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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Noel.

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Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 3: super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you are you.

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Speaker 3: You are here, and that makes this the stuff they

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Speaker 3: don't want you to know. Congratulations Matt, Congratulations, NOL, congratulations,

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Speaker 3: Mission Control code name Doc Holliday, and all our fellow

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Speaker 3: conspiracy realists playing along at home. Tonight will be our

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Speaker 3: most corny episode.

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Speaker 4: Literally, de boom, Jonathan Davis, as long as you don't rap.

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Speaker 3: I have heard Noel freestyle, and Nola is way better

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Speaker 3: than Jonathan Davis.

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Speaker 4: You said it before, and I was like, you mean scat.

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Speaker 4: I think the term we're looking for is scat. And

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Speaker 4: then Ben pointed out that apparently there are some deep,

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Speaker 4: deep interior cuts what one should never hear of corn

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Speaker 4: where Jonathan Davis does in fact rap, He just stick

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Speaker 4: to scatting and bagpipes.

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Speaker 3: Hmmm, who are we to judge?

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Speaker 4: You know, we are we We are exactly who we

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Speaker 4: are to judge.

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Speaker 2: You know, guys, I was never really a big fan

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Speaker 2: of that band Corn until I tried it with some

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Speaker 2: butter and then changed my life.

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Speaker 3: I'll tell you that McDonald's dad with a buttered corn.

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Speaker 4: That sweet corn is what I will say this guys,

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Speaker 4: and can move on from Corn band. I think their

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Speaker 4: first couple of records are very unique. I don't think

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Speaker 4: there were any other bands that sounded like that. I

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Speaker 4: think there were a bunch of bands that copied them,

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Speaker 4: and then they kind of had to sort of stay

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Speaker 4: with the times and they became more kind of rap, rocky, limbisky.

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Speaker 4: But I think their first two records hold up as

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Speaker 4: pretty interesting records and then a unique sound from a

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Speaker 4: band that hadn't really been done before.

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Speaker 3: I will diell That's fine. That's a fine hill to

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Speaker 3: die on. You could say something similar about Walt Whitman

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Speaker 3: and Blank Verse with Pards of Grass.

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Speaker 4: You know what I mean.

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Speaker 3: Excellent excellent work, created a lot of inspired a lot

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Speaker 3: of work that is not necessarily for me. I get you,

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Speaker 3: I hear you, and the baselines on those early Corn

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Speaker 3: albums absolutely nasty, utter poetry.

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Speaker 4: All the stuff that were saying about corn the band.

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Speaker 4: You could technically say about corn the crop.

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Speaker 3: It's bold. It's a mold statement. I don't agree, but

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Speaker 3: I love it, so it's yeah. We are diving into,

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Speaker 3: as you said, Noel, we are diving into a conspirac

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Speaker 3: A lot of folks have maybe wondered about occasionally in

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Speaker 3: the grocery store or maybe your gas pump, but never

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Speaker 3: really solved. Why does the United States have so much corn?

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Speaker 3: Why did corn take over America? How did that happen?

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Speaker 3: Here are the facts. It doesn't matter what sort of

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Speaker 3: propaganda you read, it doesn't matter whom you're speaking with.

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Speaker 3: Everyone knows, by any measure, these United States are a

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Speaker 3: corn superpower. As of just last year, ninety million acres

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Speaker 3: of the entire country were committed to corn. Some folks

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Speaker 3: in the industry and some folks outside of the industry.

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Speaker 3: Economist in fact, call this stuff yellow gold. Not a

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Speaker 3: super creative.

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Speaker 4: Name of yellow.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I know how you know in depth they

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Speaker 3: went with workshopping on that, but uh, but they do

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Speaker 3: call it gold because it is a generative business. It

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Speaker 3: is a billion dollar business. You could actually, if we

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Speaker 3: traveled back in time and talk to those alchemists who

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Speaker 3: were trying to turn lead into gold. Then we could

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Speaker 3: realistically tell them about corn. They wouldn't have known about corn,

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Speaker 3: and they would have said, why don't I just become

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Speaker 3: a farmer?

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Speaker 4: What do you think would have happened if in their

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Speaker 4: pursuit of turning lead to gold they had accidentally turned

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Speaker 4: it to corn. You think they would have been pleased

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Speaker 4: or disappointed?

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Speaker 3: They would have been super hype. They would have been

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Speaker 3: they would have gone so they would.

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Speaker 4: Have been like devil, What is this substance before.

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Speaker 3: Me, shout out angry alchemists. Yeah, it's like this industry,

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Speaker 3: corn as an agricultural product, touches on all sorts of

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Speaker 3: other parts of the day to day experience in the

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Speaker 3: United States. I think it was we were looking into

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Speaker 3: this off air in preparation for this episode. As of

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, probably the most recent reliable numbers, the

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Speaker 3: USDA US Department of Agriculture estimates the corn industry and

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Speaker 3: this country alone is worth well over eighty six billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and that is not just the raw product of corn, right.

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Speaker 2: That is, as Ben said, the corn industry because there

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Speaker 2: is so much that has been built out of that

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Speaker 2: crop for reasons we're going to get into because you

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Speaker 2: can't just make corn. You got to do stuff with it.

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Speaker 2: And there's a reason for that, because we got so

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Speaker 2: much of it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Have you ever seen the corn Palace? That's huge, that's

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Speaker 4: built entirely out of corn.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's other stuff you can do with the

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Speaker 2: crop too, and it's actually kind of astounding what you

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Speaker 2: can do.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, so versatile. Also, I want to give

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Speaker 3: a wholesome shout out. We don't always get the opportunity

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Speaker 3: to do this. I would like to give a wholesome

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Speaker 3: shout out to that little American kid who was like

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Speaker 3: what four five? Very corn kid, Yeah, very very young kid.

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Speaker 3: The corn kid. Very young kid did a good fun. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's fun. Let's play just a little.

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Speaker 4: Please, Yeah, because I don't think any of us are

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Speaker 4: doing it right. He has his own kind of way

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Speaker 4: about him.

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Speaker 1: I love.

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Speaker 3: All right, perfect we all.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, see now you get my reference with I tried

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Speaker 2: it with butter.

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Speaker 3: And it can happen to you too. That's what I love.

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Speaker 3: This kid is Promethean. He's like, I will bring I

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Speaker 3: won't bring the idea of corn and butter to you.

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Speaker 3: Uh so, why why did this happen? If you look

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Speaker 3: at the experts across the world, not just in agriculture,

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Speaker 3: but in the world of economics, you'll find very interesting comments.

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Speaker 3: The chief economist that the USDA was asked about why

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Speaker 3: corn was such a big deal, and this guy explained

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Speaker 3: it simply. He said, we're really good at it. His

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Speaker 3: name's Seth Meyer, and he is right. He's not the

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Speaker 3: famous Seth Meyer. He's the chief economist Seth Meyer circles. Sure,

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Speaker 3: I hope so it does good work. He's unrelated to

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Speaker 3: Saturday Night Live. The US has the land, the climate,

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Speaker 3: we're in the cap bird seat as a country to

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Speaker 3: grow corn. Most importantly, the US has a very well

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Speaker 3: established infrastructure entirely meant to push corn out from the

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Speaker 3: ground and to consumers across the world.

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Speaker 4: Yeah exactly. And by the time, you know, of course,

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Speaker 4: early the early days of corn, I don't think we

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Speaker 4: even had a US government. Wasn't corn one of those

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Speaker 4: things that we basically like stole from the Native Americans?

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Speaker 4: Yeah exactly. So there was certainly a time where corn

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Speaker 4: was less governed. Let's say, we were all less governed

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Speaker 4: before the US government was actually a thing. Corn was

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Speaker 4: already a very well established crop. According to writings in

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Speaker 4: an Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxane

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Speaker 4: Dunbar Ortiz, to quote, Indigenous American agriculture was based on corn.

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Speaker 4: Since there is no evidence of corn on any other

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Speaker 4: continent prior to its post Columbus dispersal, its development is

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Speaker 4: a unique invention of the original American agricultures. For Ben,

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Speaker 4: we were going to talk about monsanto and bioengineering and

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Speaker 4: all of that stuff, But how does one invent a

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Speaker 4: crop in these our early days of the history of

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Speaker 4: this land. Yeah, good question.

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Speaker 3: Also, the way that you do it is you find

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Speaker 3: a cereal, a grain of some sort, and you overtime

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Speaker 3: over different harvest cycles select for the traits that you desire.

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Speaker 3: So the original thing, the original grain that leads to corn,

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Speaker 3: is not what you would find in a can today.

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Speaker 3: It's way less cool. In its original form, corn as

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Speaker 3: a story dates back ten thousand years ago to people

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Speaker 3: in southern Mexico, and they've figured out a way to

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Speaker 3: reproduce for the traits that they were seeking. And I

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Speaker 3: really appreciate that you bring up post Columbus dispersal here

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Speaker 3: because there's a great there's a great, somewhat snarky, high

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Speaker 3: level history of corn in the US, which is automatically

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Speaker 3: history of corn in North America's history of corn in

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Speaker 3: the world. In fourteen ninety three, Crystal bal Cologne, or

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Speaker 3: Christopher Columbus as he's known here, returned to Europe with

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Speaker 3: all kinds of trash to talk. He also had a

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Speaker 3: pocket full of corn seeds. He had seen native people

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Speaker 3: growing and eating and using corn in his travels, and

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Speaker 3: he knew this thing would be fire, you know what

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Speaker 3: I mean. If he could convince the regimes of Europe

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Speaker 3: at the time that they could invest in it, he

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Speaker 3: knew he could change Western Europe. Unfortunately, he fumbled the

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Speaker 3: ball pretty hard. He brought some corn seeds, not popcorn.

