A Dairy Farmer on Church Closures, Online Tribalism, and How Farmers Game Federal Subsidies

Vance Crowe [00:00:03] As the crow flies on the Vance Crowe podcast.

Dwayne Faber [00:00:08] Dwayne favor, welcome to the podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:12] You bet. Thanks for having me, Vance. This is a blast.

Dwayne Faber [00:00:14] So you and I were having an early morning conversation. I was drinking my coffee. I think you must have just gotten done milking cows or something. 'cause it was early and I thought, well, what the hell? Let's, let's line up and, and have Dwayne come on and talk about all the stuff that we're talking about on the phone.

Vance Crowe [00:00:29] Yeah, you bet. No, it's interesting times and it's wild, right? It unprecedented. We're dealing with a global pandemic that'll be in history books forever. Right. And it's, it's interesting all the different avenues and angles of it.

Dwayne Faber [00:00:44] So you're an interesting character because you are a dairy farmer, you're a standup comedian, and you're also an elder in your church. And so yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:00:54] You

Dwayne Faber [00:00:55] Have all these different vantage points on what's going on with coronavirus. So on the one hand we could sit and talk a lot about milk and dairy and what's going on there, and we probably should touch on it, but you also oversee some really interesting things. And right now you're in Washington state, the state just to your South Oregon has said, we're gonna stay on coronavirus lockdown until I think July 1st. And you guys in Washington state are deciding to open up. How do you think that's gonna met out? How two states right next to each other? Totally different approaches.

Vance Crowe [00:01:29] I mean, it, it has the, the potential for being a complete disaster, right? I mean, you have people in Oregon that are gonna be looking over the fence and saying, we want to go out fishing, we want to go out on the, the salt water. We want to go golfing. Why are they allowed to? And we're not. And we're only a matter of 10 minutes away and it's going to create severe angst. And those that don't open quick enough, they're going to face people that are just gonna go out and do it anyway. You get a sunny 75 degree day, people are gonna go out and do their thing. And there there's not going to be a big enough police force to be able to tell everybody, go back and go back into your house again.

Dwayne Faber [00:02:06] And what, what are your thoughts? I mean, on the contagiousness of this disease, should people be staying inside? Like is there a tangible difference between Oregon and Washington state?

Vance Crowe [00:02:17] So we were kind of the first ones to face it. And so we were shut down, I believe, quicker than most everybody else. And I, is it real? Absolutely. It's real. There's been people in our town that have died that they had choir practice from a church and just the singing transmitted the disease. And we were in the national news for having two people that died from Coronavirus because of the decision to go ahead and meet. And this religious liberties thing, to me, it's almost the canary in the coal mine or it's gonna be the front end of the revolution. And it, we're facing these decisions here locally. You know, we're, I'm in church leadership and do you open it up or do you not open it up? And there's a certain faction,

Dwayne Faber [00:03:00] What do you think that

Vance Crowe [00:03:01] Is? Likening the, i I think we hold out for a little bit yet, but there are those that are saying, this is a test of our faith. This is a test of our commitment. This is persecution. And I would say that it's not because the local casino is being told they have to be shut down too. And the, the, the tennis court down the road is told to be shut down. And so for us to go and say, well, it's a religious liberties issue and we need to be open. I would disagree with that. And, and yet I think there's gonna come a time where that's where it's going to break First is people wanna say, we're going to meet up. And, and quite frankly, I think if Obama was in office, we would have bloodshed already. I think the only reason we've lasted this long is because the people that are packing the guns and willing to, to fight for this being open, listen to Trump longer than they would have Obama.

Dwayne Faber [00:03:59] Yeah, I think that's right. I I think that that the right said, all right, well, you know, our guy is saying, let's go in, let's try and all do this. Let's try and pull together the religious liberties thing. It, this concerns me quite a bit and I'm, I'm living in the city. A lot of the people that I see on Facebook haven't gone to church in 20 years. And when they looked at people going to church, they saw it as, you are going to expose more people who are gonna get sick and then go get nurses and doctors sick. And that's not fair. But I think that it, it overlooks the fact that there are people that are taking this as an actual religious test. They, they feel like my responsibility is to honor God, it's to go to church, it's to do, it's to participate like in the Catholic tradition, like in these sacraments. And so if somebody is telling me I can't do it, am I not living up to my bargain with God if I don't go? And I think the people that just kind of roll their eyes and say, well, those silly religious people shouldn't think that. Forget the fact that these people take that seriously and they don't care whether you think they should or not.

