Latest / The Vance Crowe Podcast / ATR: Europe failing and China is Deflating with @nnzp1730

Transcript

ATR: Europe failing and China is Deflating with @nnzp1730 · The Vance Crowe Podcast

• 0:33
  Unknown: The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews,
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  a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interview's guests, Daryl and Jill Stamp, on the joy of filming their Legacy Interview.
• 0:49
  Unknown: What do you think you'll tell your kids about the experience?
• 0:53
  Unknown: Oh, I'm gonna thank them a lot. I realize this is more for them
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  and their kids
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  and their kids
• 1:01
  than it is us, the grandkids
• 1:03
  Alright. Who don't know these stories.
• 1:05
  I can't wait to for us all to get together and see it. This went better than I thought it was gonna. Time does go fast, so it's What time is it? It's almost 03:00.
• 1:15
  No way. Yes. God, you talked so much. I know.
• 1:22
  Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture
• 1:27
  with your host, Vance Crowe.
• 1:30
  The report begins in three,
• 1:32
  two,
• 1:33
  one. Let's begin.
• 1:38
  Unknown: Welcome
• 1:39
  to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week, I bring on a new cohost that represents one of the many tribes that make up US and Canadian agriculture.
• 1:48
  This week, we are doing something a little bit different. I was on the phone with n n z p and,
• 1:55
  he had some absolutely fascinating things to say about what was going on in the world economy.
• 2:00
  And while I had a script written up that we could talk about the regenerative ag bill where they're pumping $700,000,000
• 2:06
  in and the $12,000,000,000
• 2:09
  of funds that are going to farmers as a bridge payment
• 2:12
  and, all these other things going on. I thought, you know what? The real depth of knowledge will come when I talk to NNZP
• 2:19
  about the stuff that we were talking about in the car today. So welcome, NNZP.
• 2:24
  Unknown: How are you doing, Vance? Good to be on again.
• 2:28
  Unknown: Yeah. I'm I'm doing well. I, I don't ordinarily
• 2:31
  call audibles like this, but I I the news this week was so prolific. There was so much going on. I was like, oh, this is gonna be an easy week to write up. But our conversation
• 2:42
  about, what's going on in Europe and China
• 2:45
  was so fascinating to me that I thought, hey. Let's just talk about those subjects and let somebody else cover the news
• 2:52
  this week. And, so why don't we dive into it?
• 2:55
  As, as just a way for people to have an understanding of kind of your background and where you're coming from as we talk about the world economy,
• 3:03
  give a little background on yourself.
• 3:05
  Unknown: Sure. I'm,
• 3:06
  a farm kid from Central Illinois.
• 3:09
  I'm an engineer
• 3:10
  with a business degree.
• 3:13
  Later enough, I started,
• 3:16
  in automotive manufacturing in 1995,
• 3:20
  and my first trip abroad was to Germany. Actually, when we when we were talking about this, I thought about it, and it was in 1997.
• 3:29
  And my first trip to China was in '20,
• 3:32
  2002.
• 3:34
  I have had joint ventures, Wolfie's,
• 3:37
  other dealings in China.
• 3:40
  I bought and sold businesses in China,
• 3:43
  and,
• 3:44
  and also done a lot of manufacturing ship parts both to and from China and to and from Europe.
• 3:50
  So I've run companies for the last twenty years,
• 3:54
  as CEO,
• 3:55
  which is astounding to me.
• 3:58
  And I can't believe that it's been twenty years, but this year makes it twenty years. And
• 4:03
  I'm not that old. I'm 57. I'll be 57 here shortly. So, hopefully, I've got another ten years maybe in me, to continue doing this. But this is probably one of the most interesting times
• 4:14
  that I've
• 4:15
  seen in manufacturing
• 4:16
  and in global business,
• 4:18
  as we navigate our way through what has been happening since 2015
• 4:23
  and supply chain breakdowns.
• 4:25
  Unknown: Well, I think it's worth telling everybody that your camera is not accidentally pointed at your keyboard. It is because you wanna keep your anonymity because you are doing business all over the world, and,
• 4:37
  some of your takes are not so pleasant for some of the other governments around the world.
• 4:43
  Unknown: Yeah. I would agree with that.
• 4:46
  And I have lots of conversations with other CEOs and other manufacturing people around the world,
• 4:51
  and some people agree with me and some people don't. So,
• 4:55
  and it's always interesting.
