higher. And this is something, leave me a comment, leave us a comment and tell us what you think, what you're doing about nitrogen. Because I haven't booked any nitrogen. Traditionally, I usually buy my nitrogen in. the fall book for what I'm going to use as far as putting on for spring for spring planting or then even if I'm going to side dress and this year I haven't bought any nitrogen and I'm probably not going to put any on with a planner and I may not put any on until we wait and see what things do and we may come back and side dress and if it's stupid high we may not side dress I mean we put we put out we put enough nitrogen out there with the manure that we put on that on paper that'll get us where we need to go.

But you know that when you do, not all of that nitrogen is going to be available when that plant gets to where it can use it. Because we use manure. Yep. So that's, and I think a lot of guys, I haven't changed my crop rotation, but I know some guys have. I know some guys that are talking that if they get to spring and... Nitrogen's still high. They're just going to plant more beans. And I had a guy tell me the other day he might plant some beans on beans.

I don't know. But, you know, we don't rent any ground, but I know that a lot of landlords sit around and look at what prices are doing and they're seeing inflation and they know that they're going to want more money. So they're trying to pass that on. I sold some corn. I sold some new crop corn. And with the rally that's going on right now, I think I'm going to sell some new crop beans.

and corn, you know, corn that's over $5 for new crop and beans that have a 12 in front of them for new crop, that may look pretty darn good by the time we get to fall. Now, who knows? If something goes wrong in South America, come fall, corn might have a six on it and it might have a 13 on. And if it does, the corn and beans that I have pre-sold, that may be the cheapest that I have. But I think I'm okay. With as much uncertainty as there is, I think I'm all right doing that, that if what I sell for these prices now come fall, if that's the lowest that I get, that's pretty good. You'll be happy. You'll be satisfied with that. I'll be happy. I mean, I'll be pissed that I sold it, but I'll be not nearly satisfied with that. But I'll be able to stay in business.

Hunker down, that's kind of what I was going to say. This is not the year to experiment, I don't think. This isn't the year to go probably do cover crime. or if you've never done it before. If you've never done it before. This isn't the year to, we probably won't go get the highest micro pack. We're not going to try anything different. Not going to do anything crazy this year.

And don't go experiment and probably if this prices stay the same. I mean, this is a year to just hunker down. And this is a year to test how, you know, test you as a farmer. And money is going to get more expensive. So if you're, you know, if you've got your inputs finance, that's going to cost you more money. So, yeah, it's, so the hog business, the grain business, The business are running a country.

The business are running a company. That's all going to get harder in 22, I think. It's just how it is. Nature of the game right now. We're going to lighten it up a little bit. Yeah, someone asks us this. This is a good question. So as you, some of you may know this, some of you may not,

but a brand new, a brand new halo game came out. Yeah. And they asked, what's the best halo weapon? Best Halo weapon? I'm going to say, and if you didn't know this as a little background info, I used to play Halo with my brother. Too much. We played too much Halo.

I think Dad at one point was going to... He would go a little stir crazy sometimes because he would hate us playing Halo sitting inside playing Halo so much. But hey, we turned out all right. Debatable. We still have our flaws, but hey, we can put in a day's work

both my brother and I, so we didn't turn out his bums. But anyway, we played a lot of Halo. We played so many. We played Halo 3 all the way to Halo Infinite. And I haven't played video games. I'll be honest. I haven't played video games

in a long time. I've kind of lost my interest, but Halo Infinite came out and it kind of gave him that, you know, that throwback days, nostalgic feeling of, you know, playing Halo, and they've done this one very, very well. And so I've been playing a couple hours here at night right before I go to bed, playing a couple games. And I don't know, I'll just say the all-time best weapon. Halo history, I'd say, just like, not just Halo infant, not just one game, just the Halo whole franchise. I would say the battle rifle. It's probably this the best all-round. Best all-round gun.

You can use it when you play campaign. You can use it in a multiplayer. And you just got to hit them in the head. And it can knock them down. But if you suck hitting them in the head, it's not very good. Right. So I didn't use it. It's not very, it's not a very, like, exciting weapon.