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Speaker 3: He brought some corn seeds, but he did not know

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Speaker 3: how to grow it. He did not know how to

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Speaker 3: propagate it, how to treat the soil and the harvest correctly.

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Speaker 2: He just got in the ground, right, Well, yeah, that's it,

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Speaker 2: you just put it in the ground.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's why, that's why Europe is still very much

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Speaker 3: wheat based. When you talk about grains. To those folks,

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Speaker 3: that's why they like musley and stuff.

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Speaker 4: Like that.

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Speaker 3: Am I saying that right? Museally?

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Speaker 2: I think so?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? Was it musically like a dry cereal that makes

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Speaker 4: you poop?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's that corn.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like human dog food. It's like grape nuts,

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Speaker 4: but like worse.

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Speaker 3: All human food is human dog food.

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Speaker 4: Fair enough, fair chocolate. It's like processed kind of kibble

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Speaker 4: looking stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So the Europeans they're not with it. They hear about

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Speaker 3: the gold and silver, and of course they love the slavery,

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Speaker 3: but they don't get on board with the corn, and

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Speaker 3: an interesting division occurs in those two societies. Across the

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Speaker 3: Atlantic Ocean, corn thrives. It is today an integral part

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Speaker 3: of the economy and culture of all people living in

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Speaker 3: the United States. Full stop, folks. It does not matter

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Speaker 3: if you think you don't eat corn, you kind of do. Well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you eat anything that's processed, basically, you're probably

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Speaker 2: eating corn. If you open your mouth while you're outside,

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Speaker 2: you're probably taking in a little bit of corn residue,

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Speaker 2: just a little bit via ethanol in some way, especially

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Speaker 2: if you're near cars.

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Speaker 3: Which leads us to the other question, how did this

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Speaker 3: get so big? Is there a conspiracy a foot? It's

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Speaker 3: a good question. It might seem strange, might seem a

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Speaker 3: little weird at first. The thing is, like you were saying, Matt,

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Speaker 3: corn is ubiquitous in this country. Yeah, all right. You

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Speaker 3: might go to a barbecue place, you might get a

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Speaker 3: side of corn on the cob. You might go to

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Speaker 3: the movies, you might eat popcorn. You might get other

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Speaker 3: products that are visibly corn and based. But some version

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Speaker 3: of corn is a sweetener. High fructose corn syrup is

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Speaker 3: in so many things, potato, chips, sodas, sauces, salad, dressing,

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Speaker 3: baked good, cereal. It feeds poultry, It feeds cattle, it

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Speaker 3: feeds fish. It would actually take longer to figure out

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Speaker 3: what food products don't have corn somewhere in their process.

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Speaker 3: Michael Polland, author of a fantastic book called The Omnivores Dilemma,

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Speaker 3: he said this way in an interview with NPR in

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Speaker 3: two thousand and three. He said, our entire diet has

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Speaker 3: been colonized by this one plant. But our question tonight,

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Speaker 3: how how did that happen? Is there some stuff they

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Speaker 3: don't want you to know behind the meteoric rise of corn? Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I mean spoiler, But we're gonna take an a break.

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Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy. Yes, the answer is absolutely yes.

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Speaker 3: There is a lot of stuff they don't want you

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Speaker 3: to know, and we want you to know it. To

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Speaker 3: take a line from another aspect of agribusiness, the idea

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Speaker 3: of the corn conspiracy, while universally acknowledged, has become sort

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Speaker 3: of a way for it chicken and egg situation. Ah,

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Speaker 3: we did.

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Speaker 4: It so the economists that we referenced earlier wasn't just

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Speaker 4: blowing smoke. Corn has a lot of the traits that

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Speaker 4: might make what would be considered an agricultural superhero, a

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Speaker 4: sort of champion of the agricultural Olympics. It is incredibly versatile,

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Speaker 4: it can grow in a number of different climates. It's resilient,

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Speaker 4: very hearty term that I love. And it also benefits

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Speaker 4: from a great deal of advancements that we've seen in technology,

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Speaker 4: not to mention financial technology or innovation. Let's just say

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Speaker 4: some financial trickery at play here. And it might surprise you,

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Speaker 4: but a little less than ten percent of the absolutely

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Speaker 4: astronomical amounts of corn that are grown in this country

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Speaker 4: every year are actually eaten by humans. There's so many

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Speaker 4: other uses for it, as you mentioned, ben ethanol, for fuel,

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Speaker 4: feed for livestock, you know, to the point where I

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Speaker 4: was gonna mention this earlier, the term corn fed kind

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Speaker 4: of becomes like a thing where we're talking about, you know,

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Speaker 4: corn fed beef, you know, or even like it's almost,

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Speaker 4: I think, kind of like a term of derision for

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Speaker 4: like people from certain parts of the country, like you know,

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Speaker 4: corn fed, good old boy or whatever. Like, the stuff

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Speaker 4: is just so ubiquitous that it really has kind of

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Speaker 4: created this place in the culture of this country. Cows,

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Speaker 4: for example, pigs, even some fish are fed this ground

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Speaker 4: up food that is largely consisting of corn, and they

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Speaker 4: eat several times the amount of corn that are consumed

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Speaker 4: by folks like you or I every single year.

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Speaker 2: Well, it seems kind of crazy, it's a little wild.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot to take in, right, because we

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Speaker 3: just named several industries that would seem ostensibly unrelated. Oh,

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Speaker 3: what's your favorite salmon doing eating corn?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 3: I like the idea of corn fed to your right. Now,

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Speaker 3: it's on the level of a real meat and potatoes person, right,

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Speaker 3: So we know that this thing is huge. We just

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Speaker 3: learned that humans eat a very small percentage of the

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Speaker 3: pie here, and that's because Not all corn is created equally.

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Speaker 3: There are many many different varieties. Technically speaking, maze street

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Speaker 3: named corn is a cultagen. Cultagen means that you need

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Speaker 3: to have human intervention for the thing to propagate. It's

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Speaker 3: kind of like how some species of dogs don't reproduce

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Speaker 3: well on their own, you know, and it's really sad, right, like,

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Speaker 3: what is it bulldogs? Dog's gonna have trouble reproducing on

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Speaker 3: their own. Maze corn, it's got the human touch on it.

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Speaker 3: It needs to have active human intervention in different key

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Speaker 3: stages of the growth to harvest process. And usually while

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Speaker 3: there are many many men and many many types of corn,

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Speaker 3: usually when we're talking about corn from the United States,

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Speaker 3: we're talking about three rough varieties. The little Olden boy

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Speaker 3: is sweet corn. That's what you eat when you know

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Speaker 3: you're eating corn. It's the stuff in the cats, it's

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Speaker 3: the stuff on the cop It is at best one

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Speaker 3: percent of the total amount of corn grown in America,

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Speaker 3: very very.

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Speaker 2: Small, but that's what you think of when you think corn. Like,

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Speaker 2: that's what you see in your brain, right, that corn.

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Speaker 3: That's what that kid's eating with it, you know. It's

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Speaker 3: it's a yellow cob. It's got like a nice little

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Speaker 3: pat of equally yellow butter thanks to food colory.

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Speaker 4: So maybe it's got little little things that are poked

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Speaker 4: into either end that are also themselves shaped like corn,

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Speaker 4: creating a meta situation that would boggle the minds of

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Speaker 4: any you know, visitors from another planet.

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Speaker 3: We like, we heard you like corn dog, so we

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Speaker 3: put some corn outside of your corn, and.

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Speaker 4: One off those little things had then sticks within them

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Speaker 4: that were also tinier pieces of corn. I could just

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Speaker 4: go on forever like that, And that, my friends, is relativity.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, and then there's another slightly larger percentage of corn

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Speaker 2: that you may also think about. It comes in bags

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Speaker 2: that you can toss in the microwave. It comes in

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Speaker 2: little tin things that you could toss on the stove,

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Speaker 2: and you can. It's also used in other things, not

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Speaker 2: just for popcorn. But it's basically popcorn, right, m.

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Speaker 3: Hmm, Yeah, yeah, it was a it's called flintcorn. Back

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Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties, Jiffy Pop comes out, and Jiffy

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Speaker 3: Pop has exactly what you're referring to, Matt, the idea

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Speaker 3: that you could take a little a pie ten essentially

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Speaker 3: with aluminum foil over the top, and then you could rotate.

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Speaker 3: There's an art to it. You could rotate it over

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Speaker 3: a stove at like medium to high heat, and you

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Speaker 3: could make popcorn just like in your favorite movie theater.

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Speaker 3: Then the microwave comes out, and so, of course in

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Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties and even now, more

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Speaker 3: and more people are buying my microwavable popcorn. Shout out

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Speaker 3: to shout out to our previous episodes about dangerous chemicals

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Speaker 3: in food. Lining in microwave popcorn is double plus on good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, not great for you. Keep in mind of that

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Speaker 2: date range there in the nineteen sixties and forward. Keep

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Speaker 2: that in mind as we move into the next section

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Speaker 2: we're going to talk about, because there's a reason that

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Speaker 2: type of corn became more and more popular as a

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Speaker 2: thing to sell.

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Speaker 3: And still Okay, so we had sweet corn, that's the

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Speaker 3: special golden boy. We have flint corn, which is now

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Speaker 3: freely available, but it is also still a very small

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Speaker 3: percentage of total corn. The bulk of the corn game,

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Speaker 3: the stuff you see by the interstate when you're driving

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Speaker 3: through Iowa, that is overwhelmingly going to be what's called

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Speaker 3: field corn or dent corn. It is in most of

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Speaker 3: the animals that you eat if you buy meat in America,

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Speaker 3: it's fed to them. It's a huge part of the

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Speaker 3: livestock process because it is so affordable, it is so

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Speaker 3: cost effective. And then also it's what makes high fructose

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Speaker 3: corn syrup.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's shot directly into your veins via your mouth,

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Speaker 2: via the Coca Cola company.

