In this solo episode of the Ag Tribes Report, host Vance Crowe dives into pressing issues affecting the agricultural landscape in the US and Canada. Vance discusses the high production costs and low crop values impacting corn farmers, the closure of a Crown Royal bottling plant in Canada and its implications on US-Canada relations, and the controversial EPA decision to delist Iowa rivers from impaired status despite high nitrate levels. Vance also shares his thoughts on Bitcoin, the challenges of government intervention in agriculture, and the importance of understanding complex issues beyond surface-level knowledge.
Vance also reflects on the Gell Mann amnesia effect and the Dunning Kruger effect, emphasizing the importance of genuine understanding over superficial knowledge. He teases upcoming debates and interviews, including a discussion with cattle rancher Jared McDaniel on Bitcoin. Throughout the episode, Vance encourages listeners to engage deeply with topics, challenge prevailing narratives, and seek out diverse perspectives to form well-rounded opinions.
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The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. Here is Legacy Interviews guest Carol Hensley discussing the opportunity for a quiet person to speak their mind.
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How was it for you, the experience? Very comfortable. Tried to sit down every morning for a week or two and reflect on my life, and I'm recalling well over seventy years. I may not talk very much, but I think a lot, and I listen to other people. If they don't talk a lot, they're surely thinking. And if you ask them their opinion, they may share it with you. You'll ask for my opinion. I don't mind sharing that. I think I probably talked more than I should have. No. Not at all.
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Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture, with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
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Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a co host that represents one of the many ag tribes that make up US and Canadian agriculture. So that way we can talk about how it's impacting the culture of agriculture. But this week, a little bit something different. I had a legacy interview that ran all the way up to the end of the day, and I decided I could not have a guest waiting on the side for me. So I decided that I would just do this as a solo episode. Some of the stories that I wanna cover today, National Corn Growers put out an article actually put out a couple of articles over the last couple of days about, high production costs and low crop values and what that's doing. So I wanna have a little bit of a discussion about that. We're also gonna talk about the closure of a Crown Royal bottling plant in Canada and, its potential impacts on US grain, but more than anything on relationships between The US and Canada, which, as far as I can tell, are getting pretty bad.
Then we're gonna talk about the EPA's controversial decision to delist Iowa rivers from impaired status, despite high nitrate levels. And, so we're gonna kinda explore some of those stories. I'll throw in my, 2¢ on them for whatever that's worth. And then we're gonna, talk a little bit more about Bitcoin. Since we're not gonna compare it to land prices, we'll just have a little bit of a discussion about things that have been going on in Bitcoin land, and then, I I'm gonna try and come up with a new Peter Thiel paradox. Everybody knows the one that I think about, Agland demonetizing land, but I'm gonna try and put myself on the spot and and share some other opinion that, that I don't think other people agree with me on.
And then we're gonna talk a little bit about, a worthy adversary. And, if I'm totally candid, I'm a little bit like a guest right now because I don't know who that worthy adversary is gonna be, but I will, I will come up with something, by the time we get there. Alright. Before we jump into the stories, you guys probably remember last week, Ryan Sorrells, who is an Oklahoma custom, harvester, who wanted a special corn a header from Canada that would allow him to be able to harvest different kinds of beans without having to constantly change the header out. He had ordered it from Canada. It was supposed to come. And then on the day he was expecting it so he could start harvest that week, the the, US officials were like, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. We can't let this thing across the border until we know where the steel was mined from, smelted from, and, you know, who manufactured it. And for all of these component parts, not just like, oh, in general, maybe 80% of the thing is made out of steel in this way, but we need to know it for all of it. So last week, Ryan got on social media and he posted some videos about, hey. What's going on here? This can't happen. I'm gonna try and get some social media attention, and he did. He got tens of thousands of people involved in it. This, brought it to the attention of politicians who then saw an opportunity to jump in and potentially help him.
And, by press time of last week, nothing had happened. Well, now, by press time of this week, one week later, still nothing has happened. And, in fact, what Ryan told me was that, James Langford's office said that it is now up to the president himself if the head can come over the border without knowledge of all of this information about where this deal comes from. And, so, you know, there's not a lot else to report here. I actually had a chance to talk with Ryan on the phone. You could tell he was frustrated, but he was just he was like, I'm working on another header right now. I gotta get the crops out of the, out of the fields. So, you know, I gotta go. And but I I so there's not much to report except for, like, this is terrible.
This is this is exactly what we do not want in a government. We we are a modern, sophisticated economy, and we cannot be in the position where one person, the president of The United States, has a magic wand that can swing some things through and some things not through. This is the very definition of what it means for decisions to be political and it is catastrophic. Right? We can't run an economy like this. And I I know, like, I the thing that I wanted most, when I was looking at the panoply of things that were going on in the world in terms of this election, Ross Ulbricht being freed, the guy that had been arrested, and had a whole bunch of his Bitcoin seized and and accused of all these things. He was he had he had his life being thrown away in prison, I thought, unjustly.
And Trump had come to the Bitcoiners and said, I'll free him if you elect me. I'm willing to vote on that. I I thought that was a man's life that could be freed, and, there were a lot of other reasons. But at this point, I don't think I'm alone in being like, hey. What the fuck is going on? Why are we, you know, turning our economy into this, like, Donald Trump controls everything, and he gets to point at what works and what doesn't work. And having been around agriculture for the last two weeks, really in-depth, I can tell you farmers that were pretty happy with him when he got elected are pretty unhappy now. And, I hope that this gets straightened out, not just for Ryan, but really for our entire economy. But, okay. Let's move on now to the story. High corn prices high corn production costs squeeze farmers amid low prices.
On August, the National Corn Growers Association reported that US corn farmers are facing financial challenges as production costs remain near record highs while corn prices have plummeted. This isn't news to anybody except for maybe some of the details. So from '22 to '25, costs dropped just 3% from $9.28 to $8.97 per acre, but corn prices fell over 50% from $8 to under $4 a bushel with projected 2025 yields of a 188.8 bushels per acre. Who knows whether that's true or not? No. Nobody knows. This this could be completely, complete nonsense.
But what they're saying is the break even point is four dollars and seventy five cents, and the market price being at $3.90 means that, that's an 85¢ per bushel loss. And, and so what they were were breaking down were what are what is going on here? So they said that there's a 135 rise in seed costs, a 117 in chemicals, a 74% increase in fertilizer since 02/2007, and land and machinery up a 102 and a 143% respectively. So I think that this is all good information about how much those prices are up. But I think one thing that this covers up, that this actually doesn't show, is the inflation rate. Right? If we say that, you know, corn prices have fallen from $8 to under $4 a bushel, you know, you have to think, like, when was the last time we were at $4 a bushel, and how much buying power did $4 have, you know, four or five years ago? And it's significant. Right? It is even if you're using just the most basic inflation numbers where you're saying it's 3% per year, the amount of buying power you have with that corn is significantly less than what it was, the last time it was at $4 let let alone how much less it produces, that let it that it purchases, from $8 corn. So, you know, this is terrible. Right? And part of it is inflation, but another big part of it is we're growing too much corn.
It is obvious that, whatever signals the market is supposed to be sending to our farmers that are deciding, hey, should I plant soybeans or corn? They're broken because it is not that far from when you purchase the seed to when you plant it to when you harvest it that we can't keep a cycle up that lets you know, hey. This is what prices are gonna be. We are planting way too much corn. And, and in large part, I think it's for several reasons why it's too much corn right now. Demand, while it's, you know, relatively high, it's still lower. Right? We have a lower, cattle herd than we've ever had before.