• 4:56
  I love it when people tell me about the Canadian
• 5:00
  manufacturing people and how they disagree with me. Well, I know a lot of them, and a lot of them don't disagree with me, when they talk to me in person. So it's
• 5:08
  interesting.
• 5:10
  A lot of the Europeans, when I talk to them in private, they have their own misgivings.
• 5:16
  Certainly,
• 5:17
  China is a is a hard place to get a real read,
• 5:20
  because of, it's a massive surveillance state and people are concerned about what they say even in private.
• 5:27
  So it's hard to get a real read, but I've had friends there for years and years and years,
• 5:32
  that, if we're in the right place, they'll tell me what they really think. I think they'll what they really think. So I get an interesting perspective,
• 5:41
  on global business and global manufacturing.
• 5:44
  Unknown: Well, let's jump right into it. You know, our conversation as I was driving into work,
• 5:49
  was started off with what's going on in Europe and how their manufacturing
• 5:53
  is coming. So lay the land, what is going on there for manufacturing in Europe? Boy, it sure seems like,
• 5:59
  Unknown: Europe is trying to commit suicide on a business front,
• 6:04
  and they've done so under multiple different
• 6:07
  methods.
• 6:09
  The first one was the green agenda and the the dismantling of the nuclear plants. Now I was told on x that nobody misses those nuclear
• 6:18
  plants, but, boy, that's not the truth when you look at power
• 6:22
  prices and things like that. And and I always say, available, abundant,
• 6:27
  affordable energy is the key to everything, and
• 6:30
  it's not the case in Europe. And so Europe is
• 6:34
  deindustrializing
• 6:35
  very rapidly.
• 6:37
  They are trying to do some things,
• 6:39
  now,
• 6:41
  that I see differently, but they're also
• 6:44
  buying more and more from China. They are they're doubling down
• 6:48
  on on
• 6:50
  purchasing stuff in China thinking that low cost is going to save them. And I just don't see that how that's gonna work. Now when you say purchasing stuff from China, you mean, like, their toasters and their washing machines? Or you mean I mean, automotive factories.
• 7:03
  I mean, like, big big,
• 7:06
  global brand names buying lots of,
• 7:09
  component parts from Asia,
• 7:11
  coming in on the train that that,
• 7:14
  that starts in China and comes across
• 7:16
  comes across and deposits itself in Rotterdam.
• 7:20
  A lot of parts come in,
• 7:22
  and they are having a hard time. I mean, their their auto,
• 7:28
  industry is stuck.
• 7:30
  The there are countries that are letting in the Chinese
• 7:34
  brands,
• 7:35
  BYD,
• 7:36
  especially.
• 7:37
  There's a few others that have Geely have made the leap into either,
• 7:42
  Spain or Hungary.
• 7:43
  So they're coming in through the edges,
• 7:46
  and, the EU doesn't really have the power to stop a lot of that,
• 7:51
  and they're very disorganized as far as that goes. So it's,
• 7:55
  Unknown: But what's the problem? I mean, I thought we lived in a the world is flat, and it's a globalized economy, and we wanna have as much trade as we can. You make guns. I make butter. We make trade.
• 8:07
  Unknown: Man, did I ever tell you that I knew one of the guys in the in the world is flat? The one of chapters is a guy that I know personally,
• 8:13
  and, he doesn't have the business anymore that was written about there. He lost it in a bankruptcy. It's fascinating.
• 8:21
  And so,
• 8:22
  I know a lot about the World is Flat. I read it. I believed it when I was younger.
• 8:27
  But, you know, the reality is is that
• 8:31
  China has enough capacity
• 8:34
  and has a mercantilist
• 8:38
  economy to the point where they can undercut anything. So if
• 8:42
  it it it can happen to anyone anytime,
• 8:45
  blue collar, white collar, manufacturing
• 8:48
  jobs,
• 8:49
  anything,
• 8:51
  you know,
• 8:52
  can can happen,
• 8:54
  with what they're doing, and it's intentional.
• 8:56
  And they're undercutting stuff intentionally,
• 8:59
  and they're basically destroying the West's,
• 9:02
  ability to manufacture, which will lead right into our
• 9:06
  defense industries.
• 9:08
  And where that goes from there, I have no idea. But certainly not being able to make,
• 9:13
  make
• 9:15
  airplanes,
• 9:17
  air magnets for airplanes,
• 9:19
  which we've
• 9:20
  had the issue with in the past is is a real issue.