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Speaker 4: Well, when you put it like that, it sounds kind

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Speaker 4: of scary.

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Speaker 2: You guys. I just found out one of my best

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Speaker 2: friends growing up who was in theater with me, was

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Speaker 2: Ali corn no Is. I literally found out today and

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Speaker 2: I just saw it on LinkedIn because I had a

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Speaker 2: weird dream with them in it. This person won't name anybody,

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Speaker 2: but this person is one of the top legal people,

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Speaker 2: like literally the top I think legal person at Coca Cola.

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Speaker 2: Oh good wow.

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Speaker 4: Can you get us some free samples of that weird

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Speaker 4: European soda?

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Speaker 2: No, but I think it's time to investigate further this

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Speaker 2: whole corn syrup thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I think we can solve it pretty easily.

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Speaker 3: It's a function of economy of scale, right, It's much

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Speaker 3: more expensive to have an alternate version of this because

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Speaker 3: the US makes corn stupid cheap for everybody. The US

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Speaker 3: is very very much a bad example of a drug

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Speaker 3: dealer when it comes to the world of corn. So

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Speaker 3: I will expand this analogy. I promise it will work

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Speaker 3: before we do that. Here's why the US makes corn

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Speaker 3: amazing through the use of things called subsidies, corporate welfare,

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Speaker 3: farm subsidies, or agricultural subsidies, if we want to put

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Speaker 3: a little bow tie on it. They are payments and

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Speaker 3: other forms of support extended by Uncle Sam to farmers

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Speaker 3: and agribusiness, and corn is by far the biggest recipient

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Speaker 3: of those concessions. When we say payments and other kinds

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Speaker 3: of support, what I mean here is things like very

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Speaker 3: advantageous loans, things like insurance. You know, like if you're

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Speaker 3: a farmer, very stressful occupation, you've got to try and

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Speaker 3: build a house every year, and you got to hope

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Speaker 3: that the house doesn't get blown down, and it can happen.

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Speaker 3: There are variables beyond your control.

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Speaker 4: But ben corporate welfare, that sounds like the kind of

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Speaker 4: thing that certain individuals in business don't care for. Welfare

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Speaker 4: is bad. People should be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

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Speaker 4: Why should we be getting welfare help from the government.

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Speaker 2: Well, exactly, because ultimately, a subsidy is a tax on everybody,

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Speaker 2: right that then goes to certain individuals or certain corporations,

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Speaker 2: which is why there was there were no farm subsidies

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Speaker 2: of any kind up until all of a sudden there

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Speaker 2: were in the nineteen thirties.

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Speaker 3: I love it. I love it. Subsidy is a tax, That's.

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Speaker 2: That's all it is.

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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, it's just a reallocating of funds. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 4: and then we're paying ends going somewhere. But I guess

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Speaker 4: is the term corporate welfare is that sort of a

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Speaker 4: loaded term that people who are like against this practice

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Speaker 4: might use to sort of draw the similarities, like how

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Speaker 4: it's sort of like a double standard where so many

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Speaker 4: people are against welfare for individuals, but yet welfare for

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Speaker 4: corporations is okay.

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Speaker 2: It can be weaponized for sure, right all language?

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Speaker 3: Can you know any technology? Can I love the I

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Speaker 3: love the point of farm subsidies previous to preceding the

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Speaker 3: Great Depression not really a thing. You would get some

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Speaker 3: sweetheart deals if you're a big time rancher or farmer,

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And you would say, oh,

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Speaker 3: I agree with blobbody blaws claws or there your bigger aims,

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Speaker 3: So why don't you cut me a deal on these taxes,

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Speaker 3: you know, or all least tariffs.

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Speaker 2: Especially in times of war. Right if you think about

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Speaker 2: World War One prior to nineteen thirty, like, there were

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Speaker 2: reasons to produce a whole bunch of food. You make

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Speaker 2: as much food as we possibly can. There's an article

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Speaker 2: here called the Origin of American farm Subsidies from the

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Speaker 2: Foundation of Economic Education. And there's just a tiny little

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Speaker 2: story in here that the author, Burton Folsom points out,

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Speaker 2: and it's from the Secretary of Agriculture in and around

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Speaker 2: the mid eighteen nineties, a guy named Jay Sterling Morton.

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Speaker 2: And when he was approached by specifically in this story,

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Speaker 2: by beat sugar producers, they came to Washington. They were like, hey,

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Speaker 2: we need some help. We need some kind of government

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Speaker 2: loan or you know, some kind of money from the government,

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Speaker 2: which at the time would have been taxes. The response

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Speaker 2: from the Secretary of Agriculture at the time said, quote,

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Speaker 2: those who raise corn should not be taxed to encourage

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Speaker 2: those who desire to raise beats. The power to tax

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Speaker 2: was never vested in a government for the purpose of

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Speaker 2: building up one class. At the expense of other classes,

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Speaker 2: which is fascinating that he used corn producers in the example.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because, as we will see, those are

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Speaker 3: two industries that continue beefing today. And I'm choosing the

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Speaker 3: word beefing on purpose anyway, shout out Celeste Headley's shout

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Speaker 3: up Big Sugar. In nineteen thirty, the US did a

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Speaker 3: census and they found that about one out of every

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Speaker 3: four people in the country around that time, that was

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Speaker 3: about thirty million people. One out of four of those

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Speaker 3: people lived on farms and ranches, and they estimated that

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Speaker 3: there were about six point five million different farms and ranches.

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Speaker 3: That is no longer the case. The number has drastically,

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Speaker 3: dramatically decreased. Most people, not just in the US but

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Speaker 3: in the world overall live in what we would call

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Speaker 3: urban metropolitan areas conurbations. Big big cities just keep growing

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Speaker 3: and then they become one big city themselves, right, and

437
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:55,199
Speaker 3: this trend will continue. There are fewer and fewer people

438
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 3: living on a mom and pop farm. But even while

439
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 3: those mom and pop farms disappeared, farm subsidies from Uncle

440
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 3: Sam remained, and they overwhelmingly assist not actual people. Now,

441
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 3: huge corporations very powerful entities. Those mom and pop farmers

442
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 3: still get brought up every single election year in political rhetoric.

443
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 3: But if you are hearing this now in twenty twenty three,

444
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 3: actually if you're hearing this anytime past twenty twenty three,

445
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 3: you need to understand those mom and pop farmers. They

446
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 3: are at best and endangered species. Corporations are wearing sheep clothing,

447
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 3: and they are pretending to be something you can relate

448
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 3: to so they can take more of your money and

449
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 3: put more corn in your stuff.

450
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 4: Well, it's sort of like the you know, a lot

451
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 4: of the craft breweries quote unquote that have basically just

452
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 4: been bought up by Bush Mills or Anniser Bush Rather

453
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 4: and like these large, you know, mega corporations that now

454
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 4: are kind of masquerading as like these small little operations

455
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 4: that they once were, but now they're not. They've bought

456
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 4: them up and everything that goes along with it. I

457
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 4: guess some of them continue doing business in a smaller way,

458
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 4: but they are still, you know, a wing of a

459
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 4: large corporate entity. And I apologize to guys if I

460
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 4: was being weird earlier when I was talking about like

461
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 4: the corporate wel for thing. I guess in my mind

462
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 4: to your point, Ben, I guess I just think of

463
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 4: farming now in the modern day as being largely these

464
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 4: big corporations to what you were just saying. But Matt,

465
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 4: you said, not not the case.

466
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 2: Well, I'm only shaking my head. I had I had

467
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 2: an opportunity to drive from like the coast just north

468
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 2: of Georgia down through a bunch of farmland back to

469
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 2: Atlanta not long ago. And if you make that drive,

470
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 2: if you take like state roads and not a major interstate,

471
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 2: you will see that it is almost all farmland, all farmland,

472
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 2: and it's it is small farmers. It was like, you know,

473
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 2: a couple of acres you can you can see the

474
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 2: clear DeLine. You know. It's not like they don't have

475
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 2: a ton of huge equipment. They've got the equipment necessary

476
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 2: to farm that small amount of land.

477
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 3: Well, John Deer is screwing them over, by.

478
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 2: The way, exactly. Farmers are getting hit left and right

479
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 2: with the amount of money they have to put in

480
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 2: just to get one crop out for one year, right,

481
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 2: And one of the only ways they can successfully do

482
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 2: that is if they get paid extra or a little

483
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 2: bit more by the government through these subsidies to plant

484
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 2: something like corn, one of the fly crops that they

485
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 2: will pay for. There's other ones like you can get

486
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 2: some money for peanuts and a couple other sauce. Yeah,

487
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: but it's mostly those primary ones that we've talked about, right, Corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice,

488
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 2: those are the big five. But it is still small farmers.

489
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 2: They're just they have to play the game or else

490
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 2: they can't make enough money to survive.

491
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 3: And these folks are at any given year they are

492
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 3: getting pushed by large corporations. The octopuses we're talking about

493
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 3: want to buy their land often for a song, right,

494
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 3: because they're private corporations so they don't have to practice

495
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 3: imminent domain, so they.

496
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 2: Well and even you can still work the land, it's

497
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 2: still your farm, sure, but we own it and you

498
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 2: got a you know, a certain percentage or whatever goes

499
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 2: to us. We've seen it. We've we've talked about that

500
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 2: before because it's just so it's it's pretty infuriating. There's

501
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 2: at some point, only to give you another quote from

502
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, right before this era, we hit here

503
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 2: where we're talking about subsidies and as they arise because

504
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 2: of a perceived need and actually an actual need. I

505
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 2: think we're about to hit the Great Depression, right.

506
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we've been going toward that yet. But what

507
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 3: you're saying is the to put it in a pithy line,

508
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 3: these corporations are saying, surf the bottom line with US peasant,

509
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 3: you know, right the wave hashtag no pun left behind.

