Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 232: The Hard Truth About Ranching in 2026: Regulation, Consolidation, and What Comes Next with John Campbell

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232: The Hard Truth About Ranching in 2026: Regulation, Consolidation, and What Comes Next with John Campbell · CattleUSA Daily

• 0:00
  In today's episode with John Campbell, we're switching it up
• 0:02
  a little bit due to the week of Christmas.
• 0:04
  There weren't a whole lot of markets that were functioning
• 0:07
  this week. So we kind of cover a little bit
• 0:09
  on what we've seen in the market just from a few places that have
• 0:12
  been open and running. But then we are going into a
• 0:16
  topic this week that I think a lot of you are going to
• 0:19
  understand and relate to, and that is just kind of a 30,000
• 0:23
  foot view on the government and the government and the cattle
• 0:27
  industry and what all of those things mean as far as where we
• 0:32
  are right now, where we've kind of been and where are we going
• 0:35
  to be going as well. John makes some really good
• 0:38
  points in today's episode that I know a lot of you are going to
• 0:41
  relate to. Before we hop into today's
• 0:43
  episode, make sure that if you're watching on YouTube to
• 0:45
  hit that subscribe button and like this episode.
• 0:48
  If you're watching on any of our other podcast platforms, make
• 0:51
  sure you take a second to follow the show and go right and review
• 0:53
  it as well. Without further ado, let's go
• 0:56
  ahead and hear from John. Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily
• 1:02
  podcast, your go to source for the latest livestock markets,
• 1:06
  industry insights and the updates shaping agriculture
• 1:08
  today. I'm your host, Lauren Moylan, a
• 1:11
  passionate advocate for agriculture, here to keep you
• 1:13
  informed and connected. Now let's dive into today's
• 1:17
  episode. John, welcome back to the
• 1:25
  podcast. How was your Christmas?
• 1:28
  How has the holidays been? You're back in Colorado, but do
• 1:32
  you enjoy some time with the kids?
• 1:34
  And I hear you had a prime rib that turned out pretty amazing.
• 1:37
  Yes, all of above is true. Fighting a little crap, you
• 1:42
  know, for like 10 days. So I guess get get on the
• 1:47
  ivormec and see where that takes me.
• 1:50
  Yeah, my husband and I have also been fighting something for the
• 1:53
  past like week and a half and he's the one that brought it
• 1:56
  home and so he is fully out of blame.
• 1:59
  For this one, no, no, no, no. Of course.
• 2:02
  That is a gender deal. I.
• 2:05
  Mean if you get sick, he got you sick.
• 2:09
  He. Did.
• 2:10
  Though he was sick about it And you deny it because oh, no, no,
• 2:14
  no, no. That, that's completely
• 2:15
  different. Yours is up here and mine was
• 2:18
  down here. You didn't get that for me.
• 2:21
  That, that, that come from somewhere else.
• 2:24
  And besides that, you're, you're the one that's probably going to
• 2:26
  give it to all the kids. Yep, precisely.
• 2:29
  And the worst part about it is, Sean, I was like on my deathbed
• 2:33
  on the 23rd, which was the day before Christmas Eve.
• 2:36
  I was like, and he was fine. I was like, you got me sick and
• 2:40
  now I'm over here about to die. And then we got over it,
• 2:43
  thankfully, for Christmas, and then something else came back to
• 2:46
  bite us in the butt, and now we've got this head cold and of
• 2:50
  the whole shebang. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:54
  I don't know what I need to be taken, but the medicine that
• 2:57
  we're taking right now ain't working.
• 3:00
  You know, he's it's hard enough shooting one of them things with
• 3:03
  a bow and arrow, a stick, but then to be sick on top of it.
• 3:07
  Why that's? Yeah, exactly.
• 3:10
  And we had that little like burst of snow, really bad wind a
• 3:15
  few days ago here in Manhattan. Oh my gosh, it was like 60 mile
• 3:18
  an hour winds outside. Guess what this man went to go
• 3:20
  do? He went hunting.
• 3:22
  I was like you, You can pile up your cold weather clothes and go
• 3:28
  climb a tree by yourself. Don't fall out.
• 3:32
  Make sure your phone is hooked to you.