It's not sexy, but it gets the job done. And it's pretty durable. So I haven't played Infinite, and I won't play it because I am afraid if I did, I would just sit down. Dad played Halo with us, too. I did love playing. It was my brother, my dad, and I, and we'd always play legendary campaign together, and dad would always run out and get his ass shot,

and Clay and I would just yell at him because we were like, dad, got to stay back. This isn't like normal mode. This is like the hardest level you can possibly play on. So my weapon of choice, and we've covered this before, was what they called the needler. And the reason for that is because the needler, its projectiles were somewhat heats seeking

to the point that as long as you shot it in the general direction of the foe you were going, going after it would find them and kill them. And so you didn't have to worry about headshots. The only downfall of the needler was it did not have a very big magazine. And because it was the, it was the enemy's gun, it wasn't issued to the Marines. Ammo was hard to find for it. So, but it was kind of like a, it was kind of like a high-tech shotgun. And when you don't have very good hand-eye coordination, you're not even trying to get a headshot. I pretty much use the needler and sticky grenades. Those were my go-to weapons. Yeah, you, you were always about the beat down, too.

I did love the beat down. If you could sneak up on a, on a grunt or a brute and do the beat down, oh, that was the best. That was the best feeling. That was the best feeling. Yeah, I'd say this Halo, though, you know, Halo kind of took a, take a, took a shit, to be honest with you. After, since, after Halo 3 or after Halo Reach, I just really didn't have interest in it. And, you know, they were hype in this one. up for a long time and they haven't came out in a halo game for like five years. And I was like, I got to just give it one last shot. I'm giving it one last shot. If this doesn't work, I'm done with video games. And you know what? It's been pretty good. So like I said, you can't be addicted to video games, especially in your adult because, I mean,

unless you're going to go pro, too much to do. There's just too much stuff to do. There's not enough time of the day. But you know what? If you watch Netflix and you're like, you want to get back into video games. If you want to spend an hour playing video games before you go to bed and you're done with your day, I see no problem with that. Nothing relaxes me more than killing some grunts. Yeah, it just really, really relaxes me. It's about like having warm milk. Hey, I like it. It's good. But anyway, okay, so, dad, how will the Tesla semi help the hog industry? Somebody gave me a softball question. Yeah, I was going to say, I was like, yeah, just hit it out I honestly didn't submit that myself.

I hit it out of the phone pen. I think it's easy. I, and people, you know, I love seeing the hate on TikTok of whenever we put a Tesla video up, man, people just go to town. There's people that love it, and then there's people that hate it. Oh, yeah. And, you know, they, if they don't know us, they just assume that we're some tree huggers or, you know, that we're, I don't know, well, they assume we're stupid.

We might be. But I'll tell you what, the big advantage of the Tesla semi is. and that's labor. So, you know, in its perfect form, you will be to the point where actually the hog business is the perfect application for a Tesla semi. And the reason for that is because all of those loads that you haul from a guy's hog billing to the plant, you're going to the same place all the time. And eventually the AI is going to get good enough that... The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan. Its sleek exterior makes a first impression you can't ignore. Step inside to find available

full leather seats and wood accents. Under the hood, the available 201 turbocharged horse power engine gives it a fun to drive edge. The refined Tigwan, you deserve more. style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SUVW, German engineered for all. Probably, we will move to a point where the crew that loads the pigs on the semi, they do it. They don't bring them to the driver and then driver puts them away. They actually load them into the semi and put them away. And so you won't have a driver. So I think the first thing that's coming is as we move as an industry more towards hired labor loading the pigs, because I see that coming more every day, because the guys that own these buildings,

they're all getting older and labor's harder to find and they can't get three people to come help them load pigs. And so they're looking for the company they grow for. Or if they're their own pigs, they're looking to hire a crew to come load pigs, just like they hire them to power wash and they hire them to do this. Well, so it's going to start out that these integrators, they're going to hire load crews to load the pigs, but then they're also struggling to find drivers because it used to be on the driving side of it that hauling hogs, hauling livestock paid better than over the road. Well, now then it doesn't. Now it's the same. It's in fact, you can probably, there's places you can probably get as good of money or better, not hauling livestock. So there's a shortage of people to

drive these trucks, the haul livestock, and then those guys today, they have to load the pigs on the truck and then they have to unload them at the plant. And they're not really trained to do that. And there's always this back and forth about, you know, getting people that can drive a truck and that can unload pigs and not get pissed and not get mad and not have problems. Well, I think what you're going to have is you're going to have the crews actually load the pigs in the truck and then at the plant there's going to be a crew there to unload. And there's places that already do that. There's companies already have crews at the plant that unload the pigs and the trucker doesn't get out of the truck. Well, the next logical evolution of that

