What was the first time you realized you were in the flow state? I’ll go first: making an excel spreadsheet.

American Airlines just grounded all flights due to system wide failure.

Something anti-GMO activists never realized: Monsanto benefited tremendously from all the protests and rabble rousing. Every time their protests made a government bureaucrat or politician nervous, Monsanto would just say “if it will make everyone more comfortable we will add some more tests, paperwork and years of field trials… it will costs us $10M per year and we’re willing to add 3 more years… All they were doing was building a giant regulatory moat around them. Sure it cost $30M more but those rules applied to everyone. So all new entrants would have to pay $130M to get anything new through… So Monsanto could go to young snappy startups and say “we see you won’t be able to get through regulations- what if you sold your company/tech to us…” All the regulation forced mergers so that there were eventually only 6 seed companies and now only 4 and only one (corteva) is owned as a US company.

It used to be “save your pennies” but that became a joke due to inflation. But I will teach my kids to save their satoshis that lesson will have deep meaning and value.

I need to follow some good accounts. Who is someone I wouldn’t find on my own…?

One thing not discussed: the bureaucracy of the US government is run by unmarried men and women. When a young person goes to DC, finally meets someone and has children, they can’t afford to live in DC, the commute from outside the city become onerous so to avoid divorce they move to other cities and take different jobs. However gay men and career women- don’t have the constraints of marriage and children. So they stay in DC, earn high income and continue to get promoted. So the upper levels of the bureaucracy they are disproportionately represented. These are the staffers and upper level management that essentially run the US system. When they leave government they also go into trade organizations- and become lobbiests. It has a profound impact on the point of view of the bureaucracy.

Christmas ham is an interesting part of Christianity. All other major religions have restrictions on pork- but the Christians have it as a centerpiece of their holiest days. Also back when we pasture raised hogs, late November is a good time to harvest and by Christmas the curing would be perfect.

So what book are you reading these days?

I used to work for Monsanto. I have a relatively strong understanding of the issues in agriculture that keep the system from changing. I’d like to have a sophisticated discussion here about it.

This Week’s Ag Tribes Report:

Spotify

ATR Raining money on farmers, Fertilizer Drone Spies from China, a new tariff war? @MachineryPete

The Vance Crowe Podcast · Episode

I’ve been gone for a while. Interested to see how things have gone.