• 9:24
  Right? So, what are we gonna do? We see a lot of people we see The US doing it a little differently. You may like it. You may hate it. But, certainly, we're we're ramping up manufacturing
• 9:35
  as we go,
• 9:36
  and in certain industries and trying to save jobs. It comes down to jobs to well paying jobs,
• 9:42
  Unknown: and what's what's gonna happen there. Right? Yeah. So when you think about Europe, moving in and getting more of more of their stuff from China, Germany, for example,
• 9:54
  where is this gonna show up? Is this just that they're going to become beholden to the to the people that produce the parts? Why is this a problem?
• 10:01
  Unknown: I was told,
• 10:03
  by a well placed person
• 10:06
  in China
• 10:07
  that at some point,
• 10:09
  you would see
• 10:10
  German automotive plants being sold to Japanese to to Chinese
• 10:15
  auto manufacturers to manufacture.
• 10:18
  And I think we've seen one headline that says they may lease one to them.
• 10:24
  They these are big companies
• 10:26
  that that are very have been very successful, and they are struggling,
• 10:31
  to with output and struggling with cost, and they're struggling with competition with these, especially with electrification,
• 10:39
  and with general cost.
• 10:42
  Unknown: And so talk to me about China because what you told me,
• 10:46
  this morning kinda shocked me that they're going through a deflationary cycle. I almost don't believe in deflation.
• 10:52
  Unknown: Yeah. I mean, it's certainly deflationary in China. It's it's well known in China,
• 10:58
  that they're going through a deflationary
• 11:00
  period.
• 11:01
  They call it involution.
• 11:04
  And, there's actually that Xi has actually given,
• 11:08
  some speeches on stopping involution in the automotive industry, which means, they have too much capacity as prices are going down, which is the definition of deflation.
• 11:18
  Right?
• 11:19
  We have wages that are going down. We have massive,
• 11:23
  use unemployment in China.
• 11:25
  House prices
• 11:27
  have been collapsing,
• 11:28
  you know, have collapsed and are still continuing on a downward trend even in tier one cities.
• 11:35
  So they have,
• 11:37
  a lot of issues. They have built up,
• 11:40
  a capacity base that is just eating itself.
• 11:44
  And it's and and what they wanna do with that is they wanna export that to the rest of the world.
• 11:49
  And Europe is letting them. We are not.
• 11:52
  I know that people are struggling with some of this stuff and how does that affect our inflation and it will.
• 11:58
  But, it also is is, I think, an existential threat to our way of life.
• 12:05
  Unknown: So let me see if I understand. In China, they they created so much production capability. They could produce cars. They could produce microchips. They could produce all kinds of
• 12:16
  of things.
• 12:17
  And
• 12:18
  now because
• 12:19
  Europe and The United States maybe as a result of the tariffs,
• 12:23
  they're not buying as much. And so now you have this all this capacity,
• 12:27
  but people aren't buying it.
• 12:29
  Unknown: It's not
• 12:34
  what you have to realize is it's a it's a command economy. Right? And,
• 12:38
  the signal the the demand signal and the supply signal do not do not meet.
• 12:44
  So,
• 12:46
  they they build capacity because
• 12:49
  it's GDP.
• 12:50
  Right? They need GDP growth. They need five to 7% GDP growth to stay in power. So they're gonna do that somehow so they build capacity.
• 13:01
  And, where that capacity goes in the end,
• 13:04
  they don't worry about that until they got a problem, and now they have a problem. I mean, they they steel is a great industry. They just defined a company for
• 13:14
  for expanding capacity
• 13:16
  when they were not allowed to. Right? I mean, so,
• 13:20
  steel has they can probably make five times the steel that they can use in China.
• 13:27
  You know, so the capacity is disconnected
• 13:30
  from demand.
• 13:31
  It's all about employment.
• 13:34
  And when you think about what their goal is, it's employment.
• 13:37
  And so they
• 13:39
  invest, and and then you have a decentralized
• 13:43
  model.
• 13:44
  It's centralized and decentralized. So there's a central government, but, you know, the the the joke or the parable is that, you know, the emperor is strong, but he is far away. Right? And the provinces,
• 13:56
  how they get,
• 13:58
  promoted, how they get promoted in the CCP
• 14:01
  is they do well in a province. So if you're a provincial head,
• 14:05
  you want your province to show economic growth and employment
• 14:10
  and and and forward movement, and that's how you get promoted into a higher cadres or to a better province.