• 3:33
  If the wind comes and takes you along the breeze, give me a call
• 3:38
  and I guess I'll come get you. Oh yes, so it's been a very
• 3:41
  eventful week. Do you have anything wonderful
• 3:43
  planned for the new year? I know you were giving me a hard
• 3:46
  time because my husband and I will probably be asleep by 10:00
• 3:49
  PM. Now you've already rolled it
• 3:51
  back an hour. You told me 9 Hell, now you're
• 3:54
  going to just the same face. You're getting it out another
• 3:58
  hour. OK, 9:00 ten o'clock.
• 4:03
  You know somewhere in there I will not be staying up until
• 4:07
  midnight unless unless I am reading a really good book, then
• 4:11
  I can probably stay up until midnight, but otherwise I will
• 4:14
  be passed out long before that. Your kids aren't going to drag
• 4:17
  you off to some podunk little dance hall.
• 4:20
  Would you call it earlier? The you said something earlier,
• 4:24
  like you said, it's like a dive bar, but you said something
• 4:27
  different. It wasn't a dive bar.
• 4:28
  It was, I don't know, whatever. You're not going to get dragged
• 4:32
  out of the house and you're probably going to be asleep by
• 4:34
  9:00 too, so I don't. Want to No for sure.
• 4:36
  Yeah, no, all, all all of the above is true.
• 4:38
  I I can't even make it through the football game that starts at
• 4:42
  6. You know, that's fair.
• 4:45
  And a book that do nothing but really knock me out so.
• 4:50
  You need to read some better books, John.
• 4:52
  Or ones with more pictures. There you go.
• 4:56
  I think I can hook you up with some of those.
• 5:01
  Boy oh boy, I love it. Well, would you like to
• 5:04
  introduce our topic for the day? Well, you know the markets are
• 5:08
  down. I think Joplin had a sale Monday
• 5:11
  and it was good and they had a big volume and but everybody
• 5:14
  else pretty well shut down. Pardon me, I think well, I don't
• 5:17
  think I know Dodge City having a sale tomorrow, but last week
• 5:22
  with Christmas why pretty much non existent.
• 5:24
  So nothing to report on there. And I thought, well, you should
• 5:28
  do a year end synopsis of what went on and what happened and
• 5:33
  this and that. And I thought, hell, we've
• 5:36
  already worked that to death. So I thought maybe touch on just
• 5:41
  kind of where we're at, why we're there, where we going,
• 5:45
  what decisions are we going to make from this point forward?
• 5:49
  And not, not, not me so much, but some somewhat me.
• 5:53
  But anyway, I, I, I just got to step back and look and, and I'm,
• 5:59
  I'm thinking about this new program that Rollins is going to
• 6:04
  introduce. And, and I read through the
• 6:06
  whole thing and, and, you know, yeah, if it all goes through and
• 6:11
  it, it's wide open. But, you know, most ranchers
• 6:16
  that I know are, they're pretty damn stubborn and they have a
• 6:21
  dislike, I think, for government programs and, and really take
• 6:25
  pride in distancing themselves from farmers who do and not not
• 6:32
  taking a welfare check seems to be the rancher battle cry.
• 6:37
  You know, my God, I'm not taking no check from the government and
• 6:40
  dot and dot and, and good for them, you know, but one thing
• 6:45
  that the farmers realized a long time ago is that, you know,
• 6:48
  keeping the government out of their business was just going to
• 6:52
  be impossible. And cattle producers are just
• 6:56
  now starting to get that bad taste, I think, in their mouth
• 7:01
  and the same one that these farmers have had for years.
• 7:04
  And the government deals have always been out there on the
• 7:06
  fringe. And, and most people I know
• 7:10
  don't really sign up for the ranch guys, you know, And it
• 7:14
  seems regardless of the party that's in control, our
• 7:18
  government has always had, as we talked before it, a cheap food
• 7:22
  policy. And they're in is keeping it
• 7:28
  that way. I, I, I believe that and as
• 7:31
  producers that cheap food, we're at the bottom of the food chain
• 7:37
  and we're the price takers. It's been said over and over
• 7:40
  again, and we have very limited ability to add value or pass any
• 7:46
  kind of additional input costs along to any consumer or any
• 7:51
  buyer. And I think everybody feels the
• 7:55
  same way as I do. Our government uses our
• 7:58
  commodities as both a bargaining chip and a whipping boy in trade
• 8:04
  deals and tariff negotiations. And we're expected to live with,
• 8:09
  deal with and die with the results.