510
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 3: The original intent of the US farm subsidies was to

511
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 3: provide economic stability to farmers to a largely agrarian population

512
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 3: during the Great Depression, and importantly to ensure a steady

513
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 3: domestic food supply. However, they really not necessarily the US

514
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 3: government Hoover kind of shut the bag. But overall, I

515
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 3: think it was the corporate interest of the US who

516
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 3: created the Great Depression. And if that sounds like a

517
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 3: hot take, please write in, because we are correct. The

518
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 3: issue here was that the issue here was that it

519
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 3: didn't work. It was a dollar short, a day late.

520
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 3: You know, there were farmers who were purposely destroying their

521
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 3: crops or their livestock or products thereof so that they

522
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 3: could ensure higher prices because they needed those prices to

523
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 3: be hired to survive. So at the same time people

524
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 3: are slaughtering hogs, people are pouring milk into creeks out

525
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 3: Middle America. There are folks in large urban centers Chicago,

526
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 3: New York, you know, name it, any of the good ones.

527
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 3: Those people are starving. They can't get the milk, they

528
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 3: can't get the food. This idea made sense over time.

529
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 3: The US agrees to farm subsidies due to a sort

530
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 3: of nationwide PTSD, a traumatic event. It's absolutely mission critical

531
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 3: that these things exist. It might be surprising to hear

532
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 3: us say this, but think about it. One bad gear. Honestly,

533
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 3: one evil month can spell doom for a single farm,

534
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 3: and one bad year for multiple farms can spell doom

535
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 3: for an entire piece of agriculture. In the grand calculation

536
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 3: of events, in the slippery slope of the greater good,

537
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 3: farm subsidies are a money saving effort. You keep those

538
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,439
Speaker 3: folks in business, You help them survive for one bad year.

539
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 3: You are saving money in terms of what you will

540
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 3: need to spend later if the food is not there.

541
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 3: So that's it's kind of like you get a pizza

542
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 3: every week. One week the pizza doesn't come through, you

543
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 3: still pay for the pizza because you're going to be

544
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 3: hungry later.

545
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:45,439
Speaker 2: I've got to do this, guys, we got to jump

546
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 2: really quickly to the nineteen twenties before, right before Hoover

547
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 2: and all of this that you're talking about, Ben, because

548
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 2: there's a guy in office named Calvin Coolidge. He was

549
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 2: in there from twenty three to nineteen twenty nine, and

550
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 2: there was a bill that was pretty similar to what

551
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:07,240
Speaker 2: became the Farms the original farm subsidies bills that Hoover

552
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 2: and then Roosevelt passed as the Great Depression was hitting.

553
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 2: And it feels a lot like that Titanic moment that

554
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 2: we've talked about before, some great disaster that occurs so

555
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 2: that the change can come through, right, so that the

556
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 2: populace is willing for some change. Because in the nineteen twenties,

557
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 2: when Coolidge was president, there was this bill, it's called

558
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 2: the McNairy Hougen Bill hau ge n and it was

559
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 2: a bill that Congress passed and it had to do

560
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 2: with price fixing on crops, right. But the conspiratorial part

561
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 2: of it was that there was going to be a

562
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:49,720
Speaker 2: system of human beings in Washington, d C. Essentially bureaucrats

563
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 2: who would decide the prices of things, right, So then

564
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 2: the farmers, each individual farmer would be beholden to whatever

565
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 2: the bureaucrats in Washington were going to say. And when

566
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 2: that bill, which was again passed by Congress, got to

567
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 2: Coolidge's desk, he vetoed the thing and he said, no,

568
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 2: the American people don't actually want this. Basically, this is

569
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 2: business coming in trying to dictate how farmers are going

570
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: to act and what they're going to have to do.

571
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,879
Speaker 2: I want to give you just a super short quote here,

572
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 2: Coolidge said, quote, I do not believe that, upon serious consideration,

573
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 2: the farmers of America would tolerate the precedent of a

574
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 2: body of men chosen solely by one industry, who, acting

575
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 2: in the name of government, shall arrange for contracts which

576
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 2: determine prices, secure the buying and selling of commodities, the

577
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 2: levying of taxes on that industry, and to pay for

578
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 2: losses on foreign dumping of any surplus. There is no

579
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 2: reason why other industries copper, coal, lumber, textiles, and others,

580
00:36:56,320 --> 00:37:00,800
Speaker 2: in every occasional difficulty, should not receive the same treatment

581
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,359
Speaker 2: by the government. Such action would establish bureaucracy on such

582
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 2: a scale as to dominate not only the economic life,

583
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 2: but the moral, social, and political future of our people.

584
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 2: He went a little hard on the paint there at

585
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 2: the end.

586
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 3: But I agree though, like that's like you got two

587
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 3: big ooh moments there, because as anyone knows, like the

588
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 3: one of the issues with that predecessor bill is that

589
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 3: it was framed as a price dictated non negotiable. Who

590
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:38,800
Speaker 3: was not phrased as a minimum price. You can build

591
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 3: a floor. America loves it when you build a floor,

592
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 3: hates it when you build a ceiling, but will do

593
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 3: it if you know, depending out of their back room

594
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 3: finances work out. But the second thing was the idea

595
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 3: of foreign dumping. Could you describe foreign dumping for US? Oh?

596
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, basically, if you've got way too much much

597
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,919
Speaker 2: of a product, you try and sell it abroad four

598
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,800
Speaker 2: pennies on the dollar, you don't you get rid of it. Basically,

599
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 2: if possible, which is a thing that occurs when there

600
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 2: are surpluses, it's still something that happens.

601
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 3: So if there is, for instance, if there is a

602
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 3: way just make it an argument here for fun disease.

603
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:24,800
Speaker 3: If there is a way to grow wheat and say

604
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 3: a good part of India and it is much cheaper

605
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:32,359
Speaker 3: to produce it there, and there's no tariff. There's no

606
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 3: international mukety muck. If you can sell that wheat to

607
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 3: people who live in Western Europe, where it is very

608
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 3: expensive to make wheat, would that be foreign dumping?

609
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 2: I don't think so. That sounds like good business to me.

610
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:54,360
Speaker 3: Oh good, oh god, someone called Calvin all right, he

611
00:38:54,440 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 3: figured it out? Okay, yeah, he was I think the

612
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 3: original rhythm guitarist for Korn. Also an American president for

613
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 3: a minute. But yeah, his nickname was Monkey.

614
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 2: Well, honestly, I haven't thought about that guy until I've

615
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 2: read that article, Like I don't. When's the last time

616
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 2: you thought about Calvin Coolidge?

617
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,320
Speaker 4: Pretty often, I think he's got one of the best names,

618
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 4: best presidential names. It sticks with me. I'm not joking,

619
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 4: and I think of whenever I hear the name Calvin.

620
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 4: I think of Calvin Coolidge before I even think of

621
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 4: that little kid pissing on the swastika.

622
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 3: The precedents, the precedents of the presidents leading up to

623
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 3: the American Depression, the first one at least, are of

624
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 3: intense interest to me, and they should be of intense interest.

625
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 4: To you in the immediate future.

626
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 3: Folks, Matt, you're talking about something that more people need

627
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 3: to understand our farm subsidies. Stuff can sound a little

628
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 3: bureaucratic and dry. Here's the real thing. Let's peak behind

629
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 3: the curtain. Why do countries really like farm industry supplements

630
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 3: and subsidies? Why do they really want this stuff to happen?

631
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 3: It goes down to her boy, Henry Kissinger's real politic reasoning.

632
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 3: And it's much older than Kissinger. In the United States

633
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 3: and in the it.

634
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:23,399
Speaker 4: Was still living last we checked, right.

635
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he just dropped by Chessinger Watch John Kerry.

636
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Now I get alerts.

637
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 4: So there's a widget. There's a dashboard widget on men's

638
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 4: phone connected up to Kissinger's pacemaker.

639
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 3: So the US and in the no comment, the US

640
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 3: and the European Union to a large degree. Yeah, you

641
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 3: could say they're practicing corporate welfare. There's a big old,

642
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 3: sloppy financial kiss on the quarterly bottom line, right, or

643
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 3: annual at least. But the brutal open secret about this

644
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 3: is that at all times, since since the day you

645
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 3: emerged your entire life, anyone in charge of any nation

646
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 3: you have ever heard of is continually low key planning

647
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 3: for war, open conflict, and if international trade breaks down,

648
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 3: a lot of countries are immediately going into disaster mode.

649
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:26,919
Speaker 3: So that means even in times of ostensible peace, if

650
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 3: you are a leader, you make sure your country, to

651
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 3: the absolute highest degree possible will not be reliant on

652
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 3: potential enemy forces for basic things food, shelter, water. And

653
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 3: the tricky part about this human history teaches you one

654
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 3: constant truth. Every single nation is a potential enemy. There

655
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 3: are no friends. And you know, you might have you

656
00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 3: might have a good couple decades getting your avocado right,

657
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 3: you might have, you might have a good one hundred

658
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 3: years with uh great rice supplies, and maybe you've had

659
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 3: your differences with another country, but that doesn't stop the

660
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 3: flow of rice when the bridges break down, can you

661
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,359
Speaker 3: feed the people who follow you? That is why these

662
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 3: subsidies exist. So, yes, the US is good at growing corn.

663
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:27,480
Speaker 3: It will not stop. It should not stop. This is

664
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 3: a cycle of money and path dependence. And the problem

665
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:36,320
Speaker 3: is that truth creates a feedback loop and that loop

666
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 3: is very, very dangerous, not just to the US but

667
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:40,280
Speaker 3: to the world.

668
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when you can't eat the corn right, you

669
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 2: can't eat most of it?