Vance Crowe [00:05:12] Yeah, I, I agree a hundred percent. Right. And it's, you, you've got all different levels of thought in the church, and there are those that are more fanatical and, and it, I'm a little bit discouraged because there's also an attitude of, well, we don't like our leadership, we don't like our governor, and so we want to stick it to them by going out and defying the stay at home order because we don't like our leadership. And that's not right either. And to me, as a Christian, you have an obligation to not scare people in your community. And when you have fear in your community and people are scared that this, this virus is spreading, you have an obligation to not sit there and say, well, we're above that and we deserve to be meeting in public and meeting as a group to worship when people can't visit their dying mother or father in the hospital. And, and that would be my reason for saying, Hey, we need to stay closed until we get a very clear signal that it is okay. And it is lawful from our gover government to, to meet,

Dwayne Faber [00:06:16] Meet. I I mean, I think that's definitely a fair assessment and you know, as, as a person that is a part of your church leadership, I mean, I think it really comes down to who are the leaders of your church? Is there a way that they can convince the people that are in their church that there are other ways to worship and that there's other ways to be respectful and God is going to not look upon your decision not to do this? Disfavorably, I just at, at its core, the idea that there was a group of people that could say, you're not allowed to do it. You're not allowed to go to church. That sits very uncomfortably with me. And, and I, and I say this not as a, as a person that is deeply practicing, I was actually in the middle of an experiment this year. I, you know, last year I decided I wanna run 500 miles. I wanna see what happens to your mind and your body. If you go 500 miles, you push yourself to run every day. And then this year I decided, hey, I left behind church a long time ago when I went away to college, and I kind of blew it off as just being superstitions and, you know, traditions that my parents did and kind of roll your eyes. But then I was like, Hey, wait a second. There's actually a ton of culture and interest and stories and parables that I don't know here. So why don't I go to church every Sunday for an entire year, just see what that's like. And so I was doing it almost as like a sociological experiment. And so I am in this weird position because I wasn't going, because I felt that God obligated me to go. I was going because I was doing an experiment and it made my wife happy.

Dwayne Faber [00:07:49] She liked it. But now you think about the people that, that are saying like, you can't go. And the people that I was going to church with that had gone every year, every day, every week for 20 years, it's you to just shut off their ability to go do this act because the majority is afraid of getting sick. Seems very dangerous to me because it cuts away at the core of one of, of why we started the country to begin with.

Vance Crowe [00:08:14] Well, I for one just wanted to say that I know I noticed a difference. You were kind of an asshole before and now you're just really, really just, there's something about you that's just genuine and real and

Dwayne Faber [00:08:25] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:08:27] No, but I mean, I I would concur with that because when you're dealing with religion and there's any, any thought that the government is trying to supersede that right to worship it, it turns ugly quickly and it turns violent quickly. I mean it, most wars that are going on around the world have some element of religion tied to it. Right. And, and killing in the name of religion is done often. And, and it scares me. And I would counter that a little bit by saying, I mean, our first amendment right to assemble Well, well that's been trampled on too. You take away the religious connotations and that's been taken away too. So

Dwayne Faber [00:09:12] Yeah, I I it's gonna be interesting to see how this bears out. I would say that everyone in here, in this situation, everyone in this country right now should be trying to look at the other side and see if you can't explain why they wanna do so well, that that other person would agree with you, that yes, you're correct. Because I think there's a whole bunch of people that have straw men arguments about why that guy wants to go to church or why that woman thinks we should shut down church. But for the most part, I think people's reasoning is coming from a good place, right? The, the person, when this all started, and I kind of complained about church, I had a good friend of mine really go after me because she was really worried about, about doctors and nurses. And at first I thought she was being ridiculous and she thought I was being ridiculous. But after we both sat down to talk about it, you're like, all right, I could, I could see your, your point of view, but no matter what the conversation should be happening. Because when they don't happen, then you get people showing up at capitol buildings with assault rifles, which seems a bit extreme, but it's not to them.