• 14:17
  Right? So the provinces compete against each other. And so even though there may be an excess of steel capacity, there might be a province that still builds a steel mill,
• 14:27
  because they need they need the GDP.
• 14:30
  Right?
• 14:32
  So,
• 14:34
  it's it's disconnected from from the market signals.
• 14:39
  Unknown: And as you look at China, you're seeing something different than what is being, I think, propagandized to us all the time. You know, China is rising. They're getting so big. They're so powerful.
• 14:49
  Everything we need to do is oriented around making sure China doesn't overtake us. Where is that not accurate?
• 14:55
  Unknown: So,
• 14:56
  I didn't say it wasn't accurate. Remember,
• 14:58
  we discussed, we discussed two things can be true at the same time.
• 15:03
  China's got a
• 15:06
  a unbelievable
• 15:07
  manufacturing capability,
• 15:09
  and they have overtaken us in many, many, many things.
• 15:14
  Right? And if the yuan was accurately valued, they would probably be,
• 15:20
  equal in size to our economy,
• 15:23
  and and
• 15:24
  in The US,
• 15:26
  so in North America.
• 15:27
  So, they they have, but they have created
• 15:32
  such massive capacity. They need somewhere for it to go.
• 15:35
  And so, what they're doing inside literally is they're driving their prices down to the point where you can't profit. And,
• 15:43
  and profit is not a motive in a lot of these companies. They're again, it's a communist country. It's a it's a totalitarian
• 15:50
  system,
• 15:51
  with its command economy.
• 15:53
  So profit is not necessarily
• 15:55
  their end goal, which is the, you know, which, you know, The United States is an economic union. Right? It's it's about profit.
• 16:03
  And that's the way it was,
• 16:04
  you know,
• 16:06
  built up, and it's the way it's been since day one. And we we worry about
• 16:10
  Unknown: profit. I don't know, man. We we're hitting out a $12,000,000,000
• 16:15
  you know, bridge loan where the first words out of their mouths when they announced this loan is there's more money coming and we're gonna give you $12,000,000,000.
• 16:22
  It seems to me that China is a communist country with,
• 16:26
  capitalist leanings, and The United States is a capitalist country that's using communist,
• 16:32
  strategies in order to be able to keep the aristocracy
• 16:35
  owning the land.
• 16:37
  Unknown: Well, we certainly are moving closer together, aren't we?
• 16:40
  You know, and I think we were moving a lot closer together. Like, China's kinda reversed some course, and they've centralized a lot more, right, in the last since Xi,
• 16:49
  came into power. And,
• 16:51
  I just posted a on x interesting podcast to listen to about kinda how he changed the game,
• 16:58
  on pecanology.
• 17:00
  But,
• 17:02
  Yeah. I mean, we are certainly moving towards a more socialist
• 17:07
  schema
• 17:07
  and have been since FDR,
• 17:10
  really.
• 17:12
  But,
• 17:13
  it's really taken off in the last twenty five years, I would say, as we've moved a lot of manufacturing, a lot of high high value jobs out of the central
• 17:24
  category. And we've,
• 17:25
  turned ourselves kinda in a into a monocrop
• 17:28
  in the farming world and
• 17:31
  and get all born all the time for reasons you've talked about, you know, and other people have talked about about insurance and about, you know, crop insurance and about other things,
• 17:40
  and keeping,
• 17:41
  things going. But, yeah, there's I would say two things can be this, you know, true at the same time. And again, you know, we are we do care about the profit motive, but we certainly do a lot of support. I think 2009
• 17:55
  was a major break point,
• 17:57
  for
• 17:58
  our capitalist society, and we've certainly started moving towards more crony capitalism or socialistic
• 18:04
  capitalism
• 18:06
  as we go along where we socialize losses
• 18:09
  and, privatize gains.
• 18:11
  Unknown: So one of the things that was kicked around in the news regarding China and The US was,
• 18:16
  yeah, we got them to buy our soybeans, but we did it by allowing them to manufacture
• 18:22
  or or use,
• 18:24
  the chips that were coming out of of I don't was it just out of, NVIDIA or Taiwan?
• 18:30
  Unknown: What do you think of that deal? Yeah. Most of them will be made in tie
• 18:34
  most of them will be made in Taiwan. We have no NVIDIA,
• 18:37
  you know,
• 18:38
  Yeah. I mean so what do I make of that?
• 18:41
  How much of that soybean crop has been sold? How many days we got left to meet that, hurdle?