is Tesla semi where it drives itself and it comes to the site, backs in there, and you load it, and then it goes to the plant and somebody unloads it. And then the flip, the other part of it is the cost per mile, the maintenance is so much lower because you don't have all of the, you don't have all the filters, you don't have all the fluids, you don't have the transmissions, you don't have the the engines you don't have all those problems the cost per mile from from a maintenance standpoint is going to be way better and so you know how far away is that a long ways because the other side of it is they're not cheap and i don't see any any integrator probably lining up to be the first one to get a Tesla semi because the amount of shade that will be thrown their way totally it's kind of a it's just

like a john deer case thing yeah might have their own culture truckers have their own culture so it's starting right now. So the first... Yeah, I was going to say, the first thing you'll see is like commercial truckers. They're not, you know, I don't know what company. It'll be truckers. So the first Tesla semis are going to Pepsi. Supposedly there's, uh, there's like six Tesla semis that are being delivered. There could be a few of them there already to PepsiCo, uh, in Texas. And they put in, uh, superchargers to charge them. And then, uh, Walmart Canada has an order for like 50 of them. And they'll be the first. I think Pepsi and that Walmart are the first ones to get them.

And you'll see them have them first, and everybody will talk how it won't work, and everybody will throw up all the reasons why it'll fail, and then it won't fail. And then they'll find out what their cost of ownership is. After about a year and a half, and they get a few hundred thousand miles through them, people will be like, oh,

and then they'll start running the numbers on their own business, and then it'll change. Capitalism. And once it changes, you're not going back. you went really far left field on that. And I thought you were going to say, like you were going to just talk about how like PepsiCo and stuff like that.

Just talk about that side of it. You weren't going to talk about full on Tesla being the truck that the livestock go on. Think about, just think about our little grain operation here. Hey, I know. Don't shoot, don't shoot me. I know the benefits of it. It's just,

and it's far away too, because the technology, I don't think is all the way there. You got to have it fully autonomous. I mean, it's got to be fully autonomous to do that, all that. For the hog side. Right. But I'll tell you what, I can guarantee you for somebody out there that owns a semi that hauls their own grain to the river, the cost of owning that semi versus the cost of owning a Tesla

electric semi, when that somebody does that, I mean, that may be 10 years from now, it's going to blow your mind. How much more efficient it is. Well, you can have multiple if it drives itself. Well, I'm saying before they even get to autonomous. Oh. Just for the car, the guy, because the cost of the hopper's the same, but the cost of the semi, you know, we all go and we buy, we all go and buy these used semis that got boatload of miles on them, and then, you know, we rationalize it and say, well, we're not putting very many miles on it.

But you know how much time those trucks spent in the shop? I mean, just look at our neighbor that hauls our stuff. His truck has broke down all the time, and it's a pretty new truck. I mean, it's like pretty new truck. The comparison to that to what electric will be, it'll just, it's going to crush it. Thanks for the softball question. I really like going off on that. So Sawyer, I'll give this to you and we'll probably both jump on this, but will overseas ownership of U.S. farmland ruin agriculture or is it an opportunity? I think, I mean, I don't know, I'm pretty sure I know what this person meant when they asked this question. I mean, if you're saying, like, China's coming over here and buying farm ground

or Bill Gates is buying farm ground here in America, I don't think anyone likes that. I mean, no one likes to see that. And we'll talk about the Chinese thing because that's been a rumor going on for, hell, I've been hearing that for two years or years now. Oh, China's coming here and they're buying farm ground from farmers. No one likes to hear that stuff. I don't like to hear that stuff. No one wants somebody that doesn't really,

isn't the person producing the crop, the end result, buying farm ground. You don't want to see a country buying farm ground. You also don't want to see some rich billionaire buying farm ground because you know damn well he ain't going to be in the tractor. And he's not going to be, he's not going to negotiate terms that are mutually beneficial to the person that's rent the ground.

Yeah, right. Because if he's got enough money to pay that for it, he really doesn't care whether you rent it or whether somebody else. he's just looking for the person that is willing to pay the maximum amount of money regardless of whether or not they have the ability to do that on a repeatable because if that person loses their ass he's just going to go rent it to the other one now granted there's plenty of landowners there's plenty of landowners uh bill gates that aren't that big that do the same thing you know they're out to get the maximum dollar they can't at least bill could afford to take

a loss there a little bit right and negotiate terms that were good. I think the thing that scares me the most is when you get to the point that this is, and this is something's been kicked around for a long time, is when you get to the point that say somebody like a chemical company or a seed company or a, say a large, say Quaker Oats, I'll just pick on Quaker Oats because they're in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Okay, what if they come to, what if they come to you and they say, we'll give you, we'll give you the seed,