Vance Crowe [00:10:16] Yeah, absolutely. Right. No, we need to keep that dialogue going and we need to have those conversations in a helpful and respectful manner, right? And a lot of our conversation and dialogue now is happening on Facebook or on Twitter, and it's so easy to not know the intent of what somebody is trying to say. And it's really created more turmoil than, than been helpful as people are posturing to try and show I'm more holy, or I care more about this than you do. And, and it can escalate. And, and that's my fear too, is I I I want us all to get through this and, and we're, there's going to be a day where people worship together again. And, and, and to be fair, we are worshiping now, I mean, we're worshiping via Facebook live via YouTube channels. Absolutely. We're not sitting in the same room together, but the Lord says, we're where one or two are gathered, I am there. And that's where we're at right now. So we need to have that faith and trust.

Dwayne Faber [00:11:17] Have you, is there anybody that you've seen write something on Facebook that you'll never forgive or forget? You, you'll, they, they've changed the way you think about them.

Vance Crowe [00:11:30] Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think there's been a lot of lack of wisdom out there, and that's been discouraging. And, and in certain people that desire publicly be the bully behind the screen is real. And for those kind of people, I lose a lot of respect for that because I, I think we need to be incredibly careful about what we say online and if we're going to be a bully online to me, that that reveals a heart and a character that concerns me. And, and I've seen that in the last month.

Dwayne Faber [00:12:11] Yeah. And I think that tribalism really happens, right? Because I think if somebody gets challenged on Facebook, oftentimes their response is, everyone is watching me, so I have to be this emblem. Kinda like you were saying about religion or not going to church. Like you see people posture up and you're like, man, I know you when you're talking in person, you never talk like this. And maybe you think these thoughts in your head, but what comes outta your mouth? The actions you take in the real world don't match with this. But what's going on in Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter? I, I don't know. I actually think Twitter has been kinder than Facebook during this whole thing. And I think it's because this is so hyper-local that the fights that are going on that are, that are really vitriolic and angry are happening in people's communities. Like in my hometown, the, the county clerk, the the state's attorney that, that is in Woodford County where I grew up, he said, we are no longer going to enforce Governor Pritzker's mandate. If you wanna open your business, I'm not recommending it, but you can go ahead and do it. And you watched some of the people celebrate and cheer that thing on, and then the mayor came out and said, Hey, wait a second, no, no, no, we are gonna follow the state's orders, you know, we're gonna keep doing this. And that's when two camps came out and they go to war. And you're saying you people have lived next to each other for 20 years and found a way not to kill each other, but this two politicians that have local control have spiked you into extreme anger.

Dwayne Faber [00:13:46] It is, you people won't forget this, and it's not like you're gonna move.

Vance Crowe [00:13:50] No. And it's amazing the hyper-partisanship that we had before the coronavirus, this just shone a light on it, right? To the point where Donald Trump can say, Hey, this medication looks promising and looks like it's going to be good. And then right away the other side says, no, it's not. We can't use that. And then somebody else comes up with an alternative treatment and they say, well, we're, we can put our name on this because Donald Trump hasn't put his name on this. Right? And, and that hyper partisanship is scary. And, and a, a country falling apart falls apart from within. It's not going to be an outside force. And so that is my fear too, that we've taken away the ability for people to have a discussion and disagree and shake hands and walk away while probably not shake hands in this environment, but salute each other and walk away. Right? But we've taken that away and I, I value and appreciate somebody that I can disagree with and argue with back and forth, and we can walk away and still be friends. And, and that's certainly is, is not as common as it once was.

Dwayne Faber [00:14:55] So speaking of of, you know, bipartisanship, there has been a lot of money flowing to different parts of the economy. People are getting unemployment checks. People are getting thanks for being an American check, and, and PPP also with farmers. There's the MFP program. And last night on 60 Minutes, an article or a show, like a, a segment ran on farmers that were supposed to be getting what seemed like a modest or reasonable amount of money were signing up for multiple checks that they would get all of them. And from what little I watched on YouTube, but what I saw on Twitter, it really upset farmers. They felt like they weren't being portrayed fairly. So maybe talk a little bit about, did you see that 60 minutes thing?

Vance Crowe [00:15:40] So I did, and it was speaking mostly to corn and soybean farmers. Okay.