• 18:46
  Unknown: Yeah. I mean, they I think they've even moved it back to be like, well, we didn't mean December 31. We meant February 1.
• 18:53
  Unknown: Interesting. Right?
• 18:54
  Yeah. I mean, I think, I think the recent NVIDIA,
• 18:59
  announcement about the n 200 chips, I think there was something in the supply chain that was gonna break. And I think that, the reason why,
• 19:07
  those chips were let loose is because,
• 19:10
  we needed help.
• 19:12
  And
• 19:13
  I I I think that listen. My my thesis is very similar to another person
• 19:19
  on Twitter named Chris,
• 19:21
  who, has his own substack now and and talks about this. But,
• 19:26
  supply chain has been breaking down.
• 19:28
  We've had to patch them together.
• 19:30
  There have been a lot of deals made.
• 19:33
  And and I think this in February, you know, video chip thing is a is another deal to keep supply chains flowing.
• 19:40
  Unknown: And what does that mean if supply chains break? I mean, I can remember during COVID, we saw them break a little bit, you know, like but we were still able to go to the store and get whatever we want. When you say supply chain's breaking, what does that mean?
• 19:52
  Unknown: Well, it means, that we have a we're we're not able to get what we need to build what we want.
• 19:59
  It takes a 100% of the parts to build a car. Right? So you need all of them.
• 20:04
  And and some of those are simple chips. So we talked about that last time about,
• 20:09
  how China controls,
• 20:11
  the large majority of the simple chips.
• 20:13
  There's been a lot of, articles in The Wall Street Journal about, pharmaceutical,
• 20:19
  basics, you know, the things that go into pharmaceuticals and how much they they control of that market today.
• 20:25
  There's some chemicals. There's rare earths. There's other things that we need to keep supply chains going,
• 20:33
  and it it may be something you don't even know about that's in your iPhone or in your, you know, or in something you buy,
• 20:40
  that you put on your John Deere tractor or I put in my truck
• 20:44
  or in my business. Right?
• 20:47
  And then we don't even think about it. Somewhere buried on a print circuit board,
• 20:51
  and we can't get it. Right? So there's a number of those things,
• 20:56
  and it takes all of them to make something work until you can design it out, if you can design it out.
• 21:02
  Unknown: So as you look at, your unique view of the world, which I think is running counter to what a lot of people think or at least the way the news is putting it out there, what is the port in this storm? Do you, you know, invest into US companies? Do you invest into
• 21:18
  international ETFs? You buy gold? Do you buy houses? You buy Bitcoin? What do you do?
• 21:23
  Unknown: Well, I've said for a long time that I think hard assets are are the trade,
• 21:28
  and have been the trade for a while. I I told you that I put a quite quite a bit of money in gold miners some time ago. It's been a pretty good trade.
• 21:37
  We we own farmland. We own property.
• 21:41
  We own businesses that generate money in current current dollars, right, that have some pricing power.
• 21:49
  But, in general, you know, I think it's a hard asset world, and I think, I've said multiple times on Twitter that the basement trade is the trade of the rest of my life, I believe.
• 21:59
  Right?
• 22:01
  Unknown: Say more about that. What do you mean by, first of all, just maybe even give me a a scope of what is the debasement trade,
• 22:08
  and then why do you think that's going on for the rest of your ten years? No. So my dad my dad gave me this,
• 22:14
  Unknown: you know, framework a long time ago, and he his dad,
• 22:19
  invested in war bonds during during World War two.
• 22:23
  And other people bought land. And he goes, the people who bought land did much better than the people who bought war bonds. Let's put it that way. Right?
• 22:31
  And he said that's because government's borrowing dollars and paying dollar ads.
• 22:35
  Right? They they debase the currency.
• 22:39
  And we've seen that debasement. I mean,
• 22:42
  Michael Green,
• 22:44
  he goes by prof plum on Twitter, made a big big stink
• 22:49
  a couple weeks ago about his 140 k is now the new poverty line, which I disagree with his number.
• 22:55
  But, he his his premise is probably right that the 31,000,
• 23:00
  you know, that's a poop. Wow. You know, when you talked about the the
• 23:05
  the, you know, what has happened, and I posted something that basically
• 23:08
  and, you know, if if you had, $31,000,
• 23:13
  in
• 23:14
  1963
• 23:15
  when that poverty line was set, I believe it was 63. It might be 61.
• 23:19
  That would be worth $385,000
• 23:22
  today in if you just use the
• 23:25
  the the,
• 23:26
  barometer of, inflation. Right?
