Latest / The Vance Crowe Podcast / ATR: The Crown's Whiskey moves to the US, While Combine Header Waits, solo episode with Vance
Transcript
- 0:00Unknown: The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews,
- 0:04a 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.
- 0:17Unknown: How was it for you, the experience? Very comfortable. Tried to sit down every morning for a week or two and
- 0:25reflect
- 0:25on my life, and I'm recalling
- 0:28well 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.
- 0:41I don't mind sharing that. I think I probably talked more than I should have. No. Not at all.
- 0:50Unknown: Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture,
- 0:55with your host, Vance Crow.
- 0:58The report begins in three,
- 1:00two,
- 1:01one. Let's begin.
- 1:05Unknown: 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.
- 1:17So that way we can talk about how it's impacting the culture of agriculture.
- 1:21But this week,
- 1:22a 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.
- 1:37Some of the stories that I wanna cover today,
- 1:39National Corn Growers put out an article actually put out a couple of articles over the last couple of days about,
- 1:46high 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
- 2:01US grain, but more than anything on relationships between The US and Canada, which, as far as I can tell, are getting pretty bad.
- 2:08Then we're gonna talk about the EPA's controversial decision to delist Iowa rivers from impaired status,
- 2:15despite high nitrate levels.
- 2:17And, 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,
- 2:29we'll just have a little bit of a discussion about things that have been going on in Bitcoin
- 2:34land, and then, I I'm gonna try and come up with a new Peter Thiel paradox. Everybody knows the one that I think about,
- 2:40Agland
- 2:41demonetizing
- 2:42land, but I'm gonna try and put myself on the spot and and share some other opinion
- 2:47that,
- 2:48that I don't think other people agree with me on.
- 2:50And then we're gonna talk a little bit about, a worthy adversary.
- 2:54And, 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,
- 3:08you guys probably remember last week, Ryan Sorrells,
- 3:11who is an Oklahoma custom,
- 3:14harvester,
- 3:15who 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.
- 3:25He 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,
- 3:33the the, US officials were like, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. We can't let this thing across the border
- 3:39until we know
- 3:40where the steel
- 3:42was mined from,
- 3:44smelted from, and,
- 3:46you know, who manufactured
- 3:47it. 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,
- 3:58Ryan 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.
- 4:15And, by press time of last week, nothing had happened.
- 4:19Well, now, by press time of this week, one week later,
- 4:22still nothing has happened. And, in fact, what Ryan told me was that, James Langford's office
- 4:28said that it is now up to the president himself
- 4:32if the head can come over the border
- 4:34without knowledge of all of this information about where this deal comes from.
- 4:39And, 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,
- 4:57this is terrible.
- 4:59This is this is exactly what we do not want in a government. We we are a modern, sophisticated
- 5:06economy, and we cannot be in the position
- 5:08where 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
- 5:21and it is catastrophic. Right? We can't run an economy like this. And I I know, like,
- 5:28I 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,
- 5:36Ross Ulbricht being freed, the guy that had been arrested,
- 5:40and 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.
- 5:49And 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,
- 5:58and, there were a lot of other reasons.
- 6:01But at this point, I don't think I'm alone in being like, hey.
- 6:05What the fuck is going on?
- 6:07Why are we, you know,
- 6:10turning our economy into this, like,
- 6:13Donald Trump controls everything, and he gets to point at what works and what doesn't work. And having been around agriculture
- 6:21for 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.
- 6:35But, okay. Let's move on now to the story. High corn prices
- 6:39high corn production costs
- 6:41squeeze farmers amid low prices.
- 6:44On August,
- 6:46the 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.
- 6:57This isn't news to anybody
- 6:59except for maybe some of the details. So from '22 to '25, costs dropped just 3% from $9.28
- 7:06to $8.97
- 7:07per acre,
- 7:08but corn prices fell
- 7:10over 50%
- 7:11from $8 to under $4 a bushel
- 7:15with projected 2025
- 7:16yields of a 188.8
- 7:18bushels per acre. Who knows whether that's true or not? No. Nobody knows. This this could be completely,
- 7:24complete nonsense.
- 7:26But what they're saying is the break even point is four dollars and seventy five cents, and the market price being at $3.90
- 7:33means that, that's an 85¢
- 7:36per bushel loss. And,
- 7:39and so what they were were breaking down were what are what is going on here? So they said that there's a 135
- 7:46rise in seed costs, a 117
- 7:48in chemicals,
- 7:49a 74%
- 7:51increase in fertilizer since 02/2007,
- 7:54and land and machinery up a 102 and a 143%
- 7:58respectively.