Dwayne Faber [00:15:45] So

Vance Crowe [00:15:46] What a lot of these farmers would do, and when they have one LLC and multiple farmers, they would somehow go into the gray area and sign up for MFP money where the cap is $125,000 a year. And so if it goes to an entity, that entity can only take $125,000. But what they would do is they would pay an attorney to somehow split out individuals. And so every individual that was tied to that business was able to go and cash $125,000 check. And so it's definitely a gray area and it flies in the face of the intent. The intent was to help individual farms and, and we have to be a little bit careful because, you know, the, the largest 5% of farms manufacture or produce 80% of products no matter what industry it is. A lot of the USDA farms are, are a five acre organic, you know, beet farm that goes and hauls their produce to the farmer's market. And so that's counted as a farm. And so is that farm that farms 20,000 acres in the Midwest. Right. And how do you treat those fairly and equitably on the dairy side? We haven't been able to allow, we haven't been able to do that. We are not allowed to do that. It goes to, to the LLC and not to the individuals. Now there is a financial benefit instead of having a 1000 cow dairy, having two 500 cow dairies with separate LLCs where you're able to still have the litigation protection, but also maximize any tax breaks. And, but also now going forward, maximizing any government programs where it goes to the farm versus the individual.

Vance Crowe [00:17:23] And and

Dwayne Faber [00:17:24] Do you think people will actually restructure in the future because of future expected government handouts?

Vance Crowe [00:17:31] I do. I do. So there's a go, there's a government program now that has paid out 90% of the time for the dairy industry, but it covers 5 million pounds a year, which in the scheme of things, if you're a larger dairy farmer is not a lot at all. But if you are set up efficiently on a, I think a 200 cow dairy would maximize that number, that 5 million pounds. So yeah, you want some scale and efficiency. So if you get to four, 500 cows, but then you're also able to have a higher percentage of your milk covered with this insurance program, it it's a great way to hedge against a catastrophic year or event like we're dealing with today. And, and that is on the forefront of farmers' minds now more than ever, particularly what we, with what we've seen where milk has gone from $18 all the way down to $12, and so that $125,000 cap on a thousand cow dairy that fall from 18 to $12 works out to about $150,000 a month in lost revenue. And so $125,000 bailout from the government or subsidy or stimulus from the government really doesn't go far at all.

Dwayne Faber [00:18:39] It's a one month, it's a one month bailout then, or like, basically gives

Vance Crowe [00:18:43] You it, it it is exactly right. And so now if you were a, you know, a 300 cow dairy, that $125,000 that covers the entire year and you are well positioned to weather the storm. And some of it is, I mean, the public and and government in general wants smaller farms to succeed. And so these programs are designed to encourage small farmers to stay in business and help small farmers stay in business. And so the natural reaction to that is, well, we're going to acquiesce to those demands and we're going to create a multiple LLCs or we're going to have individuals in the large corporation that are now their separate farmer, and we're going to capitalize on these, on these handouts and these subsidies.

Dwayne Faber [00:19:27] What do you think happens over the long term? Does 60 minutes show end up making it so, hey, it's one person, one farm or, or how, how do you think this all plays out?

Vance Crowe [00:19:38] That's a good question. I don't know what the public is going to respond to, to this with, I, I will say that there's been a lot of angst and anger as the consumers or public has seen entities apply for PPP that ought not apply for it. And that's where this is going to, and there's a very real possibility that there is reform because people say, Hey, I just got fired. I lost my job. Why are the, why are these people coddled and subsidized when I'm not? And my job isn't? And yet at the same time, there's, and we we found out in the last month too, that having food, is it it not having food is a risk. It's a national security issue. And so in order to have a vibrant local agriculture economy, there has to be some form of government support. Otherwise all the food will come from the cheapest country possible and will be getting a lot of our corn, soybeans, pigs, everything from Mexico or from Central and South America. And if we're okay with that, that's fine, but we have to either import, we, we have to import labor that makes us competitive. So we have to have a good worker program that allows workers to come in to safely work here and provide and be at a, a cost structure where we're able to compete with some of these other countries. But we also need to have support to get through these hard times in order to ensure that these industries don't go overseas or go south

Dwayne Faber [00:21:10] Foreign workers. So you bring people in from another country that are ultimately expecting that they're going to go back to Mexico or wherever else.