• 23:29
  CPI change, you just pop pop it into the calculator. You say you got $31,000
• 23:34
  in in 1963.
• 23:36
  What is it worth today?
• 23:38
  What would it be worth what would the same purchasing power be today to have the same purchasing power? It's $385,000,
• 23:45
  $387,000.
• 23:46
  If you pop it in gold, it's 3,500,000.0
• 23:49
  because gold was,
• 23:51
  gold was $20.35
• 23:53
  dollars an ounce
• 23:54
  fixed
• 23:55
  in '63 until we closed the gold window. Right? Now it's $4,000.
• 24:00
  Now actually, you buy 885
• 24:01
  ounces of gold with $31,000
• 24:04
  at $35
• 24:05
  an ounce. Right?
• 24:07
  So, you know, that's the debasement trade. We've lived it, but it's been slow. Right? I think that the I think inflation picks up from here and the debasement trade picks up from here because it has to.
• 24:20
  But there is a counterpoint to this.
• 24:24
  And, you know, it is the boomers and aging boomers
• 24:28
  and them spending less.
• 24:30
  And that would say that maybe it's deflationary.
• 24:33
  I'm gonna say that it's not because the government can't live in a deflationary system.
• 24:39
  The financial banking system cannot live with falling assets.
• 24:43
  It needs ever increasing assets to support loans,
• 24:46
  asset values,
• 24:48
  to support loans.
• 24:50
  If assets start falling, and you owe more on something, you know, it it doesn't work. Fractional banking system doesn't work in that case.
• 24:59
  Unknown: You know, you say about the boomers spending less. I mean,
• 25:03
  they kind of are, but when I talk to boomers, you know, people I love and care about, I, you know, I want them to succeed. Sounds like they are going to medical care and not inexpensive medical care all the time, but they're not picking up that tab. It's Medicare. It's the the amount that they are spending must be increasing wildly,
• 25:23
  but it's not at,
• 25:24
  at their dollars. It's it's through the the socialized medicine.
• 25:29
  Unknown: Correct. Yeah. And and what is health care, the number number one employer
• 25:34
  in 37 states or something like that?
• 25:38
  Unknown: Yeah. And, we, right before the show aired and I was, like, you know, just ripping apart the normal ag tribes report, I, I threw out there, if you had a Peter Thiel paradox and you kinda chuckled and said, yeah. I've got one you won't agree with. So I'm dying to hear it. What is one thing you believe
• 25:54
  that your tribe does not agree with you on?
• 25:58
  Unknown: Not all my tribe, but a lot of them, I would say.
• 26:01
  And it's about ag, and and it's about solar and and some other things. And I think sometimes solar might be the highest use purpose for
• 26:09
  ag land.
• 26:12
  Unknown: Ag land in Illinois where the where the soil is so good?
• 26:16
  Unknown: Well, there's a lot of it that's been
• 26:18
  been put in ag land and, you know, if if prices are gonna stay where they're at, then maybe.
• 26:24
  Unless some other land is gonna come out of production.
• 26:28
  Unknown: Okay. So maybe say more about this because you think, like, you know, that high quality farmland is
• 26:35
  certainly, you must be distinguishing between,
• 26:37
  Unknown: you know, really not productive land and stance. I grew up in the world of irrigate stand, so I'm not the, you know, the typical Illinois
• 26:45
  I state farmer, you know, around Bloomington or something. Right? Or in the in the high or North of Peoria in the high. Or down in around Springfield. We're we're irrigated sand farmers. So,
• 26:56
  high quality land is is different around us than,
• 26:59
  than it is other places. But, you know, I think that it's it's troubling that,
• 27:05
  that that,
• 27:06
  you know, farmers are incredible and the amount of productivity that that we've gained,
• 27:12
  through
• 27:13
  agriculture
• 27:14
  over time
• 27:16
  is unbelievable. And I never bet against the American farmer. But
• 27:22
  do we have too much corn? Do we have too much soy
• 27:25
  today?
• 27:26
  I mean, we didn't think so in '19. Remember, farm ditch to ditch. Right? Nineteen seventies.
• 27:32
  Do we do we need to farm ditch to ditch today?
• 27:35
  Is there a lot of, land that is now marginal of land, highly erodible land out west that's that's in corn? You gotta convince somebody to take some of it out,
• 27:45
  unless you're gonna find a new market
• 27:47
  for corn and it can't all be ethanol. I mean, what's what's what's electric cars gonna do the ethanol?