But we also have a trade partner in China, which I know corn growers are are, you know, the first ones to say, well, it's only 10% or less than 10% of our trade goes to China. But still, they have basically, you know, totally cut that off. They are not buying grain from us. They're buying it from somewhere else. And so, yet again, we are at the whims of political folly to make it so the price can be jerked around. And and, you know, you can see these huge waves going through. And it's pretty clear when you're talking to farmers that, if they had not received transfer payments last year, we would see a lot more farms going up for sale.
And, we don't right now. They're the farmers are having, you know, really, low prices for their crops, and we're having all these troubles. Prices are going up, and yet we don't see a massive number of farms going for sale. Well, that's obviously because the government payments from even back in Biden's era, not just Trump, and then, you know, it keeps rolling from insurance payments of 2023 to then Trump coming in and now the big beautiful bill. But how long is this gonna go on for and is it a good thing? Right? We we say all the time, we wanna see new young and beginning farmers in there And we but at the same time, we're making it so anytime there's a down year and things are not good, and there's always gonna be up and down cycles in in farming, that's just the way that it is. I don't know that the bubbles would always be this big. But we have these, down years and instead of letting some of the people that are not as efficient go out of business, we're sending them checks.
And if you're getting checks that make it so you do not have to make production that is, higher than your cost to get that production, what we're doing is we're saying, whatever you do, noble farmer, don't ever give up your land because the government's gonna send you payments. I don't know how long this is gonna last. I don't know how long Trump has, with a congress that's gonna keep voting for everything that he wants. Judging from the people that I'm talking with, who just a few months ago were pretty big Trump supporters, I'm not so sure that they are. And I can tell you that other people that are hurting because the value of what their wages are buying them keeps going down. I I can't imagine that they're gonna think it's a great idea while they are buried in credit card debt to send landowners checks for more money.
And, so something's gotta get fixed here. I I mean, everybody knows that listens to this show. I'm I'm a person that wants as little government intervention as possible. I understand, you know, Machinery Pete, when he was on here, he talked all about how if, if we wanna have food to eat in The United States, you know, we can't let farmers go out of business. But I think we're way beyond that. I I don't think that these payments that we're doing to our farmers is making it so we have food. In fact, I think when prices go up naturally, like, like they did during avian flu, the government will step in and undercut them by importing eggs from Turkey and South Korea. So I don't know. All this monkeying around with our economy is not good, and it's certainly not getting us any closer to the things that people say that they want, which is having young, new farmers in, new innovative strategies.
Because the truth is, if you try an innovative strategy and it doesn't work, you're risking a lot. Whereas new and innovative strategies, they don't get the the chance to to try them out anywhere nearly as much as they as as would be needed to make them be successful. I don't wanna say they should be. Who knows what they should be? But, I wish that this government intervention would get the hell out of our way of of allowing our system to grow and be made better instead of being one where we say, yeah, we didn't listen to any of the market signals or we didn't get the right market signals, so we planted way more corn than we needed, and now we're suffering because corn prices are so low. So alright.
Headline number two. This week is, not not such a pretty pretty week, but Crown Royal bottler closes Ontario plant and shifts to The US. On August 26, the Diageo, which is the company that owns Crown Royal bottling facility in Amherst, Ontario, announced the closure of its Amherst, Ontario, factory set for February '26 with operations shifting to The US to streamline its North American supply chain. This plant, a key employer, processes corn, corn based Crown Royal whiskey supporting Canadian grain farmers. The closure threatens local economies through Daigo maintains its Canadian distillation and aging facilities in Manitoba and Quebec.
No employee impact numbers were disclosed. On Axe, Canadian ag voices worry about reduced demand for local corn, while US farmers see potential for market grains. The move comes amid volatile Canada Canadian and US trade relations with prime minister Mark Carney pushing European trade ties. Critics argue this prioritizes corporate efficiency over rural communities. So, yeah. This story is, it's really too bad for the Canadians. And I have to say, you know, my Canadian friends that I'm in touch with, they have been saying, hey. It's really getting pretty bad, the relationship between The US and the Canadians. And my response back is most of the, people in The United States have no idea that regular Canadian farmers are pissed off at The United States.
But, you know, one of my buddies was telling me, like, you can really get a group of guys, on the afternoon all riled up if you just bring up the Americans. And he was saying, you know, we were talking about making a trip down to The US, and some of them are like, nah. I just don't wanna go. I just don't wanna mess with it. It's really too bad that, our relationship with Canada is getting to this point. Now I know a couple of weeks ago, I maybe a couple months ago, I put something out that said, you know, that we we shouldn't be at war with the Canadians. Like, we should have a better relationship. And there were some farmers that came out and said, well, we are. We are at war with them. We do. You know, their success means if if they sell a bushel of corn, then that means we don't sell that bushel of corn. And that may be true, but I have to think, like, it is a great big world out there, and there are not very many people like us, Canadians and Americans, Western values, our our approach to, democracy, just our heritage. Right? There aren't very many people like us in the world. Why would we choose the people that are, you know, have been our allies to be our enemies? I think it is a a really bad decision, and I would like to see this get straightened up. But, frankly, I think Canada, you know, The US Canadian relationship seems to be the least of Canada's worries right now. They seem to have a lot more problems. Inflation in Canada is going just totally nuts.
I was, talking with some people that were looking at, how much Canada and and The United States for that matter, the government facilities are starting to say, hey. We want you to return to work. And part of that is a way to stimulate the economy. If you can, get people to, you know, go from just being in their homes, working from their home office, to needing to get in their cars, drive in their cars, go to an office which they have to rent, and get lunch and daycare and all the things that go along with that, well, you were are, in a way, stimulating the economy. Frankly, it's it's, you know, pulling some amount of money out of the the pockets of the people that are there. So a lot of government groups and and even corporations are starting to say, hey. We we wanna see you come back to work as I don't know. The corporations are using it to stimulate the economy, but the government is. And, in places like Halifax, Nova Scotia, it, a friend of mine was telling me in 2019, it it cost, like, I think it was I don't even wanna go into the numbers, but it has more than doubled, the cost of living there and, this is gonna further exacerbate it. I the question becomes, I wonder if people are being forced to go back to, work in their offices. I wonder if some of these cities that blew up that were fun cities, you know, the boulders, the Boise, Idaho's, the the places where there weren't necessarily jobs, but people loved being there because they could go outside and go hiking and go in the mountains.
I have to wonder, are those cities going to have a sort of, white collar rust belt, effect when people realize, like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to work my remote job anymore. Now I have to leave and go back to the city in order to get jobs and have all of those, cities that really expanded really fast now start collapsing on them. I don't know. In any case, from what I understand, in Canada, the inflation rate is bad. People had been doing a lot of work from home. Having the the distillery move there, you know, it's just another hit on Canada. Alright. Story number three, the EPA rescinds impaired listing for Iowa rivers amid a nitrate crisis.
Okay. So many of you probably remember, earlier this summer when I reported on the idea that, you were not allowed to water your lawns in, some of the cities in Iowa, and this is because, they were getting so much rain and that rain was, according to some groups, pulling so much nitrates off of the fields that it was overrunning their, water facilities. And so the EPA came in and said, no. You've you've you've gotta stop watering your lawns. We need to quit putting so much water in there. So, what was interesting was a listener sent me this story. The EPA, has Region 7 rescinded its listing of seven Iowa River segments, including the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers as impaired due to high nitrate levels, reversing a Biden era decision. This move, announced August 12, came despite nitrate spikes in June and July, with the Raccoon River levels hitting 20.55 milligrams per liter on June 8, twice the safe drinking level limit.