• 8:12
  Our government tells us that if we can't produce it cheap enough
• 8:15
  for this cheap food policy that well, this on you and we'll go
• 8:19
  buy it cheaper somewhere else. So you know they're they're
• 8:22
  choking us to death with one hand and using the other hand
• 8:26
  stuff our ass full of regulations and policy on you
• 8:30
  name it, federal grazing, water use, animal welfare, endangered
• 8:35
  species, greenhouse gas, global warming, animal IDEPA labor,
• 8:42
  foreign competition and encroachment.
• 8:45
  And then every once in a while they wake up one day and say, oh
• 8:50
  shit, look, all our producers are either broke, they quit
• 8:55
  business or on their they're on the USDA welfare program.
• 8:59
  And also we just outsourced most of our US food supply and
• 9:04
  vertically integrated all the ones that remain.
• 9:06
  Those independent ranchers that are left are tough and pretty
• 9:11
  damn smart. But what what do we do?
• 9:15
  The average age is 6058 something point something, but
• 9:19
  around it 60 years old. Or, you know, we're up to our
• 9:23
  ass and in the government overreach or, or the lack of it.
• 9:27
  And do we sell it to the deer and elk hunters?
• 9:30
  Or do we give it to the next generation, which most of them
• 9:35
  have already left or the ones that are still here don't want
• 9:38
  it? Or do we sign up for the bridge
• 9:41
  assistance program and trade our cowboy hat for a ball cap?
• 9:46
  Or do we just kind of pull our hat down and fight the bastards
• 9:51
  to the very end? It's kind of like, and you may
• 9:54
  not have heard this, Lord, it's kind of like the old Johnny Cash
• 9:56
  song. I don't like it, but I guess
• 9:59
  things happen that way. And I really suspect we'll do a
• 10:03
  little bit of all four. Yes.
• 10:08
  Happy New Year. We're really going out the year
• 10:13
  with a bang on that one. John and I have heard the Johnny
• 10:18
  Cash song. Thank you very much.
• 10:19
  I grew up on a road tunes playlist with my father that he
• 10:23
  would be very disappointed in me if I didn't know.
• 10:26
  So no kidding. I've absolutely heard that.
• 10:28
  Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me?
• 10:29
  I was the I was the one in charge of the flip book of all
• 10:33
  the CDs when we were going down the road all the time.
• 10:36
  So very familiar. I do say so myself.
• 10:40
  I can't say I listen to it all that often now.
• 10:42
  But if I didn't have a head cold, I'd sing a few things.
• 10:45
  Well, we can bring that back in the new year when your head cold
• 10:48
  is gone, Everyone can come back to hear John's wonderful singing
• 10:51
  voice rendition of Johnny Cash, right?
• 10:55
  Absolutely. I think that that would be a
• 10:57
  great special here on the podcast if I do say so much.
• 11:00
  But you know, we really are at AT and I don't know if it's a
• 11:03
  crossroads, but you know, here, here we are.
• 11:06
  Hell, everybody's old and wore out and and you know, you have
• 11:11
  this legacy that you'd like to pass on.
• 11:14
  And like I said, hell, there's a lot of kids.
• 11:20
  You're 1 case. I'm one case.
• 11:22
  We're just loaded up and said, hell, we're moving on.
• 11:25
  I I'm not going to fight this battle and subsequently why?
• 11:29
  That's why we're all old and, and it's really a dilemma.
• 11:33
  And, and I think if Rollins and Kennedy and, and the powers that
• 11:40
  be, I think they are of the right persuasion.
• 11:44
  And if they get things loosened up with the EPA, with the
• 11:48
  environmentalist, with the grazing, with, you know,
• 11:51
  they're, they're going to offer some money to these people.
• 11:54
  But that's kind of a double edged sword because like I said,
• 11:57
  that the rancher is sitting over here and you know what, trade
• 12:02
  his cowboy hat in for a farmer's seed corn hat.
• 12:07
  And, and, and they cussed those guys and, and we're all such a
• 12:11
  proud bunch that boy, we just don't want to go down that road.
• 12:15
  But inevitably, you know, when all of this chaos is created by
• 12:21
  the government and they continually inject all of these
• 12:25
  things into our business that directly effects supply and
• 12:30
  directly affects the price. You know, Warren, what the hell
• 12:33
  other option do you have? You got us in this mess.
