Do Farmers Have TOO Much Freedom? The Case for Grain Constraints

Speaker A: You're listening to the podcast for Green Merchandisers by Green Merchandisers. Join us in our good humored attempt to serve as a voice of reason in an industry fraught with misconceptions and half truths. And now, from deep in America's heartland, this is the Elevator's Cut. Hello, and welcome back to the latest episode of the Elevators Cut. I'm, uh, one of your hosts, Roger Gabb.

Speaker B: And I am one of your hosts, Jason Wheeler. It's good to be back. Back in the studio. It is July 4th, almost, you can tell, and I am wearing a nice festive shirt.

Speaker A: America 250 approved.

Speaker B: So my deal is I'm always jealous of people that wear, like, have Memorial Day or a Fourth of July barbecue, and they have, like, a patriotic shirt. I don't really have one. I'm a very patriotic person. Obviously, most people know this about me, but I don't do it in wardrobe form. So I tell my wife, like, I need to do this. So she just orders something on Amazon from China, you know, and, uh, comes in. It's great. Hey, good. Make sure. Then I got to look. And there are no American flags on this shirt.

Speaker A: Well, they're close. They made an attempt.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's like, you get it. There's fireworks. The colors are general, generally red, white, and blue. They're in the ballpark. And. And, um. But Roger told me this is actually a more patriotic shirt.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Why is that?

Speaker A: Because you're not supposed to wear flags. It's in the code. The flag code. Look it up.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Don't wear flags. You're not supposed to. It's like desecrating them, like burning them. Don't do it.

Speaker B: That's why we got approximate flags.

Speaker A: Yeah. Any good flags?

Speaker B: It's like, you get it, but I'm also not. It's not officially so that you can't

Speaker A: tiptoe right up to the line, but you don't cross it.

Speaker B: You're safe.

Speaker A: You do. All right.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's like a basis, contract, whatever. So.

Speaker A: So, yeah, um, America's turning 250.

Speaker B: This is the reason. So it was like, you know, if we're ever going to do it, take the step, the semi quincentennial, which means half of 500. That's right, Quinn, meaning five centennial, meaning 100. 500 and a semi means half of it. Freedom Trucks Semi Quincentine. I'm glad we broke. Broke down the. Went to the Greek here and. Or the Latin broke it. Um, so, yeah, so that's where we're at. Roger, I, um, appreciate everyone, um, sticking out through that story, but you know what our country's really about, Roger?

Speaker A: Political lines and politicians throwing away the

Speaker B: constraints that we have on us. You know, that's what we did.

Speaker A: Have you told this to Your tax advisor?

Speaker B: July 4, 1776. We threw away the constraints. And uh, so anyways, but along those lines of constraints, what constraints do we see in the grain business and how do we deal with those, Roger, is

Speaker A: this, uh, where are we going with this? So constraints. So reading a book about constraints. I can't remember the name of it now. My mind's constrained from it.

Speaker B: It was my haphazard way to transition

Speaker A: to you talking about this and I haphazardly picked up the baton here. Uh, anyway, I was talking about constraints and creativity and how pure freedom is a good way for people to just go towards what they would do anyway. This idea of like, oh, you got all this creative freedom, you do all this stuff. Well, if you have all this freedom to do whatever you're going to do, you're going to do what you've always done anyway. And so my mind got to go into grain, because I'm a nerd like that. And the grain business and dealing with producers and how they market grain and things. And it seems to me that, uh, overall in the industry, the grain elevator industry, grain buyers, we err on the side of, um, too much freedom when it comes to producers and selling their grain. People don't like to hear that or it sounds weird, or this idea of like, well, they need more. You need to give people more options, you need to give people more contract choice, you need to give people more time to make a decision. And we all know if you've been in the grain business more than a few seasons, you know, when you give more time to a farmer to make a selling decision, they take all of that amount of time and still don't do anything until they absolutely have to at the very end. And you see this a lot when, you know, say an elevator has a policy that says, um, basis only contracts have to be priced out end of July. Or DP contracts have to be priced end of July, whatever. Why end of July? Well, usually it's corresponds with their year end or fiscal year end stuff. Doesn't make a lot of sense from a merchandising perspective because that's time of high basis. So when these places make the change to say, we'll push that time out in the name of taking care of the farmer, giving him more time to the following Harvest, say October. That's when the drop dead date is now. Which makes a lot of sense from a merchandising perspective because it's usually a time of lower basis and you know, it's ownership levels Olver wants to have if the farmer chooses to go that far. And what happens most times, guys will take that full amount of time and not make any decision until October because they don't do anything until they have to. Generally Speaking, this is 100%, but we see it out there. You see it, I've seen it. And so these people then get grief from others in the industry saying, well, you're setting it up against the farmer. Now he's going to wait until October. Well, no, he can still price on January or July 31st if he wants to. That's not taken off the table. Sure, but you're giving all this other stuff too. So this idea of constraints, we go the opposite way. We feel like to better service this portion of the grain industry, the grain supply chain, they need more things. I posit they need less things. Give constructive constraints, choose your constraints or be constrained to a choice. Well, if you can convince people, it's like, hey, you need to have your grain sold by the time it's harvested. Why? Because it minimizes cost. Because you get turned into cash faster. All these things, um, as opposed to saying, well, we'll give you for another year after harvest till we get into the next crop year to do something with it. We know what happens when they're given that time. Most times they wait. They sell at a still harvest low, just a year out, and they've got all the costs incurred for waiting that long. So this idea of imposing constraints that make sense, you don't need 1,000 contracts, you probably need three, maybe four different types of contracts to buy grain. That's it. You don't need to or less or less, max. You're right. The best merchandisers I think you or I know are guys that allow some forward contracts. Maybe basis only contracts sell across the scale, but once it hits the dump pit, it's theirs.