Des Moines Water Works ran its nitrate removal facility for a hundred and twelve days lifting irrigation bans only on August 7. Critics, including the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, call the reversal dangerous, citing health risks like blue baby syndrome and cancer. The Iowa Farm Bureau supported the decision arguing nitrates aren't toxic and surface water shouldn't face drinking water standards. On x, environmentalists decry the move as ignoring the science while farmers, some farmers, welcome the reduced regulations. This debate highlights the tension between ag productivity and water quality. So, I mean, I gotta start off by saying, like, I have no idea what nitrate level is appropriate. You know, I I don't know. Is it is it 20.55?
Is it 10.55? People do go look at this. I believe we should have, drinking water standards. But as I looked into this story, and I I really just got it right before press time, there is a disagreement about, hey, is the water level that, is the nitrate level in an open water source like a river, is that indicative of where the water is going to be, the the nitrate levels that you're gonna have by the time it comes out of the tap? And there is some argument as to whether or not where they're testing it, how they're testing it is, unnaturally inflating the the levels.
But on the other hand, you don't want to have too much nitrates in the water. I remember when I ran this story, I went and looked at blue baby syndrome, and it really is a problem that the the amount of nitrates in the water can make young children, not be able to get enough oxygen. And it actually helps them or helps them makes them turn blue. So this is in a terrible, and I don't know what the answer is. I think it's good that there's a public debate. I think, it's it's likely there's probably some middle ground where this is, maybe there is often way too much regulation. I can't imagine the people from Iowa Farm Bureau would be arguing in favor of of, of something that would hurt people.
But on the other hand, man, what a technique to get people really worried. I used to always say this, that if you really wanna freak somebody out, here's what you can do. Take a glass of water, sit across from, you know, friend, your spouse, or something like that. Take a glass of water, scoot it over towards them, look at the glass of water, then look up at them and smile. Do you think they're gonna drink that water? Hell no. They're not gonna drink that water. Because if we have even the slightest inclination that there is something hidden in our water, as soon as that glass were to touch your lips, you would start you'd start being like, does that does that taste different? Does that taste bad?
Because we are hyper programmed to be worried about it. And so that's why when you start talking about these subjects, you really do need some sort of metric. You need to say, what is the right way to test the water? What are the levels that they should be at or shouldn't be at? And then use that science and don't allow it to become political. I have no idea if that's what's happened here, but I would say this is one of those times where the fact that we have politicized science so deeply has created a terrible situation where we really don't trust the science. And so now what do we do in these in these sorts of circumstances? Okay. That is gonna do it for the news stories.
I way prefer having somebody else here to talk about what their, their news stories are. And, we've got a couple we got a couple guests coming up, in the next couple of weeks that I think you're gonna like some some shows. I I can't quite confirm it, but it does appear that there is a cattle man from Oklahoma that's gonna come on and, have a debate with me about Bitcoin. And, there was a guy named Blake Hurst who wrote an article that specifically called out my podcast for never having invited him on to the podcast. So, Blake, if you're out there, know that you, will get on my calendar and we'll have you come on here. But I gotta say, anybody that, pushes their way on using their elbows had better bring the heat. You better have a real Peter Thiel paradox and a worthy adversary because, I'm I'm not gonna let you talk shit about me in the news and then and then come on the podcast and and give you a light walk.
So, I'll be looking forward to that one. Alright. Let's talk about Bitcoin. So normally during the show, we would be doing the Bitcoin land price report right now, and we would be comparing how much does a it cost for an acre of high quality farm ground versus Bitcoin. This week, Bitcoin is at a $112,000, and, that is down, now about 8% from the all time highs. But, you know, it's at a $112,000. It's so funny how your definition of what is a high price gets stretched out. And, you know, a $112,000 a year ago would've would've seemed, you know, insane, insane, totally, you know, out of this world. But now, because we've gone we've crossed a 120, when it goes down to a 112, you're like, oh, man, it's really down right now.
One of the things that, happened this weekend was I got a chance to talk to quite a few people about Bitcoin. You know, my favorite question is, you know, whenever I'm talking with people is, you know, what do you think of Bitcoin? And I had some chance to talk to some people with some pretty deep financial backgrounds. And what I am so surprised about with when I'm talking with people that supposedly have, a sophisticated knowledge of finance is just how little they actually know about things like inflation or about how, you know, where the dollar is priced or, you know, how even just how Bitcoin works even even in general.
And I think, like, it is a really good measure for me when I'm talking with somebody of, like, how much are you willing to bullshit me on this subject? So I I was introduced to somebody the other day and they're like, oh, this guy, he knows a ton about Bitcoin. You're gonna love it. He's like our our Bitcoin guy around here. And, so I I asked him a question. I was like, oh, you know, how how into Bitcoin are you telling me about that? He's like, oh, I'm I'm mine. I was like, oh, you mine? Okay. Tell me more about that. What what kind of miner do you use? And that's when he's like, oh, well, you know, I actually don't mine. It's my buddy that mines. Oh, okay. And he's but he but I'm really involved. I'm really involved. And then you're like, alright. Well, tell me about your involvement in in mining. Do you are you a part of a mining pool?
And he's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. We're totally in a mining pool. I'm like, oh, which one? You know, I don't remember. And you're like, okay. Well, you know, what wallet do you use? And, and and the guy was like, oh, well, I, you know, I mostly keep mine on an exchange. And, what was so interesting about this is, and I'm sure you have experienced this, like, when you know a lot about something and somebody comes along and tries to bullshit you, you see through it immediately. You you know instantly that they don't know what they're talking about. And, I've never I've I've there's very few things that I've had an expertise on that are like this. But what's interesting is after somebody has shattered the illusion, about how much they know about this one subject, then everything else you hear them talk about, you're like, how do I know whether or not you know anything at all about this subject?
There's this, there's this, concept called the Gell Mann amnesia effect. And the Gell Mann amnesia effect is, it was it's it's this it's the describing of the idea. You know, when you're reading a newspaper, I know people don't use newspapers anymore, but you're reading a newspaper and you read an article about a subject that you know a ton about and you're like, this reporter knows nothing. This person is total moron. This they do not know what they're talking about. This is like, it's either they're an idiot or they're blatantly lying. Well, what happens is you turn the page on the newspaper and you have amnesia for how little they knew about a subject you knew a lot about, and then you're watching them talk about a subject that you don't know anything about and you're like, oh, I guess that is true. Oh, that must be the way that, you know, the this new world screw worm works and, oh, this must be the way that, you know, cattle work or prices or any of those things. And so, anyway, I it's not much for me to to share with you there, but that's one of those things that you know instantly when somebody doesn't know about it. And the antidote to that, the way that you can get yourself in a position where you don't have that problem is not to be like, oh, I just don't talk about Bitcoin.
It's to actually try it out. It is to say, I'm going to go to an exchange, and I'm gonna buy just a little bit of Bitcoin. And then I'm gonna move that Bitcoin to a wallet. And what's gonna happen is you first have to, like, do some research about getting to an exchange, then you have to do some research to get a wallet. I can personally say that I often recommend people that are low tech, you know, they they're not very good with tech, use a Trezor Model three. And if you wanna do the high security thing, you should get a cold card wallet. And once you've moved Bitcoin from an exchange to a wallet, now all of a sudden you are going to be able to distinguish between people that do know stuff about Bitcoin and people that don't because you have knowledge about it.
And it sounds scary and it seems like one of those things like, oh, I don't know. How could I do that? I might mess it up, dah, dah, dah. Do it with a small amount of money that if you lose it, you're like, all right, well, that's just the cost of me taking a class. You know, do it with $50 I I think it is the best way. And then just keep marching along. Make sure that after you do that, you get a wallet. Now you've gotta figure out, hey. How would I use this wallet to send some Bitcoin to my buddy? Okay. Now how do I get a node set up? How do I do these things? Instead of doing the thing where you act like you know what you're talking about or you just avoid talking about it.