we'll give you the fertilizer, we'll give you all this, and we'll guarantee you this many dollars an acre, go rent as much ground as you want. But you plant what we tell you to, you fertilize it, you, you... Do everything we want you to do

because we think it's the best, it'll give us the best result, and you just do the work. Which you can basically make the argument that that's what we're doing in the hog business. Contract growing. We're contract growing. However,

the deal and I mean it is and it isn't the problem that I see with that is consolidation the vertical consolidation within across multiple multiple multiple entities I don't know I don't like it I think that's a scary lot of farmers don't like that yeah idea of that and there's people are talking about it I mean it's starting to come up more and more conversations and come They're not stupid. They're going to try to do it. Yeah. I mean, they are, but I don't know how well it will go over. Yeah.

Because that pretty much takes the whole, that takes away a big part of farming. I mean, it really does. Marketing your own grain and having the free will to do what you want, how you want to fertilize it, how you want to plant it, all that stuff, how you want to fill it, who you buy those inputs from. And all that stuff, that's freedom. And that's what makes being a farmer great because you can kind of, cultivate the land, how you want to cultivate it, you know?

And you can buy your, you can buy your fertilizer where you want to buy it. You can buy your equipment where you want to buy it. And so many small towns in this country, excuse me, have suffered. I mean, as business consolidates, we're very lucky in the area of the state that we are to have as much diversity within industry. and diversity within the hog business, because a little town we live in is very dependent upon the hog business. And because of that, we have a really strong basis

when it comes to the grain side of things, because so much of that grain gets fed up. But then we're also close enough to the river that it just makes that bid so much stronger all the way around. But that competition, we are, we're in much better shape than a lot. lot of little towns across the countryside. But if you get to the point where you start seeing consolidation in seed, fertilizer, all of your inputs to where you're buying those directly from some large corporation

and you eliminate all those people, it's not good. It's not good for your community. And I can see where somebody would say, you know, well, basically it's the parallels to the hog industry. Well, it is, but... But I feel like the risks involved with the hog business were so much higher if you were doing it independently than versus somebody just doing grain farming. Well, I mean, grinding up your own feed. The money rolled up, all you could say, I mean, you take this one.

It is. Because there are a lot of parallels, I guess you'd say. But I feel like the difference is. And once again, our little, our county here is an example of that in the fact that we had, several integrators. Hog feeders. Yeah. Whereas when you start talking on a scale where you get chemical manufacturers involved, there's only a handful for the whole nation. So the level of consolidation would be so much

greater, I feel like. So yes, there is some vertical integration within the hog business, but there's also a heck of a lot of diversity. And then there's a heck of a lot of people they're completely independent still. And when you go down this road of integration at the level that we're talking about there, whether it be seed companies or whether it be chemical companies, you're talking just a handful of players

controlling a huge chunk. Because there's so many independent businesses out there that are selling that. That would be adversely affected. So you're saying there's a lot less hog farming integrators and a lot less... There's a lot more. Well, no, I'm saying for the hog business,

there's a lot less than versus if there was a lot. Versus on the grain side, there's a lot more damage that could happen because of consolidation. Yes, that's my opinion. I agree with that. People can see, but then there's the benefit of, oh, you get this year like this year, it's a lot of known. Right. You're getting a set price.

So people like that. And that's the hook. That's the carrot. That's what they want you to take. That's the carrot. Because there's somebody out there that if I can rent, You know, I can run as much ground as I want so I can go lease brand new, so I can run brand new equipment, and I can run a lot of acres,

and I make this much per acre, sign me up, sign me up all day. Those are the guys that they start it, they start it, and then it rolls, and it gets rolling downhill, and then people are like, what in the hell? What is this? What has happened? Well, I don't think those guys would see, they're just thinking about their operation,

or not the long-term effect of if everyone did that, if everyone starts doing that. I mean, it's scary. So the long story short is I don't think foreign, I don't think foreign ownership is good, but I don't think that large corporate ownership is great either. And I'm fine. You know what?

There's a lot of guys that are big farmers that, you know, that's a thing, it's a free country. You can do whatever you want. I just question their motive of doing it. I mean, right. You know, if you're a billionaire and you grew up going to ground, Farm and you've always dreamed of having, you know, big farm and you go buy 10,000 acres somewhere, so be it. But if you're Bill Gates and you, it's a decision made because some accountant said,

hey, you know, if you buy this ground, you can run it through this court, paid by this court, paid by this corp, and you can launder a bunch of money through it and save a bunch on taxes. And you don't give a crap about farming. I don't think that's a good deal. Yeah. I agree. That's my, that's my 10 cents worth. Yeah, I don't think there's any opportunity there. I just see, I just see damage. I see bad. Just see bad.