Speaker B: Yeah. One way or another, I own the basis. At least by the end of harvest,

Speaker A: I own the basis. Yeah. And they're successful. Uh, their producers don't get into this deal where they find themselves eating rolling costs going into, uh, the next year and then end up selling when they have to for cash flow. If a guy wants to go and buy some options or do whatever on the board, OTCs, whatever he can. But for that bushel at the elevator, it's done. It has a finite thing. It's constrained to certain parameters and in the best interest of everyone. And there are people that hear this and will be like, well, that's crap. You know, the guys, you're taking away their choice. Well, not really. You can choose different things. But this idea, we have this idea in the industry, we've got to push out timeframes. We gotta allow all this more stuff. And anybody that's bought grain for more than a season knows that when you give an abundance of choices like this, it doesn't make the situation better. Could the guys come out better? One year out of ten? Yeah, maybe two. But on the long haul, no, this isn't good. It becomes a management issue from the buyer, becomes a, uh, thing. Another thing the producer has to focus on. After harvest, all these different pieces just kind of stack up. So anyway, for that aspect. And you can make the same argument for stuff stored on farm as well on when it needs to be handled. And it's usually not in the spot market. It's usually ahead of time.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, so along those lines, I, um, have lots of thoughts there. That's really good. Obviously, these are some of the things we talk about, uh, have talked about in the past, but a couple things. So say you've got the July 31 thing. You got a price buy. And you say, you know what, we'll push it back to October 31st. That way if they wait till the end, and they probably will, we'll get a good basis. And it gives them more time if they want. But they can still price July 31st, but they won't. We know it. So my question is that manipulative?

Speaker A: It can definitely seem that way because

Speaker B: in our last episode, I believe it was our last episode, we railed against a guy calling the elevators a pawn shop. But this is kind of manipulative.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's because you're relying on your right. But what it's done in the name of. These guys say they don't want to be forced to have to do something by this time frame. It's done. The policy is amended in the name of giving more of the thing to the farmer.

Speaker B: You're giving more freedom to them, more

Speaker A: time to make a decision more. And it's not. It's almost like forcing them to wait until the worst possible time.

Speaker B: Well, it's like giving them more freedom. Right. Which is like me, uh, personally. It's like the government needs to give people more freedom or whatever, or shouldn't have taken so much Freedom. I think people already had the freedom and it just slowly gets taken away from whatever. We don't want to get into that. But the point being, like, hey, the more people can make their own decisions and deal with the consequences of those decisions, they should do it. And that's a good thing. Uh, and then there's another school of thought which you can question people's motives all you want, but if you give people the benefit of the doubt that they're, hey, look, the general population can't make certain decisions well, so we need to just force them to this decision, whatever it may be. As a principal, um, I think that's terrible. Like just let people, you know, make their own mistakes and learn from it and all that stuff. It'll work itself out. But so that's you're saying like, hey man, just. We know that if you're a proactive seller and you make sure everything's sold by the time you harvest the grain and you don't incur costs after that, we know you're going to be better off. So the school of thought is like me, all the freedom you want, but I'm going to educate you so that you can make the best decision, which I think is that maybe, um, for you, but I'm going to educate you, but I would never force you into it. But then the other school of thought is just, hey, it's one. Once you deliver it to me, the commercial, you're using up my space. I get to dictate how I want. Now I want you to do better. And I know this is better for you, so I'm just going to dictate the thing that's better for me and you and we're just going to do that. And so from that standpoint, it's like, hey, it's my business. I get to control how I buy the grain because once it's in my facility, it's mine. You can choose to go somewhere else with it, um, so it's never forced on you. But, um, anyways, this is an interesting thought exercise. When you compare it to, um, I guess other industries spheres.