Alright. I'm I'm gonna I digress on that one. This is, it was just my pet peeve and an interesting experience I I had this week. Man, when you, when you have an experience like that, doesn't it make you go like, god, I I really hope I don't talk about things that I don't know about with other people. Right? Like, I really hope that I have not sounded that dumb, and I'm sure we all have. Right? You you run into somebody that knows a lot more than you. And even if they're being charitable, it starts to come out that you don't know. But, wow, you really it's very easy to lose respect for somebody when, they put themselves out there as knowing a lot about something and they don't. Alright.
Moving on to the Peter Thiel paradox. And, this is where I talk about what is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on. And, I was really hoping that by the time I reached this point in the show that something would have just kind of dawned on me. But the truth of the matter is I love doing this so much that I do end up putting out my ideas all the time. And I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to have ideas that people don't agree with you on just as like, oh, because I want people to disagree with me. Right? The point of this is to say, do you know enough about a subject to have an opinion that is not the same as other people's?
And I think that this is an important you you know, one way to think about how do you develop one of those ideas, the the the I'm sure you guys have heard me talk about the Dunning Kruger effect. So the Dunning Kruger effect is the the the the explanation for why is it that we radically overestimate how much we know about a subject. And that may be what happened with that guy. Maybe you just said the Dunning Kruger effect. But but what happens is you read one or two books, you watch a documentary, you engage with just a little bit of information, and your confidence just keeps going up and up and up and up on how much you know about something. Right? You read one psychology book, you watch one documentary, and it just keeps going up and up. But then eventually, you hit a point that the more you read, instead of your confidence going up, now all of a sudden your confidence starts going down. Right? It starts, like because the more that you read, the more that you're like, wait. Wait. Wait. How can that be true? Because I thought it worked in this very simple way. But then the more you learn, the more you're like, well, there's these caveats and there's these exceptions and there's these reasons why it doesn't always work that way.
And so in the Dunning Kruger effect, what ends up happening is you start falling down into the valley of despair. Right? Where you're where you're like, I don't know that I will ever be able to learn something and have it not make me feel less good because the more that I learn, the less that I know. But what happens is so you go all the way up and then you've come down. Eventually, you do hit the bottom. Right? And then you start coming up on the other side. And as you come up, you are humbled. You know? You you you figured out just how much you didn't know. And so, this is when you are able to develop a a a real Peter Thiel's paradox. It's that you understand and know something enough where the idiosyncrasies of it, the things that don't quite fit in, you understand enough to be able to have a much larger picture. And from that larger picture, you can, come up with an idea that other people, don't agree with you on. And, so if you're one of those people, it's like, ah, I wonder what I would say to my Peter Thiel paradox.
Think about a subject that you know a lot about and that you have enough information and enough knowledge for you to have a different opinion than what most everybody else, thinks. I think that's the best way to come up with the Peter Thiel paradox. So I'm going to totally leave you hanging. I'm not going to have a deeply controversial opinion. It has been one heck of a day. I the legacy interview I did today, Kyle, if you're listening, your parents were amazing. Amazing interview. Very quiet, humble people, but a great interview, but I did not have any time at all to, to come up with a new Peter Thiel paradox. Okay. So we're gonna finish out with The Worthy Adversary.
And, a lot of you have seen the back and forth on x between me and Jared McDaniel. Jared is a cattle rancher from No Man's Land Oklahoma. He is way out there. He, runs a family ranch that has been in the family for generations. He and his wife and their kids are they are on their own out there. Right? They are they are building community, and they are independent people. And Jared has very, very independent thoughts on the price of grain and cattle prices and where all those things are moving. But one thing I've seen him do quite a bit is take shots at Bitcoin quite a bit, you know, to the degree that I sit there and think like, hey, man. Like, either you know something I don't or somebody needs to have a conversation with you where they explain what's going on there because, you know, he has strong feelings that it was invented by the CIA and that they can wipe it out and that it's magic Internet money. And, and so not long ago, I said, hey. Why don't you come on my podcast? Why don't we have a conversation about it? And, he agreed.
He threw out some memes about, I'm your huckleberry, this week after we had kinda not been able to find a date. And, so we are gonna do a podcast, and, I will definitely let everybody know. I know Jared has, just a boatload of kids, and he really cares about being at their events and being there for him. So we might have to figure out the right scheduling time. But, while I respect Jared, I really, I care for him. He's been a good friend to my family for many years. When he talks about Bitcoin in this way, I think he's doing a disservice, to everyone that listens to him and respects him for the things he does know about because, I think he's leading people astray. And so I'm going to absolutely kick the shit out of his argument, And, I actually know that this is not gonna be an easy, what do you wanna call it, a discussion or a debate? Because, one thing about Jared is he does not play by the rules, but I'm really looking forward to it. So that is gonna do it for this week's show. I actually ran longer than I normally do.
I hope you guys, have enjoyed just having a quick chat here and, talking about the news of the day. We'll figure out when we're gonna do the, episode with Jared McDaniel. Blake Hurst, I'm I'm coming after you. I can't wait to to see if you can bring the heat. I, one thing I have to say, one of the reasons I have been so busy is, I have been delivering this class called interest based communications. And, this has started kinda slow, but it is it is starting to grow. This class is where I teach a philosophy of professional communication.
It starts off as a class about negotiations and how to do interest based negotiations, then it moves into introductions and storytellings. How do you talk about yourself when you're introducing yourself to a group of people so that they say, oh, that's what that guy does. Oh, that's a person I wanna go talk to. Then I have a session on having deeper conversations, and these are conversations that can help you if you're a sales person. You wanna figure out how do I build a better relationship. It could be that you wanna build better friendships with the people that you work with or your own family members. So I have ways of asking questions and ways of responding to what you hear people say that can really help you have a way of thinking about how you interact with people.
Then I do a session on conflict, how to resolve conflict. This is a class favorite. People really love this class because it takes conflict, and instead of making it about, why two people aren't getting along, it helps them figure out, hey, where is there an opportunity for us to resolve this thing and have us come out better on the other side? People really like that one. And then I have, a class, a session on presenting and feedback. And so I give some some, ways to think about how you can present your ideas to other people so that makes them engaged and interested in what you have to say. And then I do a whole, part of this where I talk about feedback. And that's because often when I teach this class, I won't have the time and bandwidth to give everybody individual feedback about their presentations, but I can teach the group to give feedback so that that way your people that are around you are like, hey. This is what you can do to get better. This is what I saw that I think you would want to improve.
So, anyway, all this to say, if you are somebody running an organization or a company or you want yourself to, to engage with this class, I am really building it out. I'm I've been delivering it to pharmaceutical companies, a biotech firm, a hedge fund. If you would like me to deliver it to your organization, I can do it, over a, you know, about a a day and a half, on-site. We can figure out to do something online or we do sessions right here in Saint Louis. So if you're interested, send me an email, [email protected]. There were a few of you that sent them to me a few weeks ago when we were talking about this. I'm gonna follow-up with that. We are gonna do, an online class. We're gonna do some other in person ones. I don't know exactly when we're doing them, but they are probably the best well received, work I've ever done. So I'm I'm gonna do more of this. Alright. I'm gonna finish out by, playing a a video about a talk that I give called the man on the box, and then I will, be out of here. And I'll be back next week with either Jared McDaniel, where we'll toss around Bitcoin or I'll have another guest on to do the Ag Tribes Report.