I just see red, honestly. I don't like, I don't think anyone likes that kind of stuff. So, no opportunity there. Just, just bad stuff. What are you got for me? Are you sure? Well, I kind of gave you that one and we both answered it. So what do you want me to answer?

You want to talk about auto sort technology? Sure. What are your thoughts on auto sort technology, talk? Yeah, somebody put a question in what we think of like auto sort, barns and if you don't know if you don't know what we're talking about there's systems out there and they've been out for quite a while i want to say i think people have been doing it for 20 years now where um instead of having um say multiple say you got 30 head pens or 50 head pens in a in a building you really have really large pens so like a in a 1200 head barn you just have two large pens of

600 pigs and they have all the feeders kind of together and the pigs can kind of go wherever they want, lay wherever they want, there's water scattered around through there. But to get into where all of the feeders are, they have to walk through a scale. And it weighs each pig as it goes through, and pretty much you don't use them. You don't use them until the pigs get close to market weight,

and then it starts weighing the pigs, and you can configure the barn, you can swing some gates so that you can, make a like a pen of pig all the pigs that are big enough to sell end up in this pen and you can pre-sort them and the idea of it is that you can get a really narrow window as far as what your pigs are going to weigh and there was a time where there was a lot of these barns being built here in iowa southeast iowa there were some large integrators that that was the way they going to go and that was their spec. That's how everybody was building them. And today, down here,

in this part of the state, and really, most places around the country, I don't see it, I don't see that being done at all. Now, I think the exception to that is, I know, I'll use Hormel as an example, I think there's a lot of guys, and feel free to correct me on this, but I feel like there's a lot of guys that sell pigs to Hormel that are using, they're using scales. They're using auto sort. And the reason for that is that they have a really narrow window as far as how big of a pig they want to process. And by narrow, I say probably within a 30-pound window,

so they're wanting their pigs to be from 280 pounds to 310 pounds. Maybe it's even tighter than that. Maybe it's 20 pounds. And so if you're visually marking pigs to be taken out of barn, you've got to have some people that are pretty good, got a pretty good eye to be able to do that. And even then, it's not going to be 100%. And if you go above and below that, if the dock is high enough, it gets pretty important, pretty fast to make sure that those pigs all fall in that window. The reason we don't see that down here as much, and in our case specifically, is the pigs we raised go to three different packers.

They all have different windows. Yeah. And so at any given time, we could come into our barn, and if they really wanted to, once the pigs are, once the big end of the pigs is getting over 320 pounds, they could probably just about,

dump that barn and you know take the take the lightest end to one packer take all the pigs in the middle to one packer and the biggest pigs all go to another packer um so their need brotto sort is not very great and here's the here's the problem this is this is the reason most guys tore them out down here um this the first the single biggest thing is they had a lot of problems with them, keeping them running, because when you think about that every pig has to go through that scale every day or every time they want to go to the food court, that is, and it has to, you know, there has to be a gate open and a gate close, and there's parts, there's moving parts, and a pig is a pretty, a pretty tough animal, and the wear and tear, just, they had a lot of problems

with parts wearing out. And then guys that had them, they weren't real good at knowing when something needed fixed or needed to adjust it. And you were having to send somebody out from the company when they got some age on them to make sure that they were working. So when you get to that point that you're doing that, so you're basically paying a guy to kind of be your marketing guy to make sure that these scales are working and calibrated and all the maintenance is done.

So if we're not sending them someplace with a real narrow window, we're basically paying a marketing guy. One day you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room. Running a business means moving in many directions all the time. TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. And they're not very durable.

Well, right. And then the farmers didn't like them because they had to pay for the repairs. and it was kind of a back and forth. So most of them got tossed. So the answer to you is, I think the technology is fine. And the technology is better today. I know I've seen them, and they're built better, they're rugged, all that. But I think enough people got a bad taste in their mouth, at least in this area. And these Packers today, they're doing such a good job on the way they scan the carcass and the way they know how big the

primal cuts are in it and they've got to mark it for all those pigs at a different size that it's not as important as it used to be. And so... Yeah. So you only see it really needed if you are, you know, sending pigs to a packer that the window is super, super tight. Yep. Then there's a need.