- 7:59So 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,
- 8:09is
- 8:09the inflation rate. Right? If we say
- 8:12that,
- 8:13you know, corn prices have fallen from $8
- 8:17to under $4 a bushel,
- 8:19you know, you have to think, like,
- 8:21when was the last time we were at $4 a bushel, and how much buying power did $4
- 8:27have,
- 8:28you know, four or five years ago? And it's significant. Right? It is even if you're using just the most basic
- 8:34inflation numbers where you're saying it's 3% per year,
- 8:38the amount of buying power you have with that corn
- 8:41is significantly
- 8:42less than what it was,
- 8:45the last time it was at $4 let let alone how much less it produces,
- 8:49that let it that it
- 8:51purchases, from $8 corn. So, you know,
- 8:56this is terrible. Right? And part of it is inflation,
- 8:59but another big part of it is we're growing too much corn.
- 9:02It is obvious that, whatever signals the market is supposed to be sending
- 9:08to 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.
- 9:27And,
- 9:28and in large part, I think it's for several reasons why it's too much corn right now.
- 9:33Demand, while it's,
- 9:35you know, relatively high, it's still lower. Right? We have a lower,
- 9:39cattle herd than we've ever had before.
- 9:41But 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%
- 9:50of 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
- 10:02to 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
- 10:11when you're talking to farmers that,
- 10:14if they had not received transfer payments last year,
- 10:17we would see a lot more farms going up for sale.
- 10:21And,
- 10:22we don't right now. They're the farmers are having, you know, really,
- 10:26low 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
- 10:37from even back in Biden's era, not just Trump, and then, you know, it keeps rolling from insurance payments of 2023
- 10:44to then Trump coming in and now the big beautiful bill.
- 10:47But 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.
- 11:10But we have these,
- 11:12down years and instead of letting some of the people that are not as efficient go out of business, we're sending them checks.
- 11:20And if you're getting checks that make it so you do not have to make production
- 11:24that is, higher than your cost to get that production,
- 11:28what we're doing is we're saying, whatever you do, noble farmer,
- 11:33don't ever give up your land because the government's gonna send you payments.
- 11:37I don't know how long this is gonna last. I don't know how long Trump has,
- 11:42with 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.
- 11:58I 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.
- 12:07And,
- 12:08so 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.
- 12:16I understand,
- 12:17you know, Machinery Pete, when he was on here, he talked all about how
- 12:21if,
- 12:22if 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.
- 12:34In fact, I think when prices go up naturally, like,
- 12:38like they did during avian flu,
- 12:40the government will step in and undercut them by importing
- 12:44eggs from Turkey and South Korea. So
- 12:47I 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.
- 12:58Because the truth is, if you try an innovative strategy and it doesn't work, you're risking a lot. Whereas new and innovative strategies,
- 13:05they 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,
- 13:17I wish that this government intervention
- 13:19would get the hell out of our way of of allowing
- 13:23our 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
- 13:38alright.
- 13:38Headline number two. This week is, not not such a pretty pretty week, but Crown Royal bottler closes Ontario plant and shifts to The US.
- 13:48On August 26,
- 13:51the
- 13:52Diageo, which is the company that owns Crown Royal bottling facility in Amherst, Ontario,
- 13:57announced the closure of its Amherst, Ontario,
- 14:01factory set for February '26 with operations shifting to The US to streamline its North American supply chain. This plant, a key employer,
- 14:10processes corn, corn based Crown Royal whiskey supporting Canadian grain farmers. The closure threatens local economies
- 14:17through Daigo maintains its Canadian distillation and aging facilities in Manitoba and Quebec.
- 14:24No 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.
- 14:42Critics argue this prioritizes corporate efficiency over rural communities.
- 14:47So,
- 14:49yeah. This story is, it's really too bad for the Canadians. And I have to say,
- 14:55you know, my Canadian friends that I'm in touch with, they have been saying, hey. It's really getting pretty bad,
- 15:02the relationship between The US and the Canadians. And my response back is most of the, people in The United States have no idea
- 15:09that regular Canadian farmers are pissed off at The United States.
- 15:13But, you know, one of my buddies was telling me, like, you can really get a group of guys,
- 15:18on the afternoon all riled up if you just bring up the Americans.
- 15:22And 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
- 15:31that, 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.