I was in the Peace Corps teaching Kenyan villagers how to prevent malaria. When one day, I was out competed by a snake oil salesman who stood on a box in the town square and told a better story. I was devastated and spent the next ten years learning why people listen to him instead of me. In this talk, I share what I've found. I'll teach you how to tell your story, how to introduce yourself, how to talk about your organization and what you have to offer in ways that make people want to listen. So we will never again lose to the man on the box.
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. Here is Legacy Interviews guest Carol Hensley discussing the opportunity for a quiet person to speak their mind.
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How was it for you, the experience? Very comfortable. Tried to sit down every morning for a week or two and reflect on my life, and I'm recalling well over seventy years. I may not talk very much, but I think a lot, and I listen to other people. If they don't talk a lot, they're surely thinking. And if you ask them their opinion, they may share it with you. You'll ask for my opinion. I don't mind sharing that. I think I probably talked more than I should have. No. Not at all.
[00:00:50] Unknown:
Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture, with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
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Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a co host that represents one of the many ag tribes that make up US and Canadian agriculture. So that way we can talk about how it's impacting the culture of agriculture. But this week, a little bit something different. I had a legacy interview that ran all the way up to the end of the day, and I decided I could not have a guest waiting on the side for me. So I decided that I would just do this as a solo episode. Some of the stories that I wanna cover today, National Corn Growers put out an article actually put out a couple of articles over the last couple of days about, high production costs and low crop values and what that's doing. So I wanna have a little bit of a discussion about that. We're also gonna talk about the closure of a Crown Royal bottling plant in Canada and, its potential impacts on US grain, but more than anything on relationships between The US and Canada, which, as far as I can tell, are getting pretty bad.
Then we're gonna talk about the EPA's controversial decision to delist Iowa rivers from impaired status, despite high nitrate levels. And, so we're gonna kinda explore some of those stories. I'll throw in my, 2¢ on them for whatever that's worth. And then we're gonna, talk a little bit more about Bitcoin. Since we're not gonna compare it to land prices, we'll just have a little bit of a discussion about things that have been going on in Bitcoin land, and then, I I'm gonna try and come up with a new Peter Thiel paradox. Everybody knows the one that I think about, Agland demonetizing land, but I'm gonna try and put myself on the spot and and share some other opinion that, that I don't think other people agree with me on.
And then we're gonna talk a little bit about, a worthy adversary. And, if I'm totally candid, I'm a little bit like a guest right now because I don't know who that worthy adversary is gonna be, but I will, I will come up with something, by the time we get there. Alright. Before we jump into the stories, you guys probably remember last week, Ryan Sorrells, who is an Oklahoma custom, harvester, who wanted a special corn a header from Canada that would allow him to be able to harvest different kinds of beans without having to constantly change the header out. He had ordered it from Canada. It was supposed to come. And then on the day he was expecting it so he could start harvest that week, the the, US officials were like, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. We can't let this thing across the border until we know where the steel was mined from, smelted from, and, you know, who manufactured it. And for all of these component parts, not just like, oh, in general, maybe 80% of the thing is made out of steel in this way, but we need to know it for all of it. So last week, Ryan got on social media and he posted some videos about, hey. What's going on here? This can't happen. I'm gonna try and get some social media attention, and he did. He got tens of thousands of people involved in it. This, brought it to the attention of politicians who then saw an opportunity to jump in and potentially help him.
And, by press time of last week, nothing had happened. Well, now, by press time of this week, one week later, still nothing has happened. And, in fact, what Ryan told me was that, James Langford's office said that it is now up to the president himself if the head can come over the border without knowledge of all of this information about where this deal comes from. And, so, you know, there's not a lot else to report here. I actually had a chance to talk with Ryan on the phone. You could tell he was frustrated, but he was just he was like, I'm working on another header right now. I gotta get the crops out of the, out of the fields. So, you know, I gotta go. And but I I so there's not much to report except for, like, this is terrible.
This is this is exactly what we do not want in a government. We we are a modern, sophisticated economy, and we cannot be in the position where one person, the president of The United States, has a magic wand that can swing some things through and some things not through. This is the very definition of what it means for decisions to be political and it is catastrophic. Right? We can't run an economy like this. And I I know, like, I the thing that I wanted most, when I was looking at the panoply of things that were going on in the world in terms of this election, Ross Ulbricht being freed, the guy that had been arrested, and had a whole bunch of his Bitcoin seized and and accused of all these things. He was he had he had his life being thrown away in prison, I thought, unjustly.
And Trump had come to the Bitcoiners and said, I'll free him if you elect me. I'm willing to vote on that. I I thought that was a man's life that could be freed, and, there were a lot of other reasons. But at this point, I don't think I'm alone in being like, hey. What the fuck is going on? Why are we, you know, turning our economy into this, like, Donald Trump controls everything, and he gets to point at what works and what doesn't work. And having been around agriculture for the last two weeks, really in-depth, I can tell you farmers that were pretty happy with him when he got elected are pretty unhappy now. And, I hope that this gets straightened out, not just for Ryan, but really for our entire economy. But, okay. Let's move on now to the story. High corn prices high corn production costs squeeze farmers amid low prices.
On August, the National Corn Growers Association reported that US corn farmers are facing financial challenges as production costs remain near record highs while corn prices have plummeted. This isn't news to anybody except for maybe some of the details. So from '22 to '25, costs dropped just 3% from $9.28 to $8.97 per acre, but corn prices fell over 50% from $8 to under $4 a bushel with projected 2025 yields of a 188.8 bushels per acre. Who knows whether that's true or not? No. Nobody knows. This this could be completely, complete nonsense.
But what they're saying is the break even point is four dollars and seventy five cents, and the market price being at $3.90 means that, that's an 85¢ per bushel loss. And, and so what they were were breaking down were what are what is going on here? So they said that there's a 135 rise in seed costs, a 117 in chemicals, a 74% increase in fertilizer since 02/2007, and land and machinery up a 102 and a 143% respectively. So I think that this is all good information about how much those prices are up. But I think one thing that this covers up, that this actually doesn't show, is the inflation rate. Right? If we say that, you know, corn prices have fallen from $8 to under $4 a bushel, you know, you have to think, like, when was the last time we were at $4 a bushel, and how much buying power did $4 have, you know, four or five years ago? And it's significant. Right? It is even if you're using just the most basic inflation numbers where you're saying it's 3% per year, the amount of buying power you have with that corn is significantly less than what it was, the last time it was at $4 let let alone how much less it produces, that let it that it purchases, from $8 corn. So, you know, this is terrible. Right? And part of it is inflation, but another big part of it is we're growing too much corn.
It is obvious that, whatever signals the market is supposed to be sending to our farmers that are deciding, hey, should I plant soybeans or corn? They're broken because it is not that far from when you purchase the seed to when you plant it to when you harvest it that we can't keep a cycle up that lets you know, hey. This is what prices are gonna be. We are planting way too much corn. And, and in large part, I think it's for several reasons why it's too much corn right now. Demand, while it's, you know, relatively high, it's still lower. Right? We have a lower, cattle herd than we've ever had before.
But we also have a trade partner in China, which I know corn growers are are, you know, the first ones to say, well, it's only 10% or less than 10% of our trade goes to China. But still, they have basically, you know, totally cut that off. They are not buying grain from us. They're buying it from somewhere else. And so, yet again, we are at the whims of political folly to make it so the price can be jerked around. And and, you know, you can see these huge waves going through. And it's pretty clear when you're talking to farmers that, if they had not received transfer payments last year, we would see a lot more farms going up for sale.