Speaker A: Well, it's just life in general, right? So you've got constraints when it comes to everything, like driving on the road, there's constraints you can disregard, uh, those to your own peril, speed limits and passing and no passing zones or whatever it may be. You can do things, you can just do things. But there's always consequences, right? Good, bad or indifferent, there's consequences to it. But building policies, grain buying policies with A view towards what's in the long term best interest of both parties is probably not something that includes letting someone kick the can down the road forever. You hear those stories every year about people who stored wheat for seven years and had to pay the elevator to sell it to them or whatever it may be. And people bemoan all the time. We hear grain bars all the time. Like I have those conversations with farmers. You can not have those conversations by changing your policy. But in a lot of cases you have ownership or board, co ops or whatever that won't allow those type of changes to take place in the name of we can't constrict our patrons or customers in their marketing opportunities. We won't do that. And they look at it as constriction of freedom as opposed to building constraints that make sense.

Speaker B: The problem is when you say give them the freedom to maybe make poor decisions.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: I mean, I think you should be free to make poor decisions if you want. Um, but when you give them that free, when it gets to the point where that also cost you as the elevator, that's the problem.

Speaker A: It's not a one party issue. It's. There's two parts.

Speaker B: They should be free to do it. But now it's impacting me as elevators, bottom line or the co ops, bottom line, which impacts every farmer in the community who you know is a shareholder. And um, so that's.

Speaker A: Yeah, these places that allow storage for a full year until new crop. Well, if everybody did that and waited till the next harvest to sell it, you can't physically move this stuff out of the way to make room for the next crop. So there is other things like that that kind of come into play that can affect that. And we see that whether it's logistics or cash flow or what have you. But again, this idea of unbounded freedom to make all these choices doesn't help anyone. It's kind of like going into Walmart and going down the grocery store aisle and condiments and looking for ketchup. You just want a bottle of ketchup? Well, there's a thousand ketchups and they're all cost the same thing.

Speaker B: Some of them are green.

Speaker A: There's all kinds. What's it matter? Just give me some ketchup.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Do you need all this stuff? No. Needs a strong word maybe. Poor analogy, but the idea is having some kind of meaningful boundaries. Boundaries are not bad things. Boundaries are not barriers. Those are two different things. Literally look them up. There's two different words in the dictionary. Jason uh, they're not the same.

Speaker B: They're still under B though.

Speaker A: They are under B, lots of underbees. But boundaries and barriers are not the same thing, you know, so having boundaries, uh, in life is generally a good thing. If everybody lived completely unfettered, we'd be in worse shape than we are.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, um, it's Hanson who's been on the show before.

Speaker A: The old guy, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, he wrote his name as the old guy up there. But, um, he always says, you know, you got to have guardrails. You just got to make sure they're on the right side of the ditch. You know, keep yourself, keep yourself in line. Okay. Along these lines, I, uh, recently. So Roger and I agree, like, hey, you're better off selling ahead even if you got bins, you know, and you want to sell for JFM or later in the season because they're going to be in your bins if you sell early. Not only are you selling when the market's high, but you're also capturing the carry in the market price and basis, uh, as well. So we make charts, um, Roger and I don't make them.

Speaker A: Somebody does.

Speaker B: We look at them, thank God, company does. And you can see over, they do five year history, 10 year history and a 15 year history. And on average, if you sell like May through July, ish, on whether it's corn or beans, you're going to do a good substantial amount on average. Better off. No matter what interval you look at, you're going to be better off selling ahead than selling a harvest. Right. And so I was having a conversation recently with uh, some folks that they're owned by some farmers. So they have farm bins. They're like, we don't, you know, we shouldn't do that for our farm bins because we should wait for the price to go up. Price goes up after harvest, you know. Well, it's up before harvest too, you know.