• 12:37
  They'll bail our ass out. And and and I don't degrudge
• 12:40
  anybody that and I've said that before that wants to take the
• 12:44
  money, take the payment. But the lifestyle, the
• 12:47
  persuasion, the mentality kind of starts to shift and and and I
• 12:53
  just know the world is or the United States is full of people
• 12:57
  my age or older. And that's not part of their
• 13:00
  success model. They will fight it to the end
• 13:03
  and say I I don't give a shit. I I ain't going down that road
• 13:06
  and meet it and are top interesting to me do and it's
• 13:11
  never a cut and dried answer. It isn't just this, this, this,
• 13:14
  like I said it, it's a combination of all four and
• 13:17
  ever, you know, the world keeps going and some guys will sell
• 13:22
  out, like I said to the deer hunters and some will say no,
• 13:26
  no, no, no, no. OK, well, give me a little.
• 13:29
  So it, like I said, it's probably a combination of all
• 13:33
  things. We're the writing's on the wall
• 13:36
  as far as diluting our numbers. And, and I don't know, like I
• 13:40
  said, the guys that are left are pretty tough and they can do it.
• 13:43
  They'll stick it out a lot of what they got paid for and
• 13:46
  they're just going to rock along.
• 13:48
  But it's the next turn that that I worry about.
• 13:52
  And, and we've, we've talked about that before, but unless
• 13:55
  you want to sign up and, and, and take a little, take a little
• 13:59
  bailout money, why it's pretty tough to get lined out and going
• 14:04
  unless you've got some parents that are really willing to jump
• 14:08
  in and finance you, which there is a percentage of that that
• 14:12
  goes on, always has been. But we can see by our age and by
• 14:15
  the decline in numbers that were, we're kind of losing the
• 14:19
  battle here. Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:21
  And it's like it's the hamster wheel concept.
• 14:23
  Like you get on and it's really hard to get off.
• 14:27
  You do one thing and then all of a sudden it's just it goes
• 14:30
  faster and faster and faster and then all of a sudden you're
• 14:32
  like, what happened? Where am I?
• 14:34
  How did how did we get here? And you make so many good points
• 14:38
  from succession planning aspects to just like government
• 14:41
  interference to hey, just like let us be ranchers, right?
• 14:46
  Like back off and just let us do our jobs.
• 14:48
  I think that's what the mentality that so many
• 14:51
  traditional style ranchers have of just leave me the hell alone.
• 14:56
  Have my cabin in the wood. Let me have my cows.
• 14:59
  Don't talk to me, don't call, don't send me a letter in the
• 15:02
  mail from the IRS. Like just leave me the hell
• 15:04
  alone, right? And there's so much to unpack
• 15:09
  there, just within a mentality aspect, within a tradition of
• 15:15
  legacy and ranching aspect. But then there's also the
• 15:18
  longevity aspect of like, if we're going to stick in this
• 15:22
  business for the rest of our lives and the rest of the next
• 15:26
  generations lives and so on and so forth, what are we going to
• 15:30
  have to do? Like, is this going to have to
• 15:32
  be something that we acknowledge is an issue?
• 15:35
  Because it's so hard right now to be a rancher and really stick
• 15:39
  to your guns. Unless, like you said, you're
• 15:40
  one of those people that has everything paid off and you're
• 15:43
  in a situation where you can kind of stick to your guns and
• 15:45
  it's not a big deal. But Lord, we've seen so much of
• 15:48
  an increase in input costs and not an increase in our
• 15:52
  production of what we're getting at the end of the day.
• 15:55
  And it makes it really hard to sit back and say, this is
• 15:58
  something that I can make sustainable to something that,
• 16:01
  you know, a lot of people can be like, I think I can stick this
• 16:03
  out for the rest of my life. Especially if you're in your 50s
• 16:06
  or 60s and you're like, I've got 20, maybe 30 good years left,
• 16:09
  right? I can stick it out for then.
• 16:11
  But what about your next generation?
• 16:13
  How what are you handing down to them?
• 16:15
  And is that going to be something that they're going to
• 16:18
  be able to sit there and feasibly say, this is something
• 16:21
  that I can take over and do it well?
• 16:23
  Or are they going to have to say I'm going to have to sell it
• 16:27
  because we're not in a situation that this was made sustainable
• 16:30
  20 years ago? Well, and so much of the
• 16:33
  scenario that exists now over the years, cumulatively the
• 16:37
  government has, has put us into this position.
• 16:40
  And I'm not blaming them 100%, but you know, if you went
• 16:44
  through this last fall and seen $50 price swings like we've
• 16:49
  talked about, that's insurmountable.