• 27:54
  Unknown: Well, I mean, like, I I personally think the way that we've made that demand,
• 28:00
  go up is because we've subsidized it through, you know, mandating ethanol in gasoline.
• 28:05
  Yeah. And so, you know, if we're doing all things being equal, I think the market can't find what its most valuable purposes is because it's lost its signal. Yes. Right.
• 28:16
  And and so to me, like, the the loss of signal does not equal solar. When you're talking about solar, are you saying
• 28:24
  solar that is propped up by government spending for, hey, we wanna have a larger mix of of solar energy, so we're gonna add tax subsidies and and, an actual, like, yeah, writing the check to people? We talked this early about this earlier. Is there anything that's not propped up by government spending?
• 28:43
  Bitcoin.
• 28:45
  Yes. So
• 28:47
  Unknown: so, I mean, the answer is I mean, I think I'm an all the above energy guy. I think,
• 28:52
  energy
• 28:53
  is the key to everything,
• 28:56
  and needs to be made abundant, available, and affordable.
• 29:00
  And,
• 29:02
  our
• 29:02
  lack of nuclear projects really bothers
• 29:07
  me. And,
• 29:09
  you know, but our I think it should be everything. Right? We should do we should be doing all of the above. So I think so solar is good in some cases where we need baseline power. That baseline power should probably be nuclear. We invented the molten salt reactors
• 29:25
  in the sixties.
• 29:26
  We have yet to deploy them. Chime is gonna deploy one before we we do, by the way.
• 29:31
  They're working on it right now.
• 29:33
  And they have 15 nuclear projects in the works,
• 29:36
  being built.
• 29:37
  I mean, actually, dirt moving, and we have zero.
• 29:41
  Right?
• 29:41
  So,
• 29:43
  you know, we need to do wind. We need to do solar. We need to do you know, they're they're building coal plants.
• 29:50
  You know, we're we're not building coal plants.
• 29:54
  Unknown: You know? Okay. I mean, I I'm with you. Like, let's get as much energy as we can. It I struggle to imagine that the best place to do that is if I'm in an I state in a where you could be growing something with,
• 30:08
  valuable Again,
• 30:11
  Unknown: my part of the I state's a little different than your part of the I state where you grew up.
• 30:16
  Right?
• 30:17
  So you should come visit us one time, and I'll show you the the the farms that we're talking about, and we can talk about the economics of those farms.
• 30:24
  Right?
• 30:25
  But certainly, this year was not a big winner for us. Let's put it that way. Right? And if it was a big winner for anybody, I would be highly surprised, but some good ground guys probably didn't have to put on nearly as much NPK and and and have a lower input cost than we do on on our
• 30:44
  on our good sand.
• 30:45
  Unknown: So what do you think, happens with our energy grid? Are we going to be able to break through all the bureaucracy and and get nuclear? Are you gonna see, you know, in your lifetime,
• 30:56
  a nuclear plant be up and running in The US, a new one? I've I've said for,
• 31:01
  Unknown: for three or four years that we'll get nuclear energy
• 31:06
  for data centers, not for the pearls,
• 31:09
  not for the proletariat.
• 31:11
  Right? So
• 31:13
  I'm joking a little bit about, you know, Russia, but,
• 31:16
  you know, it's not gonna come for,
• 31:20
  for regular people. It's gonna come for billionaires.
• 31:23
  And, they are doing that, by the way. I mean, they're trying to resurrect nuclear plants like 3 Mile Island to supply data centers.
• 31:31
  Right?
• 31:32
  Unknown: Yeah. I mean and I'm all for it. Like, create as much energy as you possibly can. I'm totally with you on that. The the Yeah. And and nuclear is the only way that you're going to get a high enough concentration of energy in order to be able to really supply
• 31:47
  Unknown: the grid with what's needed. We are going to need infinitely more. It's like that, it's like the guy on the island. Right? And,
• 31:55
  you know, he he keeps praying for God to send him, send him, you know, somebody to save him. Right?
• 32:01
  God's gonna save me, and he sends a a boat and he's like, no. No. God's gonna save me and he sends a plane. No. No. No. God's gonna save me. He dies and goes up to heaven. Why didn't you save me? He goes, I sent a boat. I sent a plane. I sent, you know, all this stuff. I mean, literally, god gave us rocks
• 32:17
  that will heat water.
• 32:21
  It's pretty crazy
• 32:23
  when you think about it.