Speaker A: Right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: So we're so along those lines, like those charts are easy that I talked about comparing them to harvest. So like, how do we compare to, um, to waiting to JFM to sell? Because if the market goes back up and all that. So we have to add a couple more months at the, on the right side of that deal to show like, all right, um, what it does on average now. So what I will say is, you know, what I thought it would be and what it was was two different things. Um, because my thoughts would be like, well, I mean, throw that on there. It's going to be because there's usually a carry Dec to March, usually carry nove to Jan or March. Uh, so you'll just basically add a dime in corn, you add 15 cents in beans and it'll be the same thing. Um, it was not the same thing because you now have to cover this period post harvest through the end of February let's say ah, where the market does tend to come back a little bit. And so what we found was with corn you should sell for JFM in the pre summer thing just like we thought you're better off but with beans. However, on average in all scenarios 5, 10 and 15 on beans the market does come back. Now I think a lot of that

Speaker A: has to do too with if you look at the seasonality of bean spreads, bean spreads usually don't start building anything until going into harvest. So to say June is the best time to sell February picked up beans out of the farm bin may not be true. It can be, it doesn't have to be. But then when you get October and you start building carries in bean spreads, if there's going to be carries that year, you start seeing them um, then so it would be later in the harvest, harvest low futures make sense. It's harvest time, um, things are low so there's going to be a pop afterwards. So for beans that makes perfect sense. But the spread nature of corn, it usually happens a little differently um, in there. And uh, that's not the full explanation. But like anything with the market there's lots of different points to consider with it. And again you go off of what things tend to do. Right. If you're looking at, if that's how you like your marketing then you go off of what things tend to do. What do you tend to do and what's the market tend to do and where do you line those two up to make the best decision?

Speaker B: Yeah, I will say like even though it was unexpected, if you think about like obviously you got farm bins, what can you put in them? You can put corn or beans, farms, farms into it if you want. Um, I guess but anyways you can put quarter beans in them. What does everybody put in their bins? They put corn in it. You should put beans in it. I mean by the way the math works out. Uh, it's actually but anyways nobody does that because you can sell a bushel of beans and get two and a half times more dollars. That's just interesting.

Speaker A: They shouldn't even put corn, they should just put their wheat in there.

Speaker B: This goes back to. Yeah, this goes back to Roger Um, explaining economics to me, uh, at times because I majored in economics. I get it, I get this happens. Milton Friedman this happens. So this has to happen. Well then what happens is like, okay, the economics says everyone should put beans in their farm bins and move their corn. What happens? No one puts beans in their farm bin. They move the, they, they move the beans and, and uh, and store the corn.

Speaker A: People confuse rationality with objectivity. Those are definitely not the same thing.

Speaker B: I don't think they can change two words.

Speaker A: But the ideas.

Speaker B: But the idea. They assume that things should objectively happen

Speaker A: rational to me, then that's an objective.

Speaker B: But if a human's involved, they will make decisions that are objectively dumb but subjectively rational. That's like, hey man, you're telling me there's a chance I'm not going to sell in the summertime. I can wait till October 15. What if things happen?

Speaker A: What's the last time, the last moment? I have to make a decision here. That's what I'll do. And that's a human issue. It's the very last. How much time can I buy? Have you ever waited till like the day before meeting to make a presentation? I haven't personally, but I hear people do this a lot and they also make phenomenal presentations. When they do it because they're constrained, they have a constraint that forces them to be creative.

Speaker B: Anyway, I wrote my best papers in

Speaker A: college the night before 2am so it's the same thing. It's this idea of when you have meaningful constraints, you can probably do some pretty good things. It's when you have this complete freedom to do whatever you want that generally humans will just rely on what they've always done. So in the context of marketing grain from the producer standpoint, that is probably going to end up being eh, put it on storage, we'll think about it later. Uh, let's put it on this thing and I'll make the decision because this is a decision, but I'm treating it as a non decision. The real decision will come later.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And so you kick the can down the road. And we all know this, we've seen it. It happens year in and year out. And the selling decisions then are made by a constraint you might not have chosen, which is cash flow or logistics needs. Choose your constraints ahead of time. I will have X amount of sold by harvest or be constrained by a single choice later, which is I got to pay this bill. It's pretty simple. Yeah, maybe not easy, but it's a very simple idea.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, along those lines. But now from the elevator standpoint. All right.