670
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 3: You like, I mean, you could have you guys ever

671
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:55,719
Speaker 3: eaten non sweet corn like regular cornporn just like the

672
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 3: field corn.

673
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 4: What about blue corn, the kind they make like the

674
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 4: good tortillas with and stuff, and like, I mean, there's

675
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 4: probably various types of corn that I've eaten that have

676
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 4: been made into other products, but probably wouldn't be that

677
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:09,399
Speaker 4: great right on the cob. Is that what we're getting at.

678
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 3: Like heirloom corn?

679
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, maybe so. Yeah.

680
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 3: I think what we're saying here is the majority of

681
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 3: corn that you will not eat. It's not super delicious.

682
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 3: I My heart goes out to the corn kid. He's

683
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,280
Speaker 3: gonna learn about this, He's gonna have to learn about

684
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 3: it on the on the streets.

685
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've ben right just before we get to that

686
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 2: feedback loop, because this is one of the most important

687
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 2: things we're going to talk about this episode. I just

688
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 2: want to go back to that USDA survey from the

689
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties that found one in four Americans lived on

690
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,319
Speaker 2: a farm, worked on a farm. Farming was a part

691
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 2: of their life, right. Think about that as a voting

692
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 2: block in the nineteen thirties, if you're a politician, you

693
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 2: need to get the farmers on your side, especially if

694
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 2: you're anywhere near the center of the United states like Texas,

695
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:03,720
Speaker 2: you know, whatever, the let's just go through the states,

696
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 2: the biggest society states. Well, yeah, it's Iowa, Texas, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota,

697
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 2: and just shout out to Paul Michigan, control deck in

698
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 2: a little Kansas in there too, and a bunch of

699
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 2: other states. But you need those folks to vote for you,

700
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 2: especially if it's in the nineteen thirties all the way

701
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 2: up to the nineteen twenty threes. It's not the farmers

702
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 2: that went to Washington, DC with that bill because they

703
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 2: wanted to have safety in knowing that they grew their

704
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 2: crop the government could help them out if things didn't

705
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 2: go well. Right at the top of this episode, we

706
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 2: talked about all the factors that a farmer has to

707
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 2: deal with. That means they're going to have a great

708
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 2: year or a terrible year. Right, you want to have

709
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 2: some kind of some kind of thing to fall back on.

710
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 2: I know, I'm still going to get money and the

711
00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 2: government will help me even if stuff goes sideways. But

712
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:03,280
Speaker 2: it's not them. It's not the farmers, the individual farmers

713
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 2: going to Washington to put these things in place, to

714
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 2: have bureaucrats and make these things. It's industry that comes

715
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:13,399
Speaker 2: together and says, hey, guys, we have a common goal here.

716
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 2: We just want to make sure y'all are gonna be okay, right,

717
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 2: everything's gonna be fine, and then bring in in your mind,

718
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 2: bringing all the stuff that Ben just outlined there with

719
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 2: like the reason why a government, why a country needs

720
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 2: to do these things. When you put them together, you

721
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:34,839
Speaker 2: get this icky thing that on the surface, politicians will

722
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 2: say it's for the farmer right, but that's they're a.

723
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 4: Chess piece, you know there. It's an optical thing. I mean,

724
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 4: it's an optical illusion, is what it is. I mean,

725
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 4: they're they're basically like parading these you know, salt of

726
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 4: the earth individuals who have been making their you know, families,

727
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 4: lived multi generations perhaps on this land, and they're using

728
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 4: them as a way to kind of like wave this

729
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 4: flag of like the am dream and see see you

730
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:06,280
Speaker 4: got to help these people. But it's really just a subterfuge, right.

731
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:11,959
Speaker 3: Well, at the heart of it, there's the greater good

732
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:16,400
Speaker 3: argument as ever. The feedback loop is this. You know,

733
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 3: right now, the US government subsidizes the production of corn

734
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 3: alone to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

735
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,840
Speaker 3: More than two billion world more than three. Probably. The

736
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:33,879
Speaker 3: result is a perpetuation of growing goals. If you've ever

737
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 3: worked for a corporation, you might have found yourself in

738
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 3: that weird Larry David Kafka esque moment where they say, hey, yeah,

739
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 3: you did a great job this year. You met these

740
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 3: insane goals we gave you. But we have these things

741
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 3: called shareholders, which means that as a reward for meeting

742
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 3: our crazy goals, you have to meet even crazier goals

743
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 3: the next year. That's kind of what's happening with the

744
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 3: US and with the corn industry. The farming industry realized

745
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 3: that the more corn they grow, the more money they

746
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 3: will generate for themselves. And again I'm not talking about people.

747
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 3: We're not talking about people here. We're talking about institutions,

748
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:27,760
Speaker 3: and they are thus incentivized to grow more and more corn.

749
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,959
Speaker 3: Next step of the feedback loop. The more corn that's

750
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 3: out there, you've increased the supply. Right, We've increased the supply,

751
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 3: so we lower the demand. I mean we lower the price,

752
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 3: meaning that if there is a possible application for an

753
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 3: ever cheaper commodity in any industry, you will go with

754
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 3: that because that lowers the overall price of your weird grift.

755
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 3: So if you are if you are selling gasoline and

756
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 3: you realize there is a heavy financial incentive for you

757
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:08,240
Speaker 3: to you know, not try to make corn gas, which

758
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 3: is kind of a dumb it's not a feasible idea.

759
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 3: But if you if you get enough money to put

760
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:20,399
Speaker 3: ten percent ethanol in your gasoline, then of course you'll

761
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 3: do it. Then it's like the oh, what's that game theory.

762
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 3: It's like the prisoner problem in game theory. If you

763
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:31,839
Speaker 3: don't do it and everyone else is doing it, then

764
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 3: you are taking a hit, a ten percent hit that

765
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 3: will be magnified and compounded throughout your supply chain. The

766
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 3: more corn there is, the lower the price, the more

767
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 3: you want to use it. That is why the United States,

768
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 3: despite all the other stuff it says, that's why they

769
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 3: will always seek a way to substitute corn products into

770
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 3: any industry. I know, we've got to go to an

771
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 3: app break poll, but like everybody think about it, to

772
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 3: huge oil producers in the world, Norway, Saudi Arabia, they're

773
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 3: not about to go full into corn. Why the would they.

774
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 3: They would have to buy that corn from somewhere else.

775
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:15,280
Speaker 3: They can't grow it. Uncle Sam has a cheat code.

776
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 3: It would be foolish not to exploit that cheat code.

777
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, maybe I sound crazy, but

778
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 3: I think that feedback loop, that convenience can lead to

779
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:25,760
Speaker 3: an addiction.

780
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 2: What do you guys think, uh dependence, Yeah, certainlyence hath

781
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 2: dependence greed.

782
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 4: I said agreed, but I basically just said agreed, and

783
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 4: I think both of us say hold holds true.

784
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 2: Well, but let's take a quick break and let's come

785
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 2: back and let's talk numbers, like real numbers, not just

786
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:47,920
Speaker 2: on corn, on farm subsidies in general in this country.

787
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 2: Because it's uh nuts, No, it's corn it's corny.

788
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 3: No, it's corn nuts.

789
00:49:55,960 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 2: It's corn nuts, guys.

790
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:07,879
Speaker 3: And we have returned, Matt, I'm gonna give you an

791
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:11,239
Speaker 3: alley oop for the dunk here. Can an industry be

792
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 3: dependent upon subsidies? Absolutely? In twenty nineteen, so still pretty

793
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 3: reliable numbers. As we record a few years later, in

794
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, the US subsidized two point two billion dollars

795
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 3: of your money. By the way, if you're listening to

796
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 3: this in the United States, it doesn't matter whether you

797
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:39,880
Speaker 3: are a citizen of the United States. Every time you

798
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 3: had to pay sales tax every time, you know, every

799
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 3: time old Uncle Sam came looking for his big a

800
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 3: little bit of that went to corn.

801
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:54,879
Speaker 4: I'm sorry you just said that in such a matter

802
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 4: of fact way.

803
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 3: I love it. It's weird. Like if you imagine when

804
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:02,279
Speaker 3: you imagine paying tax, you know, think of think of

805
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 3: it as okay. So we're okay with paying taxes at

806
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 3: a gas station, right, you get your gas, you have

807
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 3: a you have a tax paid for every gallon of

808
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 3: gas here in the US still use gallons. So imagine

809
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 3: it a little bit differently. What if there was a

810
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 3: guy in the garish Uncle Sam costume, you know, top

811
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:28,240
Speaker 3: hat stripes and stars or whatever, and as you're pumping gas,

812
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 3: old boy walks up to you and he's like, hey,

813
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 3: can I get a little bit of that for like

814
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 3: I'm doing a corn thing?

815
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:44,880
Speaker 4: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's odd. It's odd. Look, it's also

816
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:50,319
Speaker 4: odd considering that just you know, it's another one of

817
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 4: these kind of antiquated bits of infrastructure that like we

818
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:56,359
Speaker 4: should have figured out a way around, but we've spent

819
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 4: all this time figuring out how to kind of build

820
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 4: tax payers out of their you know, money for these subsidies.

821
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 4: That were sort of, like you said, been dependent or

822
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 4: addicted to some degree on it, even though really there

823
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 4: are so many better ways of using that that could

824
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 4: be maybe for R and D, for more efficient fuel sources,

825
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 4: or for like, you know, more efficient electric vehicles and

826
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:22,040
Speaker 4: things like that. It just it just seems like it's

827
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 4: feeding into a system that is totally past its prime.

828
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:29,880
Speaker 4: But yet somehow there's so many stakeholders that need it

829
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:30,760
Speaker 4: to be the system.

830
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:35,400
Speaker 2: Well it's crazy. Okay. Imagine if houses cost the same

831
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 2: as our grandparents paid for houses right now?