- 15:46And 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,
- 15:57but I have to think, like, it is a great big world out there, and there are not very many people like us,
- 16:03Canadians and Americans, Western values, our our approach to,
- 16:08democracy,
- 16:10just our heritage. Right? There aren't very many people like us in the world. Why would we choose the people that are,
- 16:17you 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,
- 16:27you 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.
- 16:37I was, talking with some people that
- 16:39were looking at,
- 16:41how 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,
- 16:53get people to, you know, go from just being in their homes, working from their home office,
- 16:58to needing to get in their cars, drive in their cars, go to an office which they have to rent, and get lunch
- 17:05and 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
- 17:25as I don't know. The corporations are using it to stimulate the economy, but the government is. And, in places like Halifax,
- 17:32Nova Scotia,
- 17:33it, 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,
- 17:42the 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,
- 17:51work 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.
- 18:06I have to wonder,
- 18:08are those cities
- 18:10going to have a sort of,
- 18:12white collar rust belt, effect when people realize, like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to work my
- 18:18remote 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,
- 18:31the inflation rate is bad. People had been doing a lot of work from home.
- 18:36Having the the distillery move there, you know, it's just another hit on Canada.
- 18:41Alright. Story number three, the EPA rescinds impaired listing for Iowa rivers amid a nitrate crisis.
- 18:50Okay. So many of you probably remember,
- 18:52earlier 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,
- 19:03they were getting so much rain
- 19:05and that rain was,
- 19:08according to some groups, pulling so much nitrates off of the fields that it was overrunning
- 19:14their,
- 19:14water facilities.
- 19:16And 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,
- 19:25what was interesting was a listener sent me this story. The EPA,
- 19:29has Region 7 rescinded its listing
- 19:32of 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
- 19:49milligrams per liter on June 8, twice the safe drinking level limit.
- 19:54Des Moines Water Works ran its nitrate removal facility for a hundred and twelve days lifting irrigation bans only on August 7.
- 20:02Critics, including the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, call the reversal dangerous,
- 20:07citing health risks like blue baby syndrome and cancer.
- 20:10The Iowa Farm Bureau supported the decision arguing nitrates aren't toxic and surface water shouldn't face drinking water standards. On x, environmentalists
- 20:19decry the move as ignoring the science while farmers, some farmers,
- 20:23welcome the reduced regulations. This debate highlights the tension between ag productivity and water quality.
- 20:30So, I mean, I gotta start off by saying, like, I have no idea
- 20:34what nitrate level is appropriate. You know, I I don't know. Is it is it 20.55?
- 20:40Is it 10.55?
- 20:42People do go look at this. I believe we should have,
- 20:45drinking water standards.
- 20:47But as I looked into this story, and I I really just got it right before press time, there is a disagreement
- 20:53about, hey, is the water level that,
- 20:56is the nitrate level in an open water source like a river,
- 21:00is that indicative
- 21:01of 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?
- 21:09And there is some argument as to whether or not where they're testing it, how they're testing it is,
- 21:15unnaturally
- 21:16inflating
- 21:17the the levels.
- 21:18But on the other hand,
- 21:20you 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
- 21:31water can make young children,
- 21:34not be able to get enough oxygen. And it actually helps them or helps them makes them turn blue.
- 21:40So this is in a terrible,
- 21:43and I don't know what the answer is. I think it's good that there's a public debate. I think,
- 21:48it's it's likely there's probably some middle ground where this is,
- 21:52maybe 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.
- 22:02But on the other hand,
- 22:04man, 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.
- 22:12Take 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,
- 22:20look at the glass of water,
- 22:21then look up at them
- 22:23and smile.
- 22:25Do you think they're gonna drink that water?
- 22:28Hell no. They're not gonna drink that water. Because if we have even the slightest inclination
- 22:34that there is something hidden in our water,
- 22:37as 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?
- 22:43Because we are hyper programmed to be worried about it. And so that's why when you start talking about these subjects,
- 22:50you really do need some sort of metric. You need to say,
- 22:54what 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.
- 23:03I 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
- 23:10science so deeply
- 23:12has 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?
- 23:22Okay. That is gonna do it for the news stories.
- 23:25I 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.
- 23:46And, there was a guy named Blake Hurst who wrote an article
- 23:50that specifically called out my podcast
- 23:53for 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,
- 24:11I'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.
- 24:17So, 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
- 24:32versus Bitcoin.