Speaker A: Spreads, spread management.

Speaker B: No, no. You would think. But so. Ah. About different constraints. Sometimes ethanol plants decide sometimes. We will not be buying from commercials.

Speaker A: Yeah, you hear this. It's wild, right?

Speaker B: We won't buy from commercials. We have made this decision.

Speaker A: Why do you think that is?

Speaker B: I'll tell you exactly why it is.

Speaker A: Okay, please.

Speaker B: It's just smarts, objectivity. Here you go.

Speaker A: Because. Wait, uh. Because they can buy it cheaper from the farmer.

Speaker B: Exactly. Because if I have to pay some elevator, that means I'm paying some middleman a bunch of extra cash monies. I'm keeping all the paper money for me and I'm going to make ethanol for E15. Okay, okay.

Speaker A: So they're paying farmers lower basis by doing this.

Speaker B: Yeah, cheaper things because hey, I'm all for that. Hey, we don't need to, we don't need to keep these elevators in business. What are we doing?

Speaker A: But what ultimately happens when the farmer selling dries up because low prices or they're in the fields for planting. What happens in Jason?

Speaker B: Or the weather sucks and I don't want them all. It's too close to holiday season. I got the in laws coming in.

Speaker A: What happens? Tell me, I'm dying to know. What happens?

Speaker B: Well, at that point, the ethanol plants still have people scheduled to work and to make ethanol interesting and they don't build enough space to have all the corn they need for the entire year. Uh, when that happens, so what happens is they have to go. They have to look for some alternative markets like Free DP to make sure they get corn into their facility to make ethanol. Even though farmers are done selling to them or don't.

Speaker A: Where would they find this corn?

Speaker B: You know, you, I guess you put an ad on Grain Stir or I don't know, uh, Facebook.

Speaker A: Gmd.

Speaker B: Gmd. Tweet at it. Tweet at the corn. Say, hey, Corn, would you like to come here?

Speaker A: Yep, I would. What do you got?

Speaker B: Thank you, corn. I will see you later.

Speaker A: But the reality is they buy from elevators M who they've sworn off.

Speaker B: That's the easy way to do it,

Speaker A: whether it's through reseller or the elevators themselves. But the crazy part is a lot of elevators fully know this and uh, play right into it. You don't want to buy it for me today in December? Great. I'm going to hold it.

Speaker B: There's Kerry.

Speaker A: You're going to call me in April and May or June, July, and I'll unload it to you at numbers I like. And that's what happens. So this idea of we're not buying from commercials because one, we can buy it cheaper or, or mandate from higher up that just says you got to source this from the farm for whatever reason. It's a commodity business. Corn is corn is corn. But they'll end up buying from commercials. And it's kind of just like this thing. People just know and they wait on and it happens. It's like magic.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it is true. Like the time they won't buy from ethanol planes won't buy from elevators. Those times are times that elevators don't want to sell, don't want to sell anyway because they won't buy because they can get it from farmers. If farmers are selling, what happens to the basis? It drops. If a bunch of farmers are selling. We don't have to pay up for this stuff. So we're only going to pay as much as we have to to get the necessary, uh, the proper amount of bushels for our facility. So what they do is they. When ethanol plants say this here, I'm going to go out on a limb here.

Speaker A: By all means.

Speaker B: Okay. Ethanol plants say this because they want to pay the farmer the low basis. The times of low basis, they only want to buy from the farmers. And the times of high basis, they don't buy from the farmers, they only buy from elevators because they don't want to pay farmers good basis. How about that?

Speaker A: That's bold.

Speaker B: I mean it's probably, it's probably not the rationale behind it, but what happens

Speaker A: in practice, in reality, you know, that's the thing. And we're picking on ethanol plants because they're easy target. But there are other end users that do the same thing. I mean, uh, poultry companies, you know, whoever. It's not from farmers, but it's very prevalent in the ethanol industry. For whatever reason it comes from corporate stuff.