832
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 3: Oh cool, that'd be great, it would you guys have grandparents.

833
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 4: I don't not anymore, but yes we did, yes at

834
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:48,399
Speaker 4: one point.

835
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 2: Or how about just our parents the price that our

836
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:55,359
Speaker 2: parents paid for homes, if they were able to buy

837
00:52:55,400 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 2: a home, if that stayed the same, Think about all

838
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 2: of the money generated over time for the huge amount

839
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 2: of people that grew their incomes basically that went this

840
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 2: way because of the real estate business and accruing, you know,

841
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 2: the amount of money that they did for those homes

842
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 2: that they didn't pay for. Now, imagine if coorn costs

843
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 2: the exact same as it did in the nineteen thirties,

844
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 2: right at the time that these things were put in place.

845
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:31,360
Speaker 2: Imagine if it costs the same how would any farm

846
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 2: make any money. It's got to go up, it has to, right.

847
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:39,880
Speaker 4: It has to expand that's just the nature of business

848
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:42,120
Speaker 4: and capitalism. Those Ye. The same thing is that we

849
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 4: see with publicly traded companies they have to show year

850
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 4: over year growth or else they've failed. And sometimes to

851
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 4: even show that year over year growth, it requires a

852
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:55,920
Speaker 4: lot of creative accounting and you know, perhaps things that

853
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 4: aren't entirely above board. Not you know, naming names or

854
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 4: any any accusations, but I think we all understand that

855
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 4: there's some trickery at play and these kinds of things.

856
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 4: It's not possible. Infinite growth forever is cancer.

857
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 3: You're being really anti Coolidge right now, and I just thought,

858
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 3: you know, I don't appreciate it.

859
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 2: It's not very uncooliage of.

860
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 3: You, dude, It's very it's a very good point. Let's

861
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 3: go to Joseph Glauber. Joseph Glauber is a senior research

862
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:34,399
Speaker 3: fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. They've got

863
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 3: some horses and corn cobs in the game, but they

864
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 3: do some good research.

865
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 4: Uh.

866
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:41,880
Speaker 3: This guy was also once upon a time, the chief

867
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,080
Speaker 3: economist of the USDA, just like her boy Seth Meyer,

868
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 3: who regrettably has not yet made it onto SNL. But Seth,

869
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 3: if you're hearing this, I think you'd be a bang

870
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 3: up host man's jokes.

871
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're all agriculture based, but I mean, you know,

872
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 4: it's a niche kind of operation.

873
00:54:57,800 --> 00:54:59,920
Speaker 3: Maybe it's time, you know what I mean, I like it.

874
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 3: So anyway, this guy, Joseph Glauber, he says, quote, a

875
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 3: lot of these subsidies get embedded into the cost of farmland,

876
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:13,759
Speaker 3: and they essentially bid up the price of farmland marginally

877
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:19,040
Speaker 3: over time, So the benefits accrue largely to those who

878
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,480
Speaker 3: own land. To your point, Matt, if you got in

879
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 3: the game early, you're always going to have a compounding advantage.

880
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 3: And that is the history of the United States. So yeah,

881
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:37,239
Speaker 3: as of last year, twenty twenty two, as we record this,

882
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 3: the CBO Congressional Budget Office, some of my favorite nerds

883
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 3: in the game. They looked at the insurance program that

884
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 3: the US government gives to large agribusiness and the remaining

885
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 3: mom and pop farmers, and they said, spending on this program,

886
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 3: this one facet of the subsidies alone is going to

887
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 3: increase from twenty twenty one to nearly forty billion through

888
00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:13,319
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. It's a big, big business. And yet

889
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 3: we have to understand that the folks in charge of

890
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 3: this country, private and public or state representatives alike, they

891
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 3: are playing the long game. They know that the US

892
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 3: needs to have a domestic supply of things. But corn

893
00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:36,480
Speaker 3: is no longer just a domestic supply of food. It's

894
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:41,800
Speaker 3: never been just that. So why why are they providing

895
00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:45,960
Speaker 3: all this support. Is it because they're saying, hey, we're good,

896
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:52,280
Speaker 3: we care about our voters, we want corn to remain

897
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:57,120
Speaker 3: as it is a very helpful thing. Or is corn only?

898
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:02,000
Speaker 3: Is corn only in the conversation because it has such

899
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 3: a financial grift around it? Is it because of the

900
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 3: political corruption? We got to say, there are a lot

901
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:15,400
Speaker 3: of lobbying interests, and those interests have an existential concern

902
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 3: with the subsidy checks, like they're very powerful agricultural interests

903
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:26,440
Speaker 3: that are entirely positioned toward corn and past a certain

904
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 3: point to your idea earlier, Matt, past a certain point,

905
00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 3: the actual corn doesn't matter as much as the money

906
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 3: supply in the corn. The futures you know, the betting,

907
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 3: the speculation, the guaranteed income at the end of the year,

908
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:43,840
Speaker 3: no matter what happens to the soil.

909
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, oh yeah, there's so many vested interests and

910
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:49,160
Speaker 2: I've been I just I want to blow it out

911
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:53,640
Speaker 2: one more time, just to include those the five crops

912
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:56,200
Speaker 2: that are subsidized most heavily by.

913
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 3: The US rice, wheat, soy.

914
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:04,240
Speaker 2: Cotton, corn, corn. Those are them, and then just the

915
00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 2: other the honorable mentions. I've got to list those two.

916
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:11,720
Speaker 2: These are these are fun peanuts, yeah, sogram, you said.

917
00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 2: And mohair.

918
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 4: Mohair like the suits.

919
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the stuff that comes off of specific goats

920
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:20,080
Speaker 2: that's like really luxurious.

921
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 4: And I always thought it was mole hair for the

922
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 4: longest time, like in that it's in the lyric in

923
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:30,240
Speaker 4: that Benny and the Jets got electric boots a mohair suit,

924
00:58:30,600 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 4: you know, I read it in a magazine. I thought

925
00:58:32,040 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 4: it was mole hair for the longest time. I'm like, oh,

926
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:36,960
Speaker 4: the mole hair must be the finest and the softest

927
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 4: of hairs to be made into the finest of suits

928
00:58:39,720 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 4: that a man like Elton John would wear.

929
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 2: Yes, I want to give you two. I want to

930
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,200
Speaker 2: give you two quick stats before we keep going, because

931
00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 2: I see exactly where we're headed here. Ben. This is

932
00:58:51,160 --> 00:58:56,320
Speaker 2: from an article titled how farm subsidies affect the US Economy.

933
00:58:56,640 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 2: It was written for The Balance by Kimberly Amadeo in

934
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Just a couple of quick quotes from this.

935
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, the combined agriculture and food industry made

936
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:14,840
Speaker 2: up five percent of the US economy. That's a pretty

937
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:18,160
Speaker 2: big chunk. It's not crazy. It's like, not one of

938
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:20,560
Speaker 2: the only things we do, but five percent of the

939
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 2: entire US economy. It employed nineteen point seven million full

940
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:30,680
Speaker 2: time and part time workers, which is about ten point

941
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:34,640
Speaker 2: three percent of all US employment. Think about that, over

942
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 2: ten percent of all US employment is tied in with

943
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 2: these businesses, most of them making you know, these staple crops.

944
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:46,520
Speaker 2: And in that time, corn is the nation's biggest crop.

945
00:59:46,640 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 2: More than fifteen point one billion bushels of corn were

946
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 2: grown just in the year twenty twenty one, which is

947
00:59:53,600 --> 00:59:57,960
Speaker 2: the second highest amount on record. That's twenty twenty one,

948
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 2: when you know, coming out of the pan, which is

949
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 2: so crazy to think about. So that's all of farming, right,

950
01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 2: big numbers, A lot of statistics kind of boring. But

951
01:00:08,760 --> 01:00:13,480
Speaker 2: here's where it gets nuts. There's another article titled total

952
01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 2: subsidies in the United States from nineteen ninety five to

953
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. It was created by the Environmental Working Group.

954
01:00:21,200 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 2: You can look this up. There were over four million,

955
01:00:24,880 --> 01:00:30,800
Speaker 2: three hundred and eighty thousand recipients of subsidies for you know, farmland, right,

956
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 2: that's a ton like those are individuals right in the

957
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:37,760
Speaker 2: top five. I just want to I just want to

958
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:39,280
Speaker 2: give you a couple of these. I'll give you the

959
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 2: top two and they're rice based. Oh, can you do

960
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:44,800
Speaker 2: the top three? I'll do the top three. Yeah, let's

961
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 2: let's keep it in rule of threes. First one is

962
01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:54,360
Speaker 2: Riceland Foods Incorporated. They're based in Arkansas. They received over

963
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 2: five hundred and fifty four million dollars in subsidies subsidies

964
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 2: from ninety five to twenty twenty one. Farm Services Agency

965
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 2: in They're based in Washington, d C. At least they

966
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:11,840
Speaker 2: received over three hundred and forty six million dollars in subsidies.

967
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:16,720
Speaker 2: And Producer's Rice Mill received over three hundred and fourteen

968
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:20,000
Speaker 2: million dollars in that time period, which is just to

969
01:01:20,040 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 2: show you those are only the top three of millions

970
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 2: of farm subsidies recipients. And these are massive businesses. Think

971
01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:33,479
Speaker 2: about that amount of money going in to a company, right.

972
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:38,720
Speaker 3: Oh, I was going to say, uh, literacy, healthcare, food security.

973
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 3: Oh but yeah, yeah, it is kind of food security

974
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:46,480
Speaker 3: though like this, you're you're right man. This is an

975
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:55,640
Speaker 3: absolutely astounding amount of cash right in a very capitalism

976
01:01:55,760 --> 01:01:57,360
Speaker 3: driven world.