But for us, there's really no need because we send pigs to three different packers, like you said. And all of them have to. different windows so yeah i i've had no experience i've actually never really seen one to be honest with you i've never gone into a barn with them i guess around here it's just not just not popular i know i have no i mean i don't i don't hate it you know i have no i don't say you know screw you if you got autosort that's a stupid thing to do but it's just kind of situational i think well so the this the experience i have with it is when i was selling when we first started doing cargill so

what is JBS now, that was Cargill. Their hog operation, they were running. They were building scale barns. They were building auto sort barns. And we built, you know, three or four years, probably three years, we built them. And then they just went away with it. And they were having guys retrofit barns.

And that was a real crappy deal, because you had guys that built these barns and had them on a 12-year nose. and they were getting four years into it, and Cargill was coming to them and saying, hey, we want you to tear this out and gate this thing. And that's a lot of capital cost. And I don't think they have any of those left today.

They could have, I suppose, but as far as my knowledge, I think they've gotten rid of them. And we had one other local integrator that did them for a few years, and they liked them. But the problem they had with them was they had more leg injuries. They had more problems with pigs going. going down because they finished them pretty big. And they, right or wrong, their experience with it was that when you had that much room and those pigs, they would get going and be hard for them

to stop. Well, yeah, I mean, they just, they would, they would have shoulder issues and they would have legs, they'd have toes getting caught in slats where a pig was running and decided to turn and then they'd end up with a broken leg or whatever. And they, they, they had, I think they had a lot of maintenance issues with them too, and they went away from them. So I think it's a good technology, and I think if you're in the right place that you can use it, I think they work good. But it's just, it all depends, like you said, whether they can or not. Situational.

Yep. You're going to ask me one last question? Yeah, we're doing pretty good. Yeah. Well, why do you hate ethanol? Yeah, we got this question. I think we got this question because we put out a TikTok clip of us talking about how, if you're somebody that sells all your corn to an ethanol plant and your your your plate your only way of selling corn is ethanol that you should probably have a plan for backup when you know this whole electric movement becomes mainstream mainstream like you know legacy all legacy auto at this point has pretty much came out and said we're going to have electric cars by this date and Tesla is already ahead of the game you know there's other electric car companies out there doing the same thing not at

Tesla scale, but there's new automobile companies that are all electric and then all legacy auto is trying to transition to electric. And this whole idea that this isn't going to happen, you know what? You can say, you can say screw ethanol. You can say, screw electric cars. You can say screw electric. But for me, as a person, I'm somebody that is always looking towards the future because I want to also seize opportunities, but also know what opportunities are coming that kind of to worry me a little bit. Yep. And what am I going to do about that?

I have nothing against guys to sell corn for ethanol. I have no problem with it. I think it's a good thing, good for you, but my only thing with that clip was saying, just have a plan because the world's changing. And really, as the world's always gone, it's kind of the consumer kind of controls what we do as farmers. Right. I mean, it's always kind of been the way of things.

unfortunately. I mean, that's just how it is. And so if you think people are going to give a rat's ass about the farmers that just sell their corn for ethanol versus if they're going to get in their nice electric car, you're wrong. You're wrong. I'm sorry, you're wrong. And I would have a plan so that you can not get affected and get godsmacked when that happens and that becomes forishing because it's going to, it's going to happen. There's no doubt in my mind that's coming. 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. It's happening. It's going to happen. So what are you going to do about it? And there's a number of things you can do about it. Someone asks us, what's our plan? Well, we're lucky enough to live in a county where we sell damn near all of our corn goes to hog feeders. We sell it all

for livestock to get ground up to feed livestock. So we're blessed to have that. Very grateful for that. So it won't affect us too much because we don't sell most any of our corn for ethanol. And my, so that, and then also we're buying Tesla. Even though we're not to get affected by it, we want to benefit from this, this movement. So we're buying Tesla stock because we think it's going to crush and we think Tesla's on the forefront of electric vehicles and just electric, this electric movement, solar, everything. They're on the, they're on the bleeding edge of it and ahead of everybody else. So I would buy Tesla stock. And so if you're, if you're somebody that is selling all your corn for ethanol, maybe.

think about getting into livestock. And I'm not saying get into livestock this year. You got to do it this year. You got to get in because it's coming. It's coming. It's coming. I'm thinking 10, 15 years, 20 years. Come up with a plan. Come up with something. Get out, get a business off the farm to help you. But that's coming. That's coming. Yeah. So you're first, I think you're way too, I think you're way too gracious on your time schedule because 20 years in 20 years. Well, you know, I don't want to make people panic. I'd say 10 years. I do. I do. I do. I think 10 years. I think 10 years ethanol will be just about done.