Vance Crowe [00:21:19] So that, that entire system is a mess. Right now, there's been several attempts to reform it. We've got the H two A program, which allows people to come to the US and work here, but they have to go back, I believe it's every six months, which for a dairy farmer that doesn't work very well because we have 365 days a year a need for employers and employees and to go and send them back every six months, that doesn't work well. And so we had put forward H two B, which allowed somebody to come to the US for a longer period of time, work here. And then with that intent of going back home to, it's typically been Mexico and, and it's, it's been a great, it's a great program for somebody. You know, you got an 18-year-old kid that's not afraid to work. He comes to the states, makes American dollars, sends all of the dollars back home to Mexico, and after three years he's got his house bought and paid for and he is set up for life in Mexico. 10% of the GDP for Mexico is actually US dollars coming back into their country from the United States.

Dwayne Faber [00:22:22] So what do you think about the people that are collecting unemployment while you're bringing workers in from another country to work?

Vance Crowe [00:22:32] Unfortunately, when the people are making six, you know, $600 plus an additional $600 in unemployment, $1,200, we can't, we're not, we can't compete with that. It, it's more appealing for an individual to just go and say, I'm going to collect this check from the government and get my $4,200 than it is for me to go out and milk cows and get cow crappy cow tails in my face and, and bring home 4,200 bucks a month. And so it, it's been a real struggle. And and that's a, that's a fear too, is that we take incentive away to work. We have to be careful, particularly with some of this UBI stuff that's floating around or, you know, $2,000 a month for six months, or we're gonna pay your mortgage and your rent and that that's the cocaine and the draw of socialism. And, and we could have a huge economic impact just by killing the incentive for people to work. And, and that's a real fear as well.

Dwayne Faber [00:23:31] How are you explaining coronavirus and what's going on in the world to your daughters?

Vance Crowe [00:23:38] It's, it's amazing. We sit around the table and they talk about the virus. We can't do this because of the virus. And it, it's at moments like that where it strikes me that we are living history, we are living a pandemic that these kids are going to be talking about for the rest of their lives. Hey, remember that summer when we couldn't go out and do anything? And it, it brings back memories of all these other young kids that go through World Wars or famines or, you know, the impact and the change that it has on their cognition. It has to, has have an impact. Right. And I think for our kids too, we, we explain what's going on and, and we've lost a, a family member to COVID-19. And so yeah, there's been a real, there's been a, it's, it's been interesting to watch on their part.

Dwayne Faber [00:24:31] You lost a family member to COVID?

Vance Crowe [00:24:34] Yeah, my wife has a great uncle. And so he had, you know, some comorbidities. I believe he had blood cancer and he was in his eighties, but ultimately it was COVID that got him sick and it ultimately killed him. So, yep.

Dwayne Faber [00:24:50] Are your friends and neighbors afraid of getting coronavirus?

Vance Crowe [00:24:55] No, they're not. I think for the most part they're not. And to be fair, a lot of them are, I mean, most of my peers are my age and in healthy and in good shape. I've got an older friend that has diabetes and, and he, you know, he has issues too, and he is deathly afraid. He was told by his doctors, he is got some comorbidities not to leave the house and not to leave the house until it gets the all clear that it's gone. And so it is, it has been interesting that your opinion is also shaped by your physical condition and the issues that you're, you're facing and fighting.

Dwayne Faber [00:25:33] Yeah, and I, I've, I've been talking about this that I think that I initially thought that the, the reaction that people were having to this disease was based on the zombie movies and the zombie shows that were so big, the Walking Dead and whoever Shawn of the Dead, like all these shows. I thought that is what prompted people to run into their houses. And I've come up with a different theory now. The other day I was flipping through YouTube and I came across some old West Wing episodes and it was then that I started formulating what I call the West Wing hypothesis, which is people started seeing this disease come at them and they started saying like, what is my belief in government? How, who do I believe is going to be able to help me the most? And the people that had watched the most West Wing were like, Hey, this is a chance when the good guys that are actually sitting at the top of the government when they come in and they save the day, and so we can trust this, this group of people to, to save the day. And the people that would never have been watching West Wing, that would never have been their thing. They went along with it. Like you, you had said before because they trusted Donald Trump. And, and so you now have this thing where the west wingers didn't win and the Trumpers didn't win either. And now deciding how we're going to reenter society, this is where we don't have a model or a playbook or an explanation or a design or anything. And so it's basically like what story do you think will be told that will convince people to either stay in their houses or go out?