Speaker B: I forget what company it was. But you know, at these high level companies, because I mean, let's face it, like your big ABCDs and your large poultry and feed companies, they're huge companies, multinational companies. And who's the CEO of that company? Well, some guy that was a CEO of some other company that wasn't even in ag yesterday. You know, he doesn't, he's used to, you know, buying hotels or who knows. And now he's a CEO of this thing. He knows how to CEO. He's CEOs so good, so hard. They pay him so much money and he knows how to do the Big dollar deals. And he says, wait a second, let me look at this business. So there's a farmer, then there's just some elevator that just holds it and doesn't even change the quality of it at all. It doesn't do. There's no value add. And then, well, let's bypass this guy. We're going to save so many paper dollars. And so they do. So they say, look, we currently only buy 20% direct from farmers. Let's make it 70%, and I'm going to sit back and collect this bonus next year. You guys wouldn't believe. I can't believe you people in agriculture are so dumb that you aren't already doing this, but this isn't hard. And so he makes the decree and then everybody has to do all these things. What ends up happening is they hit the marks and they don't make as much money. And he's like, where's my bonus? I don't. That was a good. Look at this decision I made. This is obviously good. You guys messed it up, but I made it.

Speaker A: They didn't do what they were supposed to do.

Speaker B: They did buy 70% from farmers, but they must have let the quality go bad.

Speaker A: It's almost like they didn't core their bins or something.

Speaker B: So, yeah, that's what happens is folks from out of the business don't understand the economics behind it, uh, or the behavior. Well, that's the same word.

Speaker A: Behavioral economics.

Speaker B: That's the same word. Um, that you've taught me.

Speaker A: This I've seen in a dictionary. Those are two separate sections, Bs and Es. The final and biggest hurdle segue today is to make the leap from constraints to unintended consequences to putting makeup on dead things.

Speaker B: Lipstick on a pig. A dead pig, if the pig was already slaughtered. This is offensive to me, Roger. I have a personal. This is my personal story. This is very offensive.

Speaker A: This stems from a thing that just recently happened to you. And it got us talking about the weirdness that is open casket funerals.

Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So I went this last weekend. My grandmother died. Um, so I was going to her funeral, but then my grandfather died before the funeral happened. Uh, less than 48 hours later, he passed away, husband and wife. Um, so we had a double funeral, double open casket, which is a crazy thing that we do. Is that. Okay, how far back does this tradition go? Is this just an American thing? I don't know. You know, you listen to podcasts, you know about it. Anyways, I, um. It's just, it's A wild thing to me. Take my son, he's 18 and he's like, what are we doing here? But he's been to some funerals before. But anyways. And then you have visitations. So which. Let's sit.

Speaker A: Everybody gets to go see the thing.

Speaker B: Everybody come. I'm going to stand in the back here, way away from the cadavers and you guys go up there and see and then make your comment and then come back there and let me know if you think they did a good job. These strangers we've never met that are really weird people that wear suits every day. Uh, good for them, I don't know. That work with dead by and they're like, hey, they did a good job.

Speaker A: Like they look really nice.

Speaker B: We pay top dollar for the. I don't know. They must have used the Revlon this time. I don't know. I don't know. But anyways, um, so yeah, so we had a double funeral. So it's kind of like an HTA contract in a way. Um, there it is. We're trying to bring it back. Um, so we had a double funeral, but what in the. So Roger, I want to flesh this out. We didn't do it ahead of time. Um, nope.

Speaker A: This is live action.

Speaker B: So a double funeral. Uh, sorry. An open casket is what I said. What's the equivalent in the great business of an open casket funeral?

Speaker A: Cheap storage. I don't know. This thing's dead. Look at it. Look how good it looks though. It looks pretty good, right? It's only a few cents a month. This looks pretty good. But it's a dead thing and it only gets deader the longer you let it go. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Shut the lid on this thing already and price it out. I don't know where I'm going with this.

Speaker B: They did a good job with it, didn't they? I don't know. You get done and you're like, you know, they did. You know.

Speaker A: People don't know what to say, right? Like a lot of instances, like the Ricky Bobby. I don't know what to do with my hands.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: People don't know what to say. So they just say things that they've heard other people say, well, this dead person looks nice with this makeup on. Even though grandpa never wore makeup in his life. Even in the premiere Rocky Horror Picture show, he went as he was. So you know this idea that we're all going to sit around and say this person looks great dressed up this way, that they didn't look natural at all in Their natural life. They didn't look like this by any means. The clothes or the makeup or, you know, not cussing or whatever it is. This is not normal.

Speaker B: How, uh, dare he lay there silently.

Speaker A: I can't believe it.

Speaker B: He would never do that.

Speaker A: He never laid down. So, you know, it's an unnatural thing. Everybody pretends is natural and good. That's cheap. Storage policy's at the elevator. This looks really good.

Speaker B: Yeah, look how good it looks. Hey, people are gonna love this.