• 32:24
  Unknown: So as you look out at the world,
• 32:27
  I find you to be an incredibly optimistic person when you and I are talking on the phone, but some of the things we're talking about, not so optimistic. What are you? Are you feeling like the world that your
• 32:39
  your children will inherit will be different will be better than yours?
• 32:42
  Unknown: I'm an incredible optimist on America
• 32:45
  and on the future,
• 32:48
  but I think we have some very difficult times in the next
• 32:51
  decade or two that we gotta get through. There are a lot of imbalances that have built up in the system.
• 32:57
  We have not had a business cycle
• 32:59
  that hasn't been
• 33:01
  shortened by,
• 33:03
  government money sugar highs
• 33:05
  for
• 33:06
  since probably '99.
• 33:08
  Right?
• 33:09
  So the system has not been able to clear, and we have a lot of imbalances in the system. We have a lot we have an aging population. We have a a changing population,
• 33:20
  and we have a lot of,
• 33:22
  we have some real divisions
• 33:24
  in the country.
• 33:26
  You know, I I I've I read
• 33:29
  How and Strauss is Forth Turning back in 2008,
• 33:32
  and it gave me a framework of which to think about what will happen.
• 33:36
  So I was not I was not unprepared. I was prepared, I would should say, for some of what I've seen, but not everything.
• 33:44
  And I still think we've got another decade or more to go through before we get to a point where we have,
• 33:52
  we know what the future looks like. But, you know, the I'm incredibly optimistic about what people can do once they decide they need to do it.
• 34:02
  Unknown: Well, that's as good a place as any as I to the end that I think we could possibly find. Thank you so much for coming on. If people wanted to, engage with you, hear more about your ideas, where would you send them?
• 34:14
  Unknown: I'm at Twitter @nnzp
• 34:17
  what is it? Seventeen thirty,
• 34:19
  I think? I think so. Yeah. I think so.
• 34:23
  And that's that's the place where I generally have conversations. I hardly ever mute anybody
• 34:29
  or or block anybody. I have great conversations. Sometimes they start off pretty rough, but we generally reach a point of where, you know, I I just I I like hearing other opinions. Right? So it's it's great to hear other opinions, and that's where I do it.
• 34:45
  Unknown: Well, thank you so much for, for coming on, and we'll have you on again soon.
• 34:50
  Unknown: Alright. Thank
• 34:52
  Unknown: Alright. That's gonna do it for the Ag Tribes report this week. If you have been thinking about what is a gift that I could give someone
• 35:00
  that has everything,
• 35:01
  then I would offer up the legacy interviews. This is where I sit down with your loved ones to record them telling their life stories, to talk about all of the things that their life was like when they were young, what they experienced, what they went through,
• 35:16
  what they really found was the great meaning in their lives. And they often tell great stories about their children, about some of the things that happened to them. It is a wonderful experience.
• 35:27
  And not only that, you will have a recording that you can show your kids and your grandkids,
• 35:32
  and they will know where their people came from. If you're interested in booking a legacy interview, go to legacyinterviews.com.
• 35:40
  There, you can find a contact page. We can talk about your loved one and we can figure out whether doing an interview here in person or online,
• 35:49
  doing a single interview or doing it over a whole day is the right fit for you. Thank you so much for joining me here on Legacy Interviews.
• 35:57
  And as always,
• 35:58
  feel free to disagree.
• 36:01
  So the conference organizer
• 36:02
  has a terrible challenge.
• 36:04
  The audience can pull out their phone and pull up anyone talking about anything,
• 36:10
  how do you find somebody
• 36:12
  that is both going to reach every single person in that audience and yet still have that spike of energy where people are electrified because they're hearing about things that they aren't used to or that make them think about things in a different way?
• 36:25
  The most important question that I ask a conference organizer is, what is it that you want people to feel? What emotion do you want them to have
• 36:33
  when we leave this talk? What's their disposition? How are they gonna interact with one another? What does this prompt in the people that are there?
• 36:41
  It's not just the information. What you're giving them is energy, a reason to be there in that moment.
• 36:48
  Now they take that energy and they share it amongst each other.
• 36:52
  For me, the best speech is when people walk away being like, I now have a tangible skill,
• 36:59
  but they didn't necessarily readily accept it and they had to grapple with it. They set their phone down. They leaned forward. They said, how do I feel about this? And through that, an energy is created that is not about the speaker, it's about the person listening to the speech. It's far beyond motivation.
• 37:16
  It's actually giving people skills.