And, we don't right now. They're the farmers are having, you know, really, low prices for their crops, and we're having all these troubles. Prices are going up, and yet we don't see a massive number of farms going for sale. Well, that's obviously because the government payments from even back in Biden's era, not just Trump, and then, you know, it keeps rolling from insurance payments of 2023 to then Trump coming in and now the big beautiful bill. But how long is this gonna go on for and is it a good thing? Right? We we say all the time, we wanna see new young and beginning farmers in there And we but at the same time, we're making it so anytime there's a down year and things are not good, and there's always gonna be up and down cycles in in farming, that's just the way that it is. I don't know that the bubbles would always be this big. But we have these, down years and instead of letting some of the people that are not as efficient go out of business, we're sending them checks.
And if you're getting checks that make it so you do not have to make production that is, higher than your cost to get that production, what we're doing is we're saying, whatever you do, noble farmer, don't ever give up your land because the government's gonna send you payments. I don't know how long this is gonna last. I don't know how long Trump has, with a congress that's gonna keep voting for everything that he wants. Judging from the people that I'm talking with, who just a few months ago were pretty big Trump supporters, I'm not so sure that they are. And I can tell you that other people that are hurting because the value of what their wages are buying them keeps going down. I I can't imagine that they're gonna think it's a great idea while they are buried in credit card debt to send landowners checks for more money.
And, so something's gotta get fixed here. I I mean, everybody knows that listens to this show. I'm I'm a person that wants as little government intervention as possible. I understand, you know, Machinery Pete, when he was on here, he talked all about how if, if we wanna have food to eat in The United States, you know, we can't let farmers go out of business. But I think we're way beyond that. I I don't think that these payments that we're doing to our farmers is making it so we have food. In fact, I think when prices go up naturally, like, like they did during avian flu, the government will step in and undercut them by importing eggs from Turkey and South Korea. So I don't know. All this monkeying around with our economy is not good, and it's certainly not getting us any closer to the things that people say that they want, which is having young, new farmers in, new innovative strategies.
Because the truth is, if you try an innovative strategy and it doesn't work, you're risking a lot. Whereas new and innovative strategies, they don't get the the chance to to try them out anywhere nearly as much as they as as would be needed to make them be successful. I don't wanna say they should be. Who knows what they should be? But, I wish that this government intervention would get the hell out of our way of of allowing our system to grow and be made better instead of being one where we say, yeah, we didn't listen to any of the market signals or we didn't get the right market signals, so we planted way more corn than we needed, and now we're suffering because corn prices are so low. So alright.
Headline number two. This week is, not not such a pretty pretty week, but Crown Royal bottler closes Ontario plant and shifts to The US. On August 26, the Diageo, which is the company that owns Crown Royal bottling facility in Amherst, Ontario, announced the closure of its Amherst, Ontario, factory set for February '26 with operations shifting to The US to streamline its North American supply chain. This plant, a key employer, processes corn, corn based Crown Royal whiskey supporting Canadian grain farmers. The closure threatens local economies through Daigo maintains its Canadian distillation and aging facilities in Manitoba and Quebec.
No employee impact numbers were disclosed. On Axe, Canadian ag voices worry about reduced demand for local corn, while US farmers see potential for market grains. The move comes amid volatile Canada Canadian and US trade relations with prime minister Mark Carney pushing European trade ties. Critics argue this prioritizes corporate efficiency over rural communities. So, yeah. This story is, it's really too bad for the Canadians. And I have to say, you know, my Canadian friends that I'm in touch with, they have been saying, hey. It's really getting pretty bad, the relationship between The US and the Canadians. And my response back is most of the, people in The United States have no idea that regular Canadian farmers are pissed off at The United States.
But, you know, one of my buddies was telling me, like, you can really get a group of guys, on the afternoon all riled up if you just bring up the Americans. And he was saying, you know, we were talking about making a trip down to The US, and some of them are like, nah. I just don't wanna go. I just don't wanna mess with it. It's really too bad that, our relationship with Canada is getting to this point. Now I know a couple of weeks ago, I maybe a couple months ago, I put something out that said, you know, that we we shouldn't be at war with the Canadians. Like, we should have a better relationship. And there were some farmers that came out and said, well, we are. We are at war with them. We do. You know, their success means if if they sell a bushel of corn, then that means we don't sell that bushel of corn. And that may be true, but I have to think, like, it is a great big world out there, and there are not very many people like us, Canadians and Americans, Western values, our our approach to, democracy, just our heritage. Right? There aren't very many people like us in the world. Why would we choose the people that are, you know, have been our allies to be our enemies? I think it is a a really bad decision, and I would like to see this get straightened up. But, frankly, I think Canada, you know, The US Canadian relationship seems to be the least of Canada's worries right now. They seem to have a lot more problems. Inflation in Canada is going just totally nuts.
I was, talking with some people that were looking at, how much Canada and and The United States for that matter, the government facilities are starting to say, hey. We want you to return to work. And part of that is a way to stimulate the economy. If you can, get people to, you know, go from just being in their homes, working from their home office, to needing to get in their cars, drive in their cars, go to an office which they have to rent, and get lunch and daycare and all the things that go along with that, well, you were are, in a way, stimulating the economy. Frankly, it's it's, you know, pulling some amount of money out of the the pockets of the people that are there. So a lot of government groups and and even corporations are starting to say, hey. We we wanna see you come back to work as I don't know. The corporations are using it to stimulate the economy, but the government is. And, in places like Halifax, Nova Scotia, it, a friend of mine was telling me in 2019, it it cost, like, I think it was I don't even wanna go into the numbers, but it has more than doubled, the cost of living there and, this is gonna further exacerbate it. I the question becomes, I wonder if people are being forced to go back to, work in their offices. I wonder if some of these cities that blew up that were fun cities, you know, the boulders, the Boise, Idaho's, the the places where there weren't necessarily jobs, but people loved being there because they could go outside and go hiking and go in the mountains.
I have to wonder, are those cities going to have a sort of, white collar rust belt, effect when people realize, like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to work my remote job anymore. Now I have to leave and go back to the city in order to get jobs and have all of those, cities that really expanded really fast now start collapsing on them. I don't know. In any case, from what I understand, in Canada, the inflation rate is bad. People had been doing a lot of work from home. Having the the distillery move there, you know, it's just another hit on Canada. Alright. Story number three, the EPA rescinds impaired listing for Iowa rivers amid a nitrate crisis.
Okay. So many of you probably remember, earlier this summer when I reported on the idea that, you were not allowed to water your lawns in, some of the cities in Iowa, and this is because, they were getting so much rain and that rain was, according to some groups, pulling so much nitrates off of the fields that it was overrunning their, water facilities. And so the EPA came in and said, no. You've you've you've gotta stop watering your lawns. We need to quit putting so much water in there. So, what was interesting was a listener sent me this story. The EPA, has Region 7 rescinded its listing of seven Iowa River segments, including the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers as impaired due to high nitrate levels, reversing a Biden era decision. This move, announced August 12, came despite nitrate spikes in June and July, with the Raccoon River levels hitting 20.55 milligrams per liter on June 8, twice the safe drinking level limit.
Des Moines Water Works ran its nitrate removal facility for a hundred and twelve days lifting irrigation bans only on August 7. Critics, including the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, call the reversal dangerous, citing health risks like blue baby syndrome and cancer. The Iowa Farm Bureau supported the decision arguing nitrates aren't toxic and surface water shouldn't face drinking water standards. On x, environmentalists decry the move as ignoring the science while farmers, some farmers, welcome the reduced regulations. This debate highlights the tension between ag productivity and water quality. So, I mean, I gotta start off by saying, like, I have no idea what nitrate level is appropriate. You know, I I don't know. Is it is it 20.55?
Is it 10.55? People do go look at this. I believe we should have, drinking water standards. But as I looked into this story, and I I really just got it right before press time, there is a disagreement about, hey, is the water level that, is the nitrate level in an open water source like a river, is that indicative of where the water is going to be, the the nitrate levels that you're gonna have by the time it comes out of the tap? And there is some argument as to whether or not where they're testing it, how they're testing it is, unnaturally inflating the the levels.