Speaker A: Yeah, let's keep going.

Speaker B: Hey, did you see that dry erase board up there? Penny and a half a month. Holy moly.

Speaker A: Incredible. Look how good it looks.

Speaker B: Yeah. We don't need Revlon. We got Expo.

Speaker A: Uh, there it is dried up there.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: So, yeah, I'm sure there's lots better analogies here, but, uh, that was the challenge. Yeah.

Speaker B: If we'd have thought about this ahead of time, it would have been really good. I bet.

Speaker A: Possibly.

Speaker B: But, yeah. Um, I don't know. It's. It's so challenging. Makes no sense. I don't know why we do it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But we do it anyways. We know it.

Speaker A: And everybody seems to agree that, yeah, this is a pretty good thing.

Speaker B: And we all just pretend like, yeah, this is fine.

Speaker A: That's it.

Speaker B: This is what we should do.

Speaker A: That's the policy. I, uh, challenge the listeners to come up with something better, and I'm sure they can, because they're smart people. Well, if they just started listening today, if they've been a longtime listener, maybe not. But the idea is, what's the thing out there that happens in our industry? And it doesn't have to involve price and grain, but what's the thing that everyone says, yeah, that looks pretty good. Look how good that is. This is nice, but it's really a terrible thing that no one should do. And if, you know, let me and

Speaker B: Jason know, Visitation's kind of like the coffee shop, you know? Hey, you know that was good, right? It sure is fine.

Speaker A: It was great.

Speaker B: It was fine. Tomorrow.

Speaker A: What do you think it'll be tomorrow?

Speaker B: Tomorrow's gonna be tough.

Speaker A: It's gonna be even more dead tomorrow.

Speaker B: Tomorrow's gonna be tough. But, you know, we can wear a little nicer clothes tomorrow. Be good.

Speaker A: Close the casket on your grain marketing.

Speaker B: Amen. And if you're in the military, stretch that flag over.

Speaker A: Don't make the dead thing look. Try to look alive. It's not. It's gone. Just let it go.

Speaker B: I mean, you got photos in there. Just remember the photos, right?

Speaker A: What did you want the last memory to be of the thing you had, the special moment with your loved one or someone that's been turned into a dead doll in a box.

Speaker B: You made a TikTok of harvest of your combine going through the field. Just enjoy that.

Speaker A: Right? You don't have to keep visiting it.

Speaker B: We don't have to get monthly statements from the elevator of how much storage we owe.

Speaker A: Now the last thing I will say today is this idea. And this was lifted off of, uh, off of social media, but someone had made a comment about poor decisions in life, grain marketing in general or in specific. I mean, and he made the comment. He didn't understand where it came from or he said whatever that means. But it was this idea of like, if my decision turned out terribly, if my choice I went with didn't work out, at least it was my decision to make. It didn't work out well, but hey, at least it was my decision. Give me an example.

Speaker B: That's what the funeral director said. It didn't work out, but at least I put a lot of work into this face. I don't know.

Speaker A: This is on me. At least it wasn't the other guy that did this. I don't know what it means.

Speaker B: People say that I'm sitting there laying there.

Speaker A: At least I made the decision. That was terrible.

Speaker B: Okay, Buck stops here.

Speaker A: That's one of those things people say. They say, but no one actually says it.

Speaker B: Buck stops here. Which president was that?

Speaker A: Uh, Theodore Roosevelt.

Speaker B: Was it okay?

Speaker A: Because he shot bucks.

Speaker B: Okay, good.

Speaker A: Well, so you know that he's on the $1 buck. So what?

Speaker B: No, he's not.

Speaker A: Uh, you live in Missouri and don't know the real answer to this question. You're actually wearing a hat with the guy's spirit animal on it.

Speaker B: The mules.

Speaker A: Mhm. Is Truman. Come on, man. Was it?

Speaker B: He was the buck stops here.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay, well then why'd you say Teddy

Speaker A: Roosevelt be trying to throw a curveball to you?

Speaker B: He did shoot bucks though.

Speaker A: He did.

Speaker B: But Truman's not on the $1 bill either.

Speaker A: You sure about that?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I hear they're changing monies for this year, so I don't know who's on what anymore.

Speaker B: Okay, so interest, uh, of time. Roger, we can't talk anymore about presidents

Speaker A: or funerals, thank God.

Speaker B: Okay. Or funerals for presidents, even if you

Speaker A: want the president of funerals.