977
01:01:57,920 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 2: And this cash turns into potential political influence.

978
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:07,320
Speaker 3: One hundred percent it does, right, yeah, it is. Let's

979
01:02:07,320 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 3: get to that part. You know. Look what we're saying

980
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 3: to be clear. Right now, there's a thing coming out

981
01:02:13,600 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 3: called the Farm Bill. Like our palse Lest mentioned, you,

982
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 3: as a resident of the US, you don't get to

983
01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:26,040
Speaker 3: vote on the farm Bill. It's a thing that comes

984
01:02:26,120 --> 01:02:30,600
Speaker 3: up every five years. Your elected representatives can weigh in

985
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:34,200
Speaker 3: on it. And as our palse Lest Headley creator A

986
01:02:34,240 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 3: Big Sugar, said, you owe it to yourself and the

987
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:40,120
Speaker 3: people who come after you and the people who live

988
01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:42,440
Speaker 3: around the world with you. You owe it to yourself

989
01:02:42,480 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 3: to push your elected representatives to make some changes on

990
01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 3: the farm Bill. Now, we're not saying that all the

991
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:56,479
Speaker 3: politicians voting to continue the egregious mistakes of the Farm

992
01:02:56,520 --> 01:03:01,720
Speaker 3: Bill are somehow illuminati, but they're not like crazed tolls

993
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 3: or anything. But what it does mean is they have

994
01:03:04,600 --> 01:03:09,880
Speaker 3: acknowledged an ironclad truth about governance in this country. It

995
01:03:09,960 --> 01:03:13,480
Speaker 3: is very popular to create a subsidy for the powerful.

996
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:18,160
Speaker 3: It is from that point very easy to continue growing

997
01:03:18,240 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 3: that subsidy. Mission creep is a real thing in every industry,

998
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:27,840
Speaker 3: but at the same time it becomes increasingly difficult and

999
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 3: dangerous to rule that benefit. Back to your example, Matt,

1000
01:03:32,560 --> 01:03:36,200
Speaker 3: what if of those top three subsidies you just named,

1001
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 3: what if there were a lone politician saying pull those

1002
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:46,280
Speaker 3: subsidies entirely, I think they would not get reelected. And

1003
01:03:46,360 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 3: I am very confident in that thought.

1004
01:03:49,560 --> 01:03:53,840
Speaker 4: Well, the heartland is always such a big political talking

1005
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 4: point in general, you know, I mean, for good or bad.

1006
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:01,840
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just the idea of like protecting the

1007
01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:05,120
Speaker 4: good men and women of America that you know, built

1008
01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 4: this country into what it is today, you know, I mean,

1009
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:09,840
Speaker 4: And it's like, maybe they don't have as much political

1010
01:04:09,880 --> 01:04:13,960
Speaker 4: capital as like the big cities, but they represent something,

1011
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:16,080
Speaker 4: you know, and because of the nature of I guess

1012
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:19,959
Speaker 4: elect elections, you know that they do matter and those

1013
01:04:20,040 --> 01:04:22,040
Speaker 4: you know. That's why. Why do you think Iowa is

1014
01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 4: such an important political stop, Like it sort of kicks

1015
01:04:25,600 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 4: off the whole season, right.

1016
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:35,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a big thing American politicians. US politicians in particular,

1017
01:04:35,760 --> 01:04:40,720
Speaker 3: typically play toward a romanticized version of the US that

1018
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 3: does not actually exist. It's a rose colored glasses thing.

1019
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:48,520
Speaker 3: As a colorblind person, I find that hilarious. I know

1020
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 3: we're going long. There are a couple of things want

1021
01:04:50,880 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 3: to hit real quick points of interest in your journey.

1022
01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:57,960
Speaker 3: We invite you to take the journey on your own, folks,

1023
01:04:58,160 --> 01:05:00,760
Speaker 3: and contact us about it one eighty three to three

1024
01:05:00,800 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 3: STDWYTK Conspiracydiheartradio dot com. You can find us on your

1025
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 3: favorite weegea board. We mentioned earlier. The sugar or sucrose

1026
01:05:10,360 --> 01:05:15,640
Speaker 3: industry is beefed up with the corn or fructose industry.

1027
01:05:15,920 --> 01:05:21,720
Speaker 3: Back in twenty eleven, trade associations representing growers of sugarcane

1028
01:05:21,800 --> 01:05:26,400
Speaker 3: and sugar beets or sucrose went to court arguing that

1029
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 3: a lobbying group for a high fructose corn syrup, the

1030
01:05:29,520 --> 01:05:35,000
Speaker 3: Corn Refiners Association, was behind a conspiracy to deceive the

1031
01:05:35,040 --> 01:05:39,480
Speaker 3: public because they wanted to change the name of high

1032
01:05:39,520 --> 01:05:44,960
Speaker 3: fructose corn syrup to corn sugar on all your ingredient labels.

1033
01:05:45,640 --> 01:05:48,480
Speaker 3: Technically accurate, technically accurate.

1034
01:05:48,520 --> 01:05:51,680
Speaker 2: But you gotta process the living hell out of that

1035
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:55,000
Speaker 2: corn in order to make high fructose corn sertum. That's

1036
01:05:55,040 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 2: one of the things. Listen to the episode we did

1037
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:01,200
Speaker 2: one where we talk about high fructose corn syrup in particular.

1038
01:06:02,720 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 2: It's like, it's an awful thing that you got to

1039
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:08,640
Speaker 2: break that corn way down. Yeah, using nasty stuff you

1040
01:06:08,640 --> 01:06:09,680
Speaker 2: don't want to put in your body.

1041
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,160
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, that is true. It takes some poison to

1042
01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 3: make the antidote, does it not. Uh. The The thing is,

1043
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:23,600
Speaker 3: these forces are further incentivized to normalize the presence of

1044
01:06:23,680 --> 01:06:26,840
Speaker 3: corn at the heart of American consumption. It does not

1045
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:30,600
Speaker 3: stop at your local soda can. It does not stop

1046
01:06:30,640 --> 01:06:35,560
Speaker 3: at your local gas station or at your local case

1047
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:38,640
Speaker 3: of do a plate, Oh god, case is probably a

1048
01:06:38,720 --> 01:06:40,480
Speaker 3: high frot dose corn syrup lost.

1049
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:42,840
Speaker 4: You don't need a plate for a case. That's sort

1050
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 4: of the beauty of a making a case built in plate.

1051
01:06:47,440 --> 01:06:50,960
Speaker 3: Man, Thank you, thank you for saying that that does matter.

1052
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:53,360
Speaker 4: So you need a play, however, for a chimmy chanka,

1053
01:06:53,440 --> 01:06:55,919
Speaker 4: because that's a real saucy affair, and things can get

1054
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:57,240
Speaker 4: really messy, real quickly.

1055
01:06:58,360 --> 01:07:01,840
Speaker 3: And speaking of things get messy, there is some trouble

1056
01:07:01,840 --> 01:07:04,560
Speaker 3: on the horizon. As we in tonight's episode, the United

1057
01:07:04,600 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 3: States currently sports about thirteen percent of its corn products

1058
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:13,600
Speaker 3: abroad in some form. Simply put, going back to the

1059
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:18,120
Speaker 3: drug dealer analogy we said we'd explain earlier, this is

1060
01:07:18,160 --> 01:07:21,880
Speaker 3: a dealer who consumes most of their own supply. This

1061
01:07:22,080 --> 01:07:25,360
Speaker 3: is like your buddy in college who smoked so much

1062
01:07:25,440 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 3: weed that they started selling a little bit of weed

1063
01:07:29,200 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 3: so they could get a discount on all the weed

1064
01:07:31,920 --> 01:07:35,600
Speaker 3: they smoke. Other players want in on the game, and

1065
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:38,960
Speaker 3: this gives us an opportunity to talk about one of

1066
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:44,560
Speaker 3: the funniest related conspiracies. Kid, you not, there are real

1067
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:50,000
Speaker 3: life corn spies right now, cor In, not just some

1068
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:54,440
Speaker 3: folks talking Jonathan Davis. In twenty sixteen, a guy named

1069
01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:58,840
Speaker 3: Mao Halung got popcorned for a five year conspiracy.

1070
01:07:59,160 --> 01:08:02,800
Speaker 4: To still picture these guys as like just blending in

1071
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:06,160
Speaker 4: with the stalks, you know, like dressed in some sort

1072
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:10,000
Speaker 4: of corn accoutrement. I don't know, I guess scarecrow, yeah,

1073
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:12,880
Speaker 4: maybe so, or literally just dressed. They gotta be really

1074
01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:16,160
Speaker 4: skinny to apply, just literally, you know, dressed as like

1075
01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:19,559
Speaker 4: a piece of corn, a corn on the cob. That's

1076
01:08:19,560 --> 01:08:22,639
Speaker 4: a popular costume for holiday times.

1077
01:08:22,720 --> 01:08:26,840
Speaker 2: Right, well yeah, yeah, oh for sure. Uh but this

1078
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:30,000
Speaker 2: guy was this guy was literally trying to steal corn seeds,

1079
01:08:30,080 --> 01:08:33,880
Speaker 2: right like going out like Johnny Apple seeding reverse Johnny

1080
01:08:33,920 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 2: Apple seeding corn.

1081
01:08:36,360 --> 01:08:39,679
Speaker 4: Much less interesting, but much more nefarious than my whole concept.

1082
01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 3: Well or from his his perspective, he was being very

1083
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:48,800
Speaker 3: much Johnny Apple seed. Ah, he was spreading, he was propagating.

1084
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 3: Why do you get to own this improvement? Why why

1085
01:08:53,439 --> 01:08:56,400
Speaker 3: is it for your country's benefit rather than my own?