But on the other hand, you don't want to have too much nitrates in the water. I remember when I ran this story, I went and looked at blue baby syndrome, and it really is a problem that the the amount of nitrates in the water can make young children, not be able to get enough oxygen. And it actually helps them or helps them makes them turn blue. So this is in a terrible, and I don't know what the answer is. I think it's good that there's a public debate. I think, it's it's likely there's probably some middle ground where this is, maybe there is often way too much regulation. I can't imagine the people from Iowa Farm Bureau would be arguing in favor of of, of something that would hurt people.
But on the other hand, man, what a technique to get people really worried. I used to always say this, that if you really wanna freak somebody out, here's what you can do. Take a glass of water, sit across from, you know, friend, your spouse, or something like that. Take a glass of water, scoot it over towards them, look at the glass of water, then look up at them and smile. Do you think they're gonna drink that water? Hell no. They're not gonna drink that water. Because if we have even the slightest inclination that there is something hidden in our water, as soon as that glass were to touch your lips, you would start you'd start being like, does that does that taste different? Does that taste bad?
Because we are hyper programmed to be worried about it. And so that's why when you start talking about these subjects, you really do need some sort of metric. You need to say, what is the right way to test the water? What are the levels that they should be at or shouldn't be at? And then use that science and don't allow it to become political. I have no idea if that's what's happened here, but I would say this is one of those times where the fact that we have politicized science so deeply has created a terrible situation where we really don't trust the science. And so now what do we do in these in these sorts of circumstances? Okay. That is gonna do it for the news stories.
I way prefer having somebody else here to talk about what their, their news stories are. And, we've got a couple we got a couple guests coming up, in the next couple of weeks that I think you're gonna like some some shows. I I can't quite confirm it, but it does appear that there is a cattle man from Oklahoma that's gonna come on and, have a debate with me about Bitcoin. And, there was a guy named Blake Hurst who wrote an article that specifically called out my podcast for never having invited him on to the podcast. So, Blake, if you're out there, know that you, will get on my calendar and we'll have you come on here. But I gotta say, anybody that, pushes their way on using their elbows had better bring the heat. You better have a real Peter Thiel paradox and a worthy adversary because, I'm I'm not gonna let you talk shit about me in the news and then and then come on the podcast and and give you a light walk.
So, I'll be looking forward to that one. Alright. Let's talk about Bitcoin. So normally during the show, we would be doing the Bitcoin land price report right now, and we would be comparing how much does a it cost for an acre of high quality farm ground versus Bitcoin. This week, Bitcoin is at a $112,000, and, that is down, now about 8% from the all time highs. But, you know, it's at a $112,000. It's so funny how your definition of what is a high price gets stretched out. And, you know, a $112,000 a year ago would've would've seemed, you know, insane, insane, totally, you know, out of this world. But now, because we've gone we've crossed a 120, when it goes down to a 112, you're like, oh, man, it's really down right now.
One of the things that, happened this weekend was I got a chance to talk to quite a few people about Bitcoin. You know, my favorite question is, you know, whenever I'm talking with people is, you know, what do you think of Bitcoin? And I had some chance to talk to some people with some pretty deep financial backgrounds. And what I am so surprised about with when I'm talking with people that supposedly have, a sophisticated knowledge of finance is just how little they actually know about things like inflation or about how, you know, where the dollar is priced or, you know, how even just how Bitcoin works even even in general.
And I think, like, it is a really good measure for me when I'm talking with somebody of, like, how much are you willing to bullshit me on this subject? So I I was introduced to somebody the other day and they're like, oh, this guy, he knows a ton about Bitcoin. You're gonna love it. He's like our our Bitcoin guy around here. And, so I I asked him a question. I was like, oh, you know, how how into Bitcoin are you telling me about that? He's like, oh, I'm I'm mine. I was like, oh, you mine? Okay. Tell me more about that. What what kind of miner do you use? And that's when he's like, oh, well, you know, I actually don't mine. It's my buddy that mines. Oh, okay. And he's but he but I'm really involved. I'm really involved. And then you're like, alright. Well, tell me about your involvement in in mining. Do you are you a part of a mining pool?
And he's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. We're totally in a mining pool. I'm like, oh, which one? You know, I don't remember. And you're like, okay. Well, you know, what wallet do you use? And, and and the guy was like, oh, well, I, you know, I mostly keep mine on an exchange. And, what was so interesting about this is, and I'm sure you have experienced this, like, when you know a lot about something and somebody comes along and tries to bullshit you, you see through it immediately. You you know instantly that they don't know what they're talking about. And, I've never I've I've there's very few things that I've had an expertise on that are like this. But what's interesting is after somebody has shattered the illusion, about how much they know about this one subject, then everything else you hear them talk about, you're like, how do I know whether or not you know anything at all about this subject?
There's this, there's this, concept called the Gell Mann amnesia effect. And the Gell Mann amnesia effect is, it was it's it's this it's the describing of the idea. You know, when you're reading a newspaper, I know people don't use newspapers anymore, but you're reading a newspaper and you read an article about a subject that you know a ton about and you're like, this reporter knows nothing. This person is total moron. This they do not know what they're talking about. This is like, it's either they're an idiot or they're blatantly lying. Well, what happens is you turn the page on the newspaper and you have amnesia for how little they knew about a subject you knew a lot about, and then you're watching them talk about a subject that you don't know anything about and you're like, oh, I guess that is true. Oh, that must be the way that, you know, the this new world screw worm works and, oh, this must be the way that, you know, cattle work or prices or any of those things. And so, anyway, I it's not much for me to to share with you there, but that's one of those things that you know instantly when somebody doesn't know about it. And the antidote to that, the way that you can get yourself in a position where you don't have that problem is not to be like, oh, I just don't talk about Bitcoin.
It's to actually try it out. It is to say, I'm going to go to an exchange, and I'm gonna buy just a little bit of Bitcoin. And then I'm gonna move that Bitcoin to a wallet. And what's gonna happen is you first have to, like, do some research about getting to an exchange, then you have to do some research to get a wallet. I can personally say that I often recommend people that are low tech, you know, they they're not very good with tech, use a Trezor Model three. And if you wanna do the high security thing, you should get a cold card wallet. And once you've moved Bitcoin from an exchange to a wallet, now all of a sudden you are going to be able to distinguish between people that do know stuff about Bitcoin and people that don't because you have knowledge about it.
And it sounds scary and it seems like one of those things like, oh, I don't know. How could I do that? I might mess it up, dah, dah, dah. Do it with a small amount of money that if you lose it, you're like, all right, well, that's just the cost of me taking a class. You know, do it with $50 I I think it is the best way. And then just keep marching along. Make sure that after you do that, you get a wallet. Now you've gotta figure out, hey. How would I use this wallet to send some Bitcoin to my buddy? Okay. Now how do I get a node set up? How do I do these things? Instead of doing the thing where you act like you know what you're talking about or you just avoid talking about it.
Alright. I'm I'm gonna I digress on that one. This is, it was just my pet peeve and an interesting experience I I had this week. Man, when you, when you have an experience like that, doesn't it make you go like, god, I I really hope I don't talk about things that I don't know about with other people. Right? Like, I really hope that I have not sounded that dumb, and I'm sure we all have. Right? You you run into somebody that knows a lot more than you. And even if they're being charitable, it starts to come out that you don't know. But, wow, you really it's very easy to lose respect for somebody when, they put themselves out there as knowing a lot about something and they don't. Alright.