Vance Crowe [00:27:07] Do you think that those career politicians that view the government favorably have a bit of a complex that they think that they are going to be the saviors through this all and create more government because they are the arbiters of truth and they are the good guys?

Dwayne Faber [00:27:28] I think that for the most part, if you are in government and you started making the rules, like to have people stay in their homes or to, you know, people that are pushing for this tracking, I think it's almost entirely built on. They wanna make it easy and they want a solution that makes sense that you can write down, right? How did we stop the problem? We had everybody go to their houses, we stopped all the restaurants from serving. Now that's not actually what happened, but that's the way they write things because government is, is not a dimmer switch. It's an on off thing, right? It's, it's, we'll either let this or we won't, and this is the story we're gonna have or this is the story of why we don't have it. And I am a firm believer in what a guy named Eric Weinstein has said, which is we had about 40 years of postmodernism where we were living in a world where there was no existential threat, there was no reason to believe that we needed to hire politicians that would be able to help us navigate through another world war or through a holocaust or through anything. So what we have are people acting like politicians, they're actually more like actors than they are like politicians. And so we selected because what we wanted was to be entertained and the the entertainment model was really around, we only vote on one election nationally. We only, you and I only vote in one election that's the same. And it's the president. And really our votes don't count for very much, but the news wants it to be like, this is the most important thing because they can run one story and it matters to you in King County Washington.

Dwayne Faber [00:29:00] And it matters to me in St. Louis County, Missouri. And so I think that we are set up all wrong for this, and if we had an election tomorrow, we would be choosing people based on very different skill sets than the ones that we chose them on.

Vance Crowe [00:29:16] Well, I agree, and, and as it stands now we get to choose between somebody that thinks we can inject a cleaner and light indoor bodies to kill coronavirus and somebody that doesn't remember what they had for breakfast this morning. So that's where we're at. When does, when do we have substantive change where we go and we seek politicians that actually have skills in managing through a crisis?

Dwayne Faber [00:29:41] I don't know because I, my prediction is that we are about to watch an enormous change among white collar workers. I was talking to a guy in pharmaceutical pharmaceutical sales the other day and he told me that their pharmaceutical sales have gone up not down during coronavirus. And he was saying, you know, what we figured out was people that were normally doing their buying metered it out over the several months with the people that stopped by to take 'em to dinner or to wine and dine 'em or to take 'em to a baseball game. But now that they're not doing that, they just get online and input their orders and then it's all done. Whereas before their salespeople were like, oh, you know, Dr. Such and such, he just never wants to get on there and order it himself and they just don't know how to do it. Well, they found out that's all wrong. And so now this guy was saying that he believes that somewhere between 60 to 70% of his pharmaceutical sales staff are gonna be let go. And you think about what will change when the white collar workers that have been making a hundred k plus a year plus having expense accounts and travel accounts, when those people all get pushed into the market at the same time and they really struggle to find work, particularly in a new automated world online sales, those people are going to be angry because the, they're gonna feel like the carpet got pulled out from underneath them, and the person that they choose to lead them may, may have a very easy opportunity to stir their, their anger and their fear.

Dwayne Faber [00:31:16] And I think that's a recipe for real trouble on who we elect.

Vance Crowe [00:31:21] Absolutely. So I mean the, you have salesmen that are going out to convince somebody to buy a product that they already need and are going to buy anyway, and then they're backed up by individuals in an office that are just documenting that the sale happened, overseen by two or three middle management that confirmed that this did actually happen.

Dwayne Faber [00:31:40] And all the sales receipts and all the reports and all the, the meetings where the PowerPoints are put together and then the meetings where they get to show people what they're about to present on the PowerPoints and then when they actually present them all those people laid to waste.

Vance Crowe [00:31:54] Yeah, absolutely. So you do think that corporations are gonna recognize that in that chain and then start letting them go?

Dwayne Faber [00:32:01] Well, you were the one that pointed something out to me that, you know, there were a lot of companies that had, that were skinny dipping, you know, in your, in your metaphor where they were really in a lot of trouble, they had lost their pants, but because the ocean was so high up, the tide was up, you couldn't tell. But when the tide goes out, the, the it, the all of their mistakes, all of their foibles. So I think as the chaos of coronavirus starts hitting people's quarterly reports, I think you're gonna watch one major Fortune 500 company do some massive layoffs and then all these other companies are gonna try and shoot the gap. So