1086
01:08:56,600 --> 01:09:00,479
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? It's a good because bump

1087
01:09:00,479 --> 01:09:07,040
Speaker 3: bump bum. Oh that's farmers. So this guy is employed

1088
01:09:07,040 --> 01:09:12,479
Speaker 3: by a Chinese corn seed company and US companies du Pont,

1089
01:09:12,640 --> 01:09:17,559
Speaker 3: Pioneer and Monsanto. They own the patent to a lot

1090
01:09:17,600 --> 01:09:22,479
Speaker 3: of hybrid what are called non terminating seeds. This is

1091
01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:26,280
Speaker 3: a very big deal because for a while there were

1092
01:09:26,320 --> 01:09:29,759
Speaker 3: these hybrid seeds put out that would grow very well

1093
01:09:30,240 --> 01:09:34,880
Speaker 3: in all sorts of conditions, but they would not reproduce

1094
01:09:35,120 --> 01:09:38,280
Speaker 3: on their own. They would not You would have to

1095
01:09:38,280 --> 01:09:41,679
Speaker 3: buy new seeds even though they are a cultagen. Even

1096
01:09:41,720 --> 01:09:44,680
Speaker 3: if you try to farm them, you would not make

1097
01:09:44,720 --> 01:09:47,679
Speaker 3: a new crop unless you bought another batch of seeds.

1098
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:51,759
Speaker 3: So being able to make something that can just boom

1099
01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:55,880
Speaker 3: boom boom you through multiple harvest seasons, that's a big deal.

1100
01:09:56,479 --> 01:10:04,759
Speaker 3: The FBI popped this guy Fbipoptom in twenty sixteen. He's

1101
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:09,200
Speaker 3: sentenced to three years in prison, and then he also

1102
01:10:09,320 --> 01:10:12,720
Speaker 3: has to give up two separate farms he owns, one

1103
01:10:12,760 --> 01:10:17,200
Speaker 3: in Iowa, one in Illinois because they were purchased as

1104
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:21,840
Speaker 3: a cover for his weird corn spy activities. That's how

1105
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:25,160
Speaker 3: deep it gets. The US government and its corporate masters

1106
01:10:25,320 --> 01:10:29,959
Speaker 3: are in a corn cold war right now. Brazil, Argentina, Canada.

1107
01:10:30,160 --> 01:10:35,479
Speaker 3: They're making inroads. Just four days ago, Brazil made a

1108
01:10:35,479 --> 01:10:38,639
Speaker 3: pretty big legal move and will probably take too long

1109
01:10:38,680 --> 01:10:42,840
Speaker 3: to explain, to increase their stake in the global corn game.

1110
01:10:43,400 --> 01:10:47,320
Speaker 3: They want to be the next US for corn, and

1111
01:10:47,360 --> 01:10:49,719
Speaker 3: they want to do the same things that the US

1112
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:53,280
Speaker 3: has done with this power. We mentioned ethanol, we didn't

1113
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:56,639
Speaker 3: even get to it. I guess we should say before

1114
01:10:56,640 --> 01:11:00,960
Speaker 3: we end the corn itself is not the problem. Corn

1115
01:11:01,080 --> 01:11:04,840
Speaker 3: is a solid crop. It's awesome. It grows phenomenally well

1116
01:11:05,080 --> 01:11:08,800
Speaker 3: in the US. It played a huge role in the

1117
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:13,599
Speaker 3: current American experiment. The farmers themselves were never the problem.

1118
01:11:14,200 --> 01:11:17,799
Speaker 3: People were farming this way before the United States ever existed.

1119
01:11:18,520 --> 01:11:22,680
Speaker 3: People who actively create stuff in these kind of situations,

1120
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:25,120
Speaker 3: they are almost never going.

1121
01:11:24,920 --> 01:11:26,479
Speaker 4: To be the problem.

1122
01:11:27,800 --> 01:11:32,080
Speaker 3: But the people who take advantage of those people, they

1123
01:11:32,160 --> 01:11:36,519
Speaker 3: have some different aims. You know. Logically, the US has

1124
01:11:36,600 --> 01:11:43,000
Speaker 3: to take corn to the highest most extreme degree of

1125
01:11:43,160 --> 01:11:47,920
Speaker 3: usability right of utilization, but given that feedback loop of profit,

1126
01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 3: the US may encounter diminishing returns. And as corny as

1127
01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:58,240
Speaker 3: it sounds, thank you, thank you, tip your server. The

1128
01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:01,720
Speaker 3: corn game is rife with conspiracy. No one wants to

1129
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:04,800
Speaker 3: stop it. It is in no one's best interest right

1130
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:08,000
Speaker 3: now to be the voice of opposition to this.

1131
01:12:08,200 --> 01:12:11,120
Speaker 2: I don't know, well, everybody knows it's a problem. And

1132
01:12:11,280 --> 01:12:14,559
Speaker 2: right before we started talking like doing this episode, we

1133
01:12:14,560 --> 01:12:17,799
Speaker 2: were talking about the New York Times and other major

1134
01:12:17,920 --> 01:12:21,360
Speaker 2: outlets reporting in two thousand and four, two thousand and five,

1135
01:12:21,600 --> 01:12:25,360
Speaker 2: two thousand and two about how horrible it is that

1136
01:12:25,439 --> 01:12:27,200
Speaker 2: all of us have to pay all these taxes in

1137
01:12:27,280 --> 01:12:31,080
Speaker 2: order to support all of these subsidies. Because it's just

1138
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:34,200
Speaker 2: this growing, ballooning thing that's gotten out of control in

1139
01:12:34,280 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 2: two thousand and five, and nothing's changed. It's all the same.

1140
01:12:38,320 --> 01:12:40,559
Speaker 2: Nobody's gonna stop it. The farm bill's coming up. What

1141
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:45,360
Speaker 2: are we gonna do? Hey, this seems wrong, too bad? Click?

1142
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:48,519
Speaker 2: I mean sorry, I don't mean to be a downer, but.

1143
01:12:49,040 --> 01:12:52,000
Speaker 3: Absolutely you're absolutely correct, and I still get I gotta

1144
01:12:52,040 --> 01:12:55,160
Speaker 3: tell you guys this evening, I am in love with

1145
01:12:55,280 --> 01:12:58,680
Speaker 3: the idea that every time I pay taxes on anything,

1146
01:12:59,240 --> 01:13:02,720
Speaker 3: this old white guy in stars and stripes comes up

1147
01:13:02,960 --> 01:13:06,479
Speaker 3: and ask me for extra money and tells me something

1148
01:13:06,720 --> 01:13:11,160
Speaker 3: very weird that he's going to do with it, you know, like,

1149
01:13:11,240 --> 01:13:16,040
Speaker 3: oh that you know that ninety nine cent pack of

1150
01:13:16,080 --> 01:13:20,000
Speaker 3: gum or whatever that's actually that's actually a dollar o nine.

1151
01:13:20,120 --> 01:13:21,840
Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, this guy comes up and

1152
01:13:22,000 --> 01:13:24,760
Speaker 3: is like, I need ten cents for plutonium.

1153
01:13:25,240 --> 01:13:29,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need more cluster munitions for Ukraine.

1154
01:13:30,160 --> 01:13:31,439
Speaker 3: Then what am I gonna do?

1155
01:13:31,520 --> 01:13:31,920
Speaker 4: Tell him?

1156
01:13:31,920 --> 01:13:36,160
Speaker 3: No, it's a dime anyway. This is the stories it

1157
01:13:36,280 --> 01:13:40,719
Speaker 3: stands now. We hope you enjoyed this episode. We cannot

1158
01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:44,240
Speaker 3: wait to hear from you, especially if you are affiliated

1159
01:13:44,880 --> 01:13:48,320
Speaker 3: to any degree with any of the industries we mentioned.

1160
01:13:48,400 --> 01:13:51,559
Speaker 3: In tonight's show, we hope that you reach out and

1161
01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:54,240
Speaker 3: let us know what you think. Is there a way

1162
01:13:54,320 --> 01:13:57,760
Speaker 3: from the path dependence upon corn? Is there a way

1163
01:13:57,800 --> 01:14:03,640
Speaker 3: to reimagine this industry to the advantage of current and

1164
01:14:03,720 --> 01:14:07,240
Speaker 3: later generations. Tell us you.

1165
01:14:07,240 --> 01:14:09,559
Speaker 4: Can tell us, and we hope you will by reaching

1166
01:14:09,600 --> 01:14:12,759
Speaker 4: out to us at either of our Internet handles of choice.

1167
01:14:12,880 --> 01:14:16,320
Speaker 4: Conspiracy Stuff on the social media now we're forming on

1168
01:14:16,439 --> 01:14:21,360
Speaker 4: as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram

1169
01:14:21,360 --> 01:14:21,919
Speaker 4: and TikTok.

1170
01:14:22,200 --> 01:14:24,360
Speaker 2: Hey, do you want to use your phone and call us?

1171
01:14:24,520 --> 01:14:28,960
Speaker 2: Call one eight three three std WYTK. It's really simple.

1172
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:31,280
Speaker 2: You get three minutes, tell us whatever you'd like. Just

1173
01:14:31,520 --> 01:14:33,839
Speaker 2: do it in three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname

1174
01:14:33,880 --> 01:14:35,599
Speaker 2: and let us know if we can use your name

1175
01:14:35,680 --> 01:14:37,479
Speaker 2: and voice on the air. If you don't want to

1176
01:14:37,520 --> 01:14:39,760
Speaker 2: do that, why not instead send us a good old

1177
01:14:39,760 --> 01:14:40,519
Speaker 2: fashioned email.

1178
01:14:40,640 --> 01:15:02,560
Speaker 3: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1179
01:15:02,960 --> 01:15:05,000
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production

1180
01:15:05,120 --> 01:15:09,639
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1181
01:15:09,760 --> 01:15:12,599
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.