Speaker B: Do they. They don't ever do open caskets for presidents, do they?

Speaker A: Because they don't die, they freeze them. It's like Walt Disney. Randy knows.

Speaker B: Is that True. I don't know.

Speaker A: Or nephilim real.

Speaker B: No, no, no. Yes. And so they, they put them, they lie them in state. But it's a closed casket. They lie in state. Right.

Speaker A: Anyways, I've never been there. I don't know.

Speaker B: If the president doesn't need an open casket, what are we doing out here? Sorry. Sidebar. Okay, I want to talk about these hats. We haven't talked about them in a bit. Uh, we've got hats made, people. I'm going to stare down the barrel of this camera. I'm going to tell you about this hat. It says the elevator's cut on it. It's got our logo podcast. You listen to the show at least once. Uh, that's a safe assumption because you're listening now. Um, or you're watching a clip on the Internet. And you would never listen to a

Speaker A: whole show, which is the same thing

Speaker B: and I respect that. If you want a hat, reach out to us, but Roger has some hoops you have to jump.

Speaker A: Yeah, we're not just going to give you one of these.

Speaker B: Yeah, these cost money, dude.

Speaker A: Somebody paid for them, not us. Somebody did. And we can't just give them out willy nilly. But if you would submit. Submit's a weird word, right? I don't know. Give us through DMs, email, call, text, whatever your best story has anything related to living that elevator lifestyle?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And by best, I mean we will be the judge of said subjective best. And we will decide who gets the hat. Let's face it, send us some great stuff, give us some material, give us some ideas. What's some funny things, what's some tragic things that's happened, What's a terrible thing that's happened? Have you lost a limb at the elevator? Have you, you know, have you had, you know, all kinds of things happen.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Let's stop short of death, maybe. But this idea of like, what's something that's happened at the elevator, that's pretty wild. Kind of crazy that. Something you sit around and tell peers, you know, when you're, uh, out, uh, in those situations, what's a wild thing that you've encountered?

Speaker B: Yeah, tell the customer stories, whatever it is. And this can be as anonymous as you want it to be. As far as when we say it, like if you want to say, hey, Bill Brown did this thing, like we'll God, blah. We'll shout him out.

Speaker A: But the thing is, we will send a hat. We don't have to tell anybody we did it. You guys may never know that we sent a hat. We'll choose if we disclose that, but send the stuff. We'll send a hat.

Speaker B: Probably another way.

Speaker A: Jason might even deliver it to you with a pizza at Harvest.

Speaker B: You never know. Another way is. I mean, I like to wear a different hat on the podcast every. I don't always achieve it, but for the most part, I try to. Try to mix it up. I would love a hat from your elevator.

Speaker A: Hat swap.

Speaker B: You send me a hat. You don't even have to send me a story. Send me a hat.

Speaker A: Hat or story?

Speaker B: Hat or story? You send me a hat, I'll send you a hat. It'll be great. Um, or you DM me a place where I need to drive and pick up a hat. You know, maybe I'll do that if I'm. If I'm close.

Speaker A: Jason's DMs are open. Slide on in there.

Speaker B: I'll do it. But yeah, as. As always, we have the elevators cut X handle, Twitter handle. You can comment. I think Randy monitors all the comments on the TikToks and the YouTubes. And, uh, they'll. They'll tell us if something fun, uh, happens. We'd love to get you a hat.

Speaker A: If it doesn't, we're going to make something up and say it did, and we'll just keep that. Probably going to be collector's items soon, so just.

Speaker B: Just know that vintage stock.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: So, all right. That is that. We've hit all the things I had on my list today, Roger.

Speaker A: I'm so glad it's over with. Now we can go shoot fireworks.

Speaker B: So, yeah, everybody have a happy fourth, two days. Um, yeah, it's gonna be. It'll be great.

Speaker A: Have a great birthday, America, and try

Speaker B: to stay cool and enjoy your air conditioner, because Europeans can't. Not everyone does. So there we go. That's it. See you next time. As always, thanks for downloading and listening, and if you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with folks you know in the business.

Speaker A: And if you'd like to reach out anytime, about anything at all or have any show ideas, you can always find us on Twitter. Elevators.

Speaker B: Cut.

Speaker A: Follow us there. Tweet @us DM us, and we'll always respond. Till next time.

Speaker B: For Roger, I'm Jason, and for Jason, I'm Roger. Thanks for listening to the elevators Cut out.