- 24:34This week, Bitcoin is at a $112,000,
- 24:38and, that is down,
- 24:40now about 8% from the all time highs.
- 24:43But, you know, it's at a $112,000.
- 24:46It's so funny how your definition of what is a high price gets stretched out. And, you know, a $112,000
- 24:54a year ago would've would've seemed, you know, insane, insane, totally, you know, out of this world.
- 25:00But now, because we've gone we've crossed a 120,
- 25:03when it goes down to a 112, you're like, oh, man, it's really down right now.
- 25:07One of the things that,
- 25:09happened 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?
- 25:20And I had some chance to talk to some people with some pretty deep financial backgrounds.
- 25:25And what I am so
- 25:27surprised about
- 25:29with when I'm talking with people that supposedly have,
- 25:34a sophisticated
- 25:35knowledge of finance
- 25:37is
- 25:38just how little they actually know about things like inflation
- 25:43or about how, you know, where the dollar is priced
- 25:47or, you know, how
- 25:49even just how Bitcoin works even even in general.
- 25:52And I think, like,
- 25:54it is a really good measure for me when I'm talking with somebody
- 25:59of,
- 26:00like, 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,
- 26:28you 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?
- 26:41And he's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. We're totally in a mining pool. I'm like, oh, which one?
- 26:47You know,
- 26:50I don't remember.
- 26:52And you're like, okay. Well, you know,
- 26:55what wallet do you use?
- 26:57And, and and the guy was like, oh, well, I, you know, I mostly keep mine on an exchange.
- 27:03And, what was so interesting about this is, and I'm sure you have experienced this, like, when you know a lot about something
- 27:12and somebody comes along and tries to bullshit you,
- 27:15you see
- 27:16through it immediately. You you know instantly that they don't know what they're talking about.
- 27:21And, 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,
- 27:31about how much they know about this one subject,
- 27:34then everything else you hear them talk about,
- 27:37you're like, how do I know
- 27:39whether or not you know anything at all about this subject?
- 27:42There's this,
- 27:44there's this,
- 27:46concept called the Gell Mann amnesia effect.
- 27:49And the Gell Mann amnesia effect is,
- 27:52it 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
- 28:03and 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
- 28:17and 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,
- 28:31oh, 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
- 28:42you know instantly when somebody doesn't know about it. And the antidote to that,
- 28:47the way that you can get yourself in a position
- 28:50where you don't have that problem
- 28:52is not to be like, oh, I just don't talk about Bitcoin.
- 28:55It's to actually try it out.
- 28:57It is to say, I'm going to go to an exchange,
- 29:01and 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.
- 29:25And once you've moved Bitcoin from an exchange
- 29:29to a wallet,
- 29:30now 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.
- 29:39And 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
- 29:54I 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?
- 30:09Instead of doing the thing where you act like you know what you're talking about or you just avoid talking about it.
- 30:15Alright. I'm I'm gonna I digress on that one.
- 30:18This is, it was just my pet peeve and an interesting experience I I had this week.
- 30:24Man, when you, when you have an experience like that,
- 30:27doesn'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.
- 30:47But, 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.
- 30:56Moving on
- 30:57to the Peter Thiel paradox.
- 31:00And, this is where I talk about what is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on.
- 31:08And,
- 31:09I 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
- 31:18I love
- 31:20doing this so much
- 31:21that 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
- 31:37to have an opinion
- 31:39that is not the same as other people's?
- 31:41And I think that this is an important you you know, one way to think about how do you develop one of those ideas,
- 31:47the the the
- 31:49I'm sure you guys have heard me talk about the Dunning Kruger effect. So the Dunning Kruger effect is
- 31:55the the
- 31:57the
- 31:58the explanation for why is it that we radically overestimate how much we know about a subject.
- 32:04And that may be what happened with that guy. Maybe you just said the Dunning Kruger effect. But but what happens is
- 32:09you read one or two books, you watch a documentary, you engage with just a little bit of information,
- 32:14and 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,
- 32:24and 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
- 32:34going 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.
- 32:50And so in the Dunning Kruger effect,
- 32:53what 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
- 33:01that 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.
- 33:17And as you come up, you are humbled. You know? You you you figured out just how much you didn't know. And so,
- 33:25this is when you are able to develop a a a real Peter Thiel's paradox. It's that you understand and know something enough
- 33:33where the
- 33:35idiosyncrasies of it, the things that don't quite fit in,
- 33:38you understand enough to be able to have a much larger picture. And from that larger picture,
- 33:44you can,
- 33:44come up with an idea that other people,
- 33:47don'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.