• 16:52
  I, I, I mean, we cannot exist in that scenario.
• 16:56
  It's just too much. And so we're at the mercy of
• 17:01
  that and, and it's overwhelming as far as the effect that it,
• 17:04
  that it has on everyone. And if you build all this equity
• 17:08
  over a lifetime, yes, you can handle a year or two or
• 17:12
  something like that. But if not, you got to go the
• 17:16
  way of the row crop farmer. And you know, they'll just
• 17:22
  incentivize you up to overproduction and then you'll
• 17:27
  sell down to nothing for nothing.
• 17:30
  And then they'll create another program to help the program that
• 17:35
  they created in the 1st place. And it, it's just that, I don't
• 17:39
  know, our numbers are slow and, and we're, we're at an extreme
• 17:43
  disadvantage, but that's, that's, that's where we're at.
• 17:46
  And, and I think it's more evident now than ever.
• 17:49
  But maybe we got a shot. Maybe, maybe the government will
• 17:53
  do all the things. But you even look at the plan
• 17:56
  that Rollins laid out and man, oh man, it's wide open, you
• 18:00
  know, make more capital available.
• 18:03
  They're going to money available for 50 more independent packing
• 18:07
  plates. Well, that's great.
• 18:08
  If you're young enough and got enough drive and desire to be
• 18:11
  one of the 50, that opens another packing plant.
• 18:15
  And that's pretty self-serving because if you still got the guy
• 18:19
  out there with 100 calves or 200 calves, what the Hell's he going
• 18:23
  to do? They're already at the same
• 18:25
  time. He isn't going to put them all
• 18:26
  through the little independent Packer.
• 18:28
  And it's a great concept and good, but boy, oh boy, that's a
• 18:32
  pretty big issue of starting over.
• 18:36
  And think every one of those PowerPoints that she lays out,
• 18:39
  you can enact and, and get rolling and going that that is a
• 18:43
  big play. And then they got to get the
• 18:46
  money to pay for it. All in two years.
• 18:49
  Yeah, right, right, exactly. And then you go through the
• 18:54
  gauntlet and changing it over again, you know, so.
• 18:58
  Exactly. That's I think a big concern
• 19:00
  that I've seen from a lot of people is, OK, this is all good
• 19:03
  and well in theory, right? By the time we actually
• 19:07
  implement any of this, it's going to be time for a new
• 19:09
  administration to come in. And God forbid a new
• 19:13
  administration comes in and says scratch and all of it, it's all
• 19:17
  gone. And then you're one of the 50
• 19:19
  that opened an independent packing plant and you're like
• 19:22
  head over heels, millions of dollars in debt and you're like,
• 19:25
  what the hell am I supposed to do now, right?
• 19:27
  Like whether you're opening your own packing plant or whether
• 19:30
  you're a new producer starting an operation from scratch, like
• 19:33
  we carry millions of dollars of debt overload in a lot of our
• 19:37
  businesses. And I would be shit in the bed
• 19:42
  if I was in that situation, right?
• 19:43
  Like I can't sit there. I know I cussed John.
• 19:46
  I can't sit there in that situation and validate saying
• 19:49
  like, yeah, let's do it. Let's let's be gung ho.
• 19:51
  Let's let's, let's go shoot for the moon, because we might shoot
• 19:56
  for the moon and in two years someone's going to come through
• 19:58
  with a missile and say no, nice try.
• 20:01
  You know, they these little independent Packers, the thing
• 20:04
  that has shut so many of them down up to this point is is
• 20:08
  you've again, you've got the regulators that say, Lauren, you
• 20:13
  know you're killing 457 head a day when you're really getting
• 20:17
  and going. Did we mention that you need a
• 20:20
  700,000 water filtration system in order to comply with the
• 20:25
  regs? And like you said, you're,
• 20:28
  you're out one shot like that from a, from an EPA standpoint,
• 20:33
  an environmental standpoint, whatever it is, I mean, all of
• 20:36
  us that there's a, there's a, there's a silver bullet out
• 20:41
  there somewhere that loaded in a right gun shoot you in the head
• 20:45
  and you're done. Yeah, well, and.
• 20:47
  From a person well, by that crap, just I just touched on a
• 20:52
  partial list of everything's out there.
• 20:55
  I've run cattle on grass before and I said, what the hell is
• 20:59
  this chicken shit fence you got all around the water?
• 21:01
  We've got to have a zone for the wildlife so they can drink.