Moving on to the Peter Thiel paradox. And, this is where I talk about what is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on. And, I was really hoping that by the time I reached this point in the show that something would have just kind of dawned on me. But the truth of the matter is I love doing this so much that I do end up putting out my ideas all the time. And I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to have ideas that people don't agree with you on just as like, oh, because I want people to disagree with me. Right? The point of this is to say, do you know enough about a subject to have an opinion that is not the same as other people's?
And I think that this is an important you you know, one way to think about how do you develop one of those ideas, the the the I'm sure you guys have heard me talk about the Dunning Kruger effect. So the Dunning Kruger effect is the the the the explanation for why is it that we radically overestimate how much we know about a subject. And that may be what happened with that guy. Maybe you just said the Dunning Kruger effect. But but what happens is you read one or two books, you watch a documentary, you engage with just a little bit of information, and your confidence just keeps going up and up and up and up on how much you know about something. Right? You read one psychology book, you watch one documentary, and it just keeps going up and up. But then eventually, you hit a point that the more you read, instead of your confidence going up, now all of a sudden your confidence starts going down. Right? It starts, like because the more that you read, the more that you're like, wait. Wait. Wait. How can that be true? Because I thought it worked in this very simple way. But then the more you learn, the more you're like, well, there's these caveats and there's these exceptions and there's these reasons why it doesn't always work that way.
And so in the Dunning Kruger effect, what ends up happening is you start falling down into the valley of despair. Right? Where you're where you're like, I don't know that I will ever be able to learn something and have it not make me feel less good because the more that I learn, the less that I know. But what happens is so you go all the way up and then you've come down. Eventually, you do hit the bottom. Right? And then you start coming up on the other side. And as you come up, you are humbled. You know? You you you figured out just how much you didn't know. And so, this is when you are able to develop a a a real Peter Thiel's paradox. It's that you understand and know something enough where the idiosyncrasies of it, the things that don't quite fit in, you understand enough to be able to have a much larger picture. And from that larger picture, you can, come up with an idea that other people, don't agree with you on. And, so if you're one of those people, it's like, ah, I wonder what I would say to my Peter Thiel paradox.
Think about a subject that you know a lot about and that you have enough information and enough knowledge for you to have a different opinion than what most everybody else, thinks. I think that's the best way to come up with the Peter Thiel paradox. So I'm going to totally leave you hanging. I'm not going to have a deeply controversial opinion. It has been one heck of a day. I the legacy interview I did today, Kyle, if you're listening, your parents were amazing. Amazing interview. Very quiet, humble people, but a great interview, but I did not have any time at all to, to come up with a new Peter Thiel paradox. Okay. So we're gonna finish out with The Worthy Adversary.
And, a lot of you have seen the back and forth on x between me and Jared McDaniel. Jared is a cattle rancher from No Man's Land Oklahoma. He is way out there. He, runs a family ranch that has been in the family for generations. He and his wife and their kids are they are on their own out there. Right? They are they are building community, and they are independent people. And Jared has very, very independent thoughts on the price of grain and cattle prices and where all those things are moving. But one thing I've seen him do quite a bit is take shots at Bitcoin quite a bit, you know, to the degree that I sit there and think like, hey, man. Like, either you know something I don't or somebody needs to have a conversation with you where they explain what's going on there because, you know, he has strong feelings that it was invented by the CIA and that they can wipe it out and that it's magic Internet money. And, and so not long ago, I said, hey. Why don't you come on my podcast? Why don't we have a conversation about it? And, he agreed.
He threw out some memes about, I'm your huckleberry, this week after we had kinda not been able to find a date. And, so we are gonna do a podcast, and, I will definitely let everybody know. I know Jared has, just a boatload of kids, and he really cares about being at their events and being there for him. So we might have to figure out the right scheduling time. But, while I respect Jared, I really, I care for him. He's been a good friend to my family for many years. When he talks about Bitcoin in this way, I think he's doing a disservice, to everyone that listens to him and respects him for the things he does know about because, I think he's leading people astray. And so I'm going to absolutely kick the shit out of his argument, And, I actually know that this is not gonna be an easy, what do you wanna call it, a discussion or a debate? Because, one thing about Jared is he does not play by the rules, but I'm really looking forward to it. So that is gonna do it for this week's show. I actually ran longer than I normally do.
I hope you guys, have enjoyed just having a quick chat here and, talking about the news of the day. We'll figure out when we're gonna do the, episode with Jared McDaniel. Blake Hurst, I'm I'm coming after you. I can't wait to to see if you can bring the heat. I, one thing I have to say, one of the reasons I have been so busy is, I have been delivering this class called interest based communications. And, this has started kinda slow, but it is it is starting to grow. This class is where I teach a philosophy of professional communication.
It starts off as a class about negotiations and how to do interest based negotiations, then it moves into introductions and storytellings. How do you talk about yourself when you're introducing yourself to a group of people so that they say, oh, that's what that guy does. Oh, that's a person I wanna go talk to. Then I have a session on having deeper conversations, and these are conversations that can help you if you're a sales person. You wanna figure out how do I build a better relationship. It could be that you wanna build better friendships with the people that you work with or your own family members. So I have ways of asking questions and ways of responding to what you hear people say that can really help you have a way of thinking about how you interact with people.
Then I do a session on conflict, how to resolve conflict. This is a class favorite. People really love this class because it takes conflict, and instead of making it about, why two people aren't getting along, it helps them figure out, hey, where is there an opportunity for us to resolve this thing and have us come out better on the other side? People really like that one. And then I have, a class, a session on presenting and feedback. And so I give some some, ways to think about how you can present your ideas to other people so that makes them engaged and interested in what you have to say. And then I do a whole, part of this where I talk about feedback. And that's because often when I teach this class, I won't have the time and bandwidth to give everybody individual feedback about their presentations, but I can teach the group to give feedback so that that way your people that are around you are like, hey. This is what you can do to get better. This is what I saw that I think you would want to improve.
So, anyway, all this to say, if you are somebody running an organization or a company or you want yourself to, to engage with this class, I am really building it out. I'm I've been delivering it to pharmaceutical companies, a biotech firm, a hedge fund. If you would like me to deliver it to your organization, I can do it, over a, you know, about a a day and a half, on-site. We can figure out to do something online or we do sessions right here in Saint Louis. So if you're interested, send me an email, [email protected]. There were a few of you that sent them to me a few weeks ago when we were talking about this. I'm gonna follow-up with that. We are gonna do, an online class. We're gonna do some other in person ones. I don't know exactly when we're doing them, but they are probably the best well received, work I've ever done. So I'm I'm gonna do more of this. Alright. I'm gonna finish out by, playing a a video about a talk that I give called the man on the box, and then I will, be out of here. And I'll be back next week with either Jared McDaniel, where we'll toss around Bitcoin or I'll have another guest on to do the Ag Tribes Report.
I was in the Peace Corps teaching Kenyan villagers how to prevent malaria. When one day, I was out competed by a snake oil salesman who stood on a box in the town square and told a better story. I was devastated and spent the next ten years learning why people listen to him instead of me. In this talk, I share what I've found. I'll teach you how to tell your story, how to introduce yourself, how to talk about your organization and what you have to offer in ways that make people want to listen. So we will never again lose to the man on the box.
Introduction and Episode Overview
High Production Costs and Low Crop Values
The Corn Header Dilemma
Economic Challenges in Agriculture
Crown Royal Plant Closure and US-Canada Relations
EPA's Controversial Decision on Iowa Rivers
Upcoming Guests and Bitcoin Discussion
Peter Thiel Paradox and Dunning-Kruger Effect
The Worthy Adversary: Bitcoin Debate
Interest-Based Communications Class