I think that it's just... So ethanol is a hot button issue, especially in state of Iowa, especially among corn growers, and I get a lot of people that like to talk intensely with me about it. So it is an example of something where people have their paradigms, and I know why, you want it to work and it has been a great thing for the corn market and for corn growers.

However, it is totally, totally dependent upon the world's use of fossil fuels. You are competing, and we've talked about this, you are competing, you're competing with oil, however, you're dependent upon oil for the demand of it to stay where it's at or grow, and your hope is that you get a bigger percentage of that demand of what the total demand is for gasoline or for oil, more of that, you're hoping to get more of that for ethanol. And that's fine. And there's differing opinions about what the actual cost of doing ethanol is

and how much subsidies in it and this and that. But what it really comes down to, what's going to change is that top line number, the demand for crude oil, I believe that number is pretty much peaked. So your percentage of that market, even if you grow that percentage, the market keeps getting smaller. And political, all our politicians, I see this, you know, all these politicians, they push them on ethanol and they give them a generic answer about how, you know, they're working hard for you. but they're kind of screwed because they can't sit there and tell you that they're working hard for ethanol, but then they're working hard for renewables and they're working hard.

And then people want to throw ethanol in as a renewable. Well, it kind of is, except that it's got to be blended with gasoline. Gasoline's not a renewable. And that whole market's going to go away. If you go down the path of we're going to get to renewable energy, gasoline's not a renewable energy. Now, ethanol is, but we're not going to run 100% ethanol. We couldn't do it, and the economics of it don't work, and the economics of EVs get better. And, you know, we didn't touch on this much, but we get a lot of shade thrown about the environment that, you know, battery making is dirty, and, you know, it's got its own problems.

Yeah, it does, it does, but here's a thing. we know that oil is dirty and we know it pollutes and we know that and we've had it if we've had it for a long time and we've tried and tried and tried and the efficiency and all of that we've been down that road and we've got it about as far as it's going to go however the efficiency of battery technology is in its infancy the efficiency of manufacturing batteries and mining the raw materials and as far as what the raw materials are going to be made out of or what raw materials are going to go into them, that's all in its infancy. And it's only going to get better. And as a- The ways of getting those raw materials, it's in infancy, too.

Yeah. And everything's in its infancy of that stuff. Yeah. And so it's going to get better. And the grid, you know, all the grid's going to collapse. Well, it's probably not. The power grid, it ain't big enough and they can't handle it. Well, you think we're going to keep it? You think we're going to just keep the power grid the way it is? You don't think we're going to try to work towards that at all? Just think it's going to stay that way. Well, capital flows, capital flows wherever it's most profitable. And that's, I think at the end of the day,

that's what you're fighting against, is capital is going to flow towards renewables as far as solar and as far as battery technology and electric vehicles. It's not going to flow towards ethanol. And so, yeah, it's not going to happen tomorrow. And we're not, obviously, if ethanol goes, way the demand for corn, that hurts demand, that demand has to go somewhere or the price of corn

has to go down because that's how capital markets work. That's how it is. If we have too much corn, the price has got to get cheap for it to move. So if ethanol production goes away, it will hurt the corn price, obviously. That is true, and we will suffer from that. So our hedge on that is we buy Tesla and I'm not beholden to plant and corn. corn. And I don't think that, you know, in my lifetime, maybe all die, a corn and soybean farmer. I don't know. But I'd be surprised if Sawyer lives his entire life growing corn and soybeans. I think that that's where you just have to get out of your paradigms. You do because the world is constantly changing and your little piece of the world is probably going to change too. And it's an opportunity. Not everything

is doom and gloom. There's a lot of things that are going to happen that are going to be positive. But just putting your foot down and saying that ethanol is the end-all, be-all, and that it's going to be here, and we're going to make it work. There's a lot of...

There's a lot of industries working against you. Well, there's plenty of people that... There's plenty of people that don't want to go that way. I'm not saying... So obviously, big oil... Well, Legaciato. I would have said Legaciato, but they're really not anymore. Well, they figured out that they're...

they're screwed and they got to go. Yeah. And so to me, and to me, that's like the biggest indicator. When you're seeing Ford, GM, uh,

Honda, all these companies, uh, Volkswagen, Volkswagen, all of them. They're all saying they're going, even,

they're all going electric. And they're, because they have, every single one of them, because they know they have to. Because they're losing market share. And, you know,

they're, I'm not going to go off on the chip shortage and all the reasons why, um, new car sales is down and inventories are down. But the truth of the EV market is speeding up and demand for EVs is speeding up. And it's in its infancy. This whole thing, this EV thing is in its infancy. It's only going to get bigger. Only going to get bigger. Yeah. And just know, this is another example. Well, you have politicians and you have people that are running the show that they like to tell people what they want to hear. and when they know that it's a hot button issue,

they're going to sit and tell you they're going to do everything for you, and they will. They'll do everything for you right up until the wind changes, and it is in benefit of their political career to change, and when that happens, they don't necessarily, what's important to you is no longer important to them.