• 21:06
  So you're going to fence the cattle off the water.
• 21:09
  And I mean, you hear about it all the time developing a spring
• 21:13
  somewhere and we'll well, shit, you changed the whole
• 21:17
  infrastructure of the Creek and the this and the that and
• 21:21
  they're there as we speak. There's battles being fought
• 21:25
  constantly over that kind of crap.
• 21:28
  And even if you get it changed federally, you got a bunch of
• 21:31
  goofballs like we've got here in Colorado and the hell then you
• 21:35
  got to go through the state bullshit, you know, hell, we're
• 21:40
  we're we want to rewild our state ground, turn the
• 21:44
  buffaloes, the Prairie dogs back out anyway, Yeah, we we've
• 21:48
  always and it's helping. So like I.
• 21:51
  Said always. Doing your shit, just laying off
• 21:55
  that that's, that's what I'm going to do.
• 21:58
  I'll stand right behind you, John.
• 21:59
  OK. All right.
• 22:01
  I'll let you be my little guard, but I'll be right behind you.
• 22:03
  And it's like there's so many different aspects that I think
• 22:06
  we all have stories, right? Like my family, we got a letter
• 22:09
  in the mail the other day, like a couple weeks ago at this point
• 22:12
  that said, hey, you, you've owned this property for 50
• 22:17
  years. Never had to do this before, but
• 22:19
  hey, you're supposed to get your dams inspected every five years
• 22:22
  and then send us a little thing in the mail that says that
• 22:24
  you've done it right. Well, we call them up and they
• 22:27
  say you got to get it inspected by December 31st.
• 22:29
  And we're like, we got this in the mail on December 25th.
• 22:32
  Like, what do you mean we got to get it done by December 31st?
• 22:35
  We give them a call and they're like, well, we can, we can
• 22:37
  extend it till March for you. And we're like, OK, what do we
• 22:40
  need to do to get this inspected?
• 22:42
  Like what's, what's this going to cost us, right?
• 22:43
  Like how many cows do I have to sell to go get this freaking dam
• 22:46
  inspected on a piece of land that we've 100% owned for 50
• 22:49
  years, right? And they're like, oh, well, it
• 22:51
  could cost anywhere from 5 to $10,000 to get an inspection
• 22:54
  done. And we're like, for a piece of
• 22:56
  paper, take the dam down. I don't need it.
• 23:00
  I we don't need it. It's fine.
• 23:02
  Like just take it down at this point.
• 23:04
  I'll build a new one in a few years and you guys can haggle me
• 23:07
  then, right? Like there is just so much that
• 23:11
  happens. And I think every single
• 23:12
  producer has a story of you just sit back and you're like, what
• 23:17
  the hell, You need me. You need me to do what?
• 23:20
  And you want me to spend how much?
• 23:23
  And it's just constant, like there's always something and
• 23:28
  it's just like. Yeah.
• 23:31
  And then you're, you're, you're dealing with generational
• 23:33
  differences that the guy that is my age or older that's put
• 23:38
  everything into it. He pulls up and he's probably
• 23:42
  going to going to do it. And then we got the next
• 23:45
  generation that has grown up without consequences and and and
• 23:49
  I'm not putting your generation down, but they say are you nuts?
• 23:54
  I'm not dealing with this horseshit.
• 23:56
  Sell a son of a bitch. Hell, forget it.
• 24:00
  Hell, work my ass off. Do all this shit and what the
• 24:02
  hell, I'll go sack grocery somewhere and put the money on
• 24:06
  interest 'cause I didn't want to work that hard anyway.
• 24:10
  And the lifestyle deal, I like the one I've got, not the one
• 24:14
  that I, my dad had to grow up in 'cause he didn't have any other
• 24:18
  choice. And you know, we know that
• 24:20
  that's good for all of us. Having consequences.
• 24:24
  You know, you've got to walk with purpose.
• 24:26
  You got to do something. You have to be a strong
• 24:28
  character and intellect and value and all those things we
• 24:32
  think are good. But there's just, and it hasn't
• 24:35
  just happened, but there's been this dilution of all of that
• 24:40
  till we get where we are now to complacency because nobody's
• 24:46
  held your ass to the fire and said, you Lord, you will make
• 24:50
  that work. I don't give a shit if you got
• 24:52
  to put the dams in there by hand.
• 24:55
  You got plenty of time. Get your happy ass out there and
• 24:57
  get to doing it. You're not going to do it.