- 33:55Think about a subject that you know a lot about
- 33:57and that you have enough information and enough knowledge
- 34:01for you to have a different opinion than what most everybody else,
- 34:05thinks. I think that's the best way to come up with the Peter Thiel paradox.
- 34:09So I'm going to totally leave you hanging. I'm not going to have a deeply controversial opinion.
- 34:15It 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
- 34:23quiet, 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.
- 34:31Okay. So we're gonna finish out with The Worthy Adversary.
- 34:35And,
- 34:35a lot of you have seen the back and forth on x between me and Jared McDaniel.
- 34:42Jared is a cattle rancher
- 34:44from No Man's Land Oklahoma. He is way out there.
- 34:47He, runs a family ranch that has been in the family for generations.
- 34:52He and his wife and their kids are they are
- 34:56on their own out there. Right? They are they are building community,
- 35:01and they are independent people. And Jared has
- 35:05very, very independent thoughts on the price of grain
- 35:08and 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
- 35:18that I sit there and think like,
- 35:21hey, man. Like, either you know something I don't
- 35:25or somebody needs to have a conversation with you where they explain what's going on there because,
- 35:30you 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
- 35:39not long ago, I said, hey. Why don't you come on my podcast? Why don't we have a conversation about it? And,
- 35:45he agreed.
- 35:46He threw out some memes about, I'm your huckleberry,
- 35:50this 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.
- 35:59I know Jared has,
- 36:01just 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.
- 36:09But,
- 36:09while I respect Jared, I really,
- 36:12I care for him. He's been a good friend to my family for many years.
- 36:17When he talks about Bitcoin in this way,
- 36:21I think he's doing a disservice,
- 36:23to
- 36:24everyone that listens to him and respects him for the things he does know about
- 36:29because,
- 36:30I think he's leading people astray. And so I'm going to absolutely kick the shit out of his argument,
- 36:35And, I actually know that this is not gonna be an easy,
- 36:39what do you wanna call it, a discussion or a debate? Because,
- 36:42one thing about Jared is he does not play by the rules, but I'm really looking forward to it. So
- 36:47that is gonna do it for this week's show. I actually ran
- 36:50longer than I normally do.
- 36:52I hope you guys,
- 36:54have enjoyed just having a quick chat here
- 36:57and, talking about the news of the day. We'll figure out when we're gonna do the, episode with Jared McDaniel.
- 37:04Blake Hurst, I'm I'm coming after you. I can't wait to to see if you can bring the heat. I,
- 37:10one 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.
- 37:19And,
- 37:21this has started kinda slow, but it is it is starting to grow. This class is where
- 37:26I teach a philosophy
- 37:28of
- 37:30professional communication.
- 37:31It starts off
- 37:33as a class about negotiations and how to do interest based negotiations, then it moves into
- 37:39introductions and storytellings. How do you talk about
- 37:42yourself 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.
- 37:49Then I have a session on having deeper conversations,
- 37:53and these are conversations that can help you if you're a sales person. You wanna figure out how do I build a better relationship.
- 37:59It 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
- 38:11have a way of thinking about how you interact with people.
- 38:14Then I do a session on conflict,
- 38:17how to resolve conflict. This is a class favorite. People really love this class because
- 38:22it takes conflict, and instead of making it about,
- 38:26why 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,
- 38:38a class, a session
- 38:39on presenting and feedback.
- 38:42And so I give some some,
- 38:44ways 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,
- 38:54part of this where I talk about feedback. And that's because often when I teach this class,
- 38:59I won't have the time and bandwidth to give everybody individual feedback about their presentations,
- 39:04but 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.
- 39:16So, anyway, all this to say, if you are somebody running an organization
- 39:20or a company or you want yourself to, to engage with this class,
- 39:25I 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,
- 39:37over
- 39:38a, you know, about a a day and a half,
- 39:42on-site.
- 39:43We can figure out to do something online or we do sessions right here in Saint Louis. So if you're interested,
- 39:49send me an email, vance@legacyinterviews.com.
- 39:53There 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
- 40:05probably the best well received,
- 40:07work 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,
- 40:23where we'll toss around Bitcoin or I'll have another guest on to do the Ag Tribes Report.
- 40:28I 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.
- 40:38I was devastated
- 40:40and spent the next ten years learning why people listen to him instead of me. In this talk, I share what I've found.
- 40:47I'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.