And it's just, so, you know, you could take about every episode that we do, and at the end, you get down, you strip it all down and what I think what we talk about more than anything else is that you got to be you've got to do your own research you may think we're full of crap and you know what I could be I know I know that I could be mistaken I know I could be but what I do is I try to do as much research for myself and if I am going to listen to somebody I will try to I will try to check on what they're telling me to find other people that have that same opinion.

I just come to your own conclusion. Yeah, because you get all the, that's the thing. You listen to high level people and you listen to them and you take a lot of, a lot from each one of them, and you come to your own conclusion. That's the same thing that we do with everything that we listen to. You got to listen to high level people that know those industries, you know, and come to your own conclusion, get the research. and it's never been easier to get good research, good information from high-level people.

There's so many freaking people out there, high-level people. Giving it away for free. Millionaires, billionaires, giving it away for free, people that are in the industry that you want to learn about, giving information away for free. And not only that, but there's so many, there is so much information at university level and research level by companies that, you know, they have a, They have a meeting where they present their work where traditionally it was a deal where it was by invite only. And now then that stuff is all live streamed.

And somebody's putting it out there. You know, you want to know about ethanol, the market for ethanol, the politics of, you know, of where it's headed. You do your own research because don't just count on, don't just count on somebody that owns an ethanol. plant to give you the straight scoop as to what the demand is and what the future demand is. Do that on everything that you do. Do that on everything that you learn. Learn both sides of it. Learn from somebody in the industry and then learn from somebody that has experienced, had experience in that industry or had experience dealing with that. Dealing with that industry. And see the different opinions and you'll get a bunch of different. You can kind of form your

own conclusion. But I think that's, I think that's far enough. Yeah, I do. I think that's far enough. that was a good episode, good Q&A. Please keep asking your questions, guys. Keep sending them in. Send them in to, I do a YouTube poll on Barn Talk, on this will do farm. I also do it on Instagram. I try to get questions from all different platforms.

So just keep sending them in. Hell, just write them in the comments down below and we can use them. We're trying to get as many questions answers as we can. And it literally can be about anything. It can be about the ethanol market. It can be about Tesla. And it can be about our favorite freaking weapon in Halo that we use. You know, it really doesn't matter.

We want to talk about a bunch of different stuff. So don't feel like it just has to be ag-based because I see that a lot. And I will just, I will close my thoughts with this. So we're, you know, it's almost, by the time you're listening to this, it's almost Christmas. And, you know, we had a little doom and gloom in this because there's a lot of uncertainty of this country. There's a lot of uncertainty out in farm country. And a lot of people, just like us, are trying to make decisions as to, what we're going to do a year from now. And it's hard. You know, it's hard. If you're running your

own business, if you're running your own farm, but if you're, if you're doing anything, if you're raising a family, it's hard. And this is a time of year where we're supposed to all be, be thankful and enjoy family and enjoy that time. Enjoy the little moments. And you know what? the best thing you can do is sometimes you just have to set all that worry aside and just be in the moment and there's a lot of little people running around and a lot of spouses that don't carry the burden that you may carry and um you need to understand that they may not be they may not be able to cope with uh the level of stress that you cope with and uh my wish for all all of you would be that this weekend that you could spend some time with family and not have to

think about those weighty decisions and just enjoy the moment. And once again, I'd say, like Sawyer said in the opening, that we're all very thankful for all of you. We couldn't do what we do without you. We could do it for a while, but we'd get bored. But I love the interaction. I love the comments. I love the comments good and bad because some of the bad ones are just hilarious and I enjoy it. And you know what? Like I said, we're not always right. We're just telling you what we think. And we appreciate each and every one of you. And I think a lot of good things are coming in 22 as far as what we're doing. We're going to try to make this thing better and grow it. Grow it bigger. Get better gas on all the above. Try to make everything better. Yeah, I just touch on that too.

appreciate every single one of you guys very grateful to even be able to do this kind of thing Merry Christmas to every single one of you guys out there have a great holiday Enjoy family enjoy the little moments and we'll see you back here next Friday