• 25:00
  And that's just the way you're weird.
• 25:03
  And I'm not saying you perfect. I'm saying as things have
• 25:06
  evolved that that's where we're at.
• 25:08
  You'll have a few, you know, I mean, no, we got people S here,
• 25:12
  still got dirt floors where they live.
• 25:15
  True story. They'll do it, you know what I
• 25:18
  mean, 'cause they know what it's like to go without, just like
• 25:22
  the generation before us did. And that built a character, like
• 25:27
  I said, nobody's fault. But that has deteriorated to the
• 25:31
  point where all of this pressure that really they dealt with, but
• 25:36
  it was a different kind of a, it was a survival mode deal.
• 25:39
  You didn't have a choice and to where now we just feel like
• 25:44
  we're LED around by the nose and we're regulated to death and and
• 25:48
  we've got Big Brother up there. That shit just makes us or
• 25:52
  breaks us in 15 minutes and we're supposed to work within
• 25:56
  that. Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:59
  You make so many good points on all of it.
• 26:03
  I agree with you on a lot of them.
• 26:05
  So I know you're not alone. If I if I agree with you on a
• 26:08
  lot of them, John, I know you're not alone.
• 26:09
  No, but you're, you're conservative though.
• 26:12
  You're you're, you're from, you're from good stock.
• 26:16
  I know. Absolutely.
• 26:17
  I love it. Well, as we round up the
• 26:19
  podcast, I have a little question for you.
• 26:21
  We're starting 2026. What is something that you would
• 26:25
  like a hard truth, a real reality, A you want to see this
• 26:30
  in the cattle industry, something like that as we go
• 26:32
  into 2026, what's some change or just a hard truth that you want
• 26:38
  people to start accepting as we go into 2026?
• 26:40
  Well, something that I'd like to see happen versus how we go
• 26:45
  about doing it are two different things.
• 26:48
  But, and you touched on it earlier, I, I don't know, and it
• 26:54
  takes somebody a hell of a lot smarter than I am.
• 26:58
  But how do we recreate this atmosphere of where supply,
• 27:06
  demand, competition all rejuvenates itself to where we
• 27:12
  have, in my opinion, more of a, a pure industry where we don't
• 27:17
  have to rely on selling everything to one guy and making
• 27:21
  a deal with him. And, and we don't have this
• 27:23
  monopolistic environment at, at the top of the pyramid that
• 27:28
  trickles down and effects every one of us.
• 27:31
  And you're, you're either in an alliance or you're out.
• 27:34
  Like it's been said so many times.
• 27:36
  How do we get back to that posture where we level the
• 27:40
  playing field with minimal government involvement, don't
• 27:44
  over produce, feed ourselves and feed ourselves well at a price
• 27:49
  everybody can afford and keep keep everybody in in survival
• 27:55
  mode without this government interjection of capital and
• 28:01
  compromise. And that makes up the only thing
• 28:03
  that that that can keep us in existence.
• 28:05
  So I don't know how we get there.
• 28:08
  We've been there before, but but it's like society as a whole, do
• 28:13
  we just have to completely flush out?
• 28:16
  I mean, do we have to just get down and get rotten and get
• 28:20
  broke before we have the whereabouts and the gumption to
• 28:24
  start over? It's too easy to give up.
• 28:27
  It's too easy to quit. And so we've instilled that in
• 28:32
  our mind and, and I've wore it out.
• 28:34
  But there, you know, we, we just compromise our, our, our self
• 28:41
  into mediocrity and, and, and I think that's where we're at.
• 28:46
  I don't know whether you have to have a war or, or we just go
• 28:50
  completely upside down as a society, not necessarily just
• 28:54
  the cattle business in general. Boy, you know, I wouldn't, I
• 28:58
  wouldn't wish that on anybody. But I think that's, that's the
• 29:02
  big question out there. What we all know something needs
• 29:06
  to be done, but man, oh man, without really hurting and and
• 29:11
  really complicating society, how do you get there?
• 29:15
  That is the $1,000,000 question on everyone's mind in some way,
• 29:19
  shape or form. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 29:22
  Well, John, as always, thank you for your time.
• 29:25
  Thank you for your insight, your candor, all of the things.
• 29:28
  To all of our listeners. Thanks for tuning in to another
• 29:31
  episode. Happy New Year and we will see
• 29:34
  you all next year on another episode.
• 29:37
  Have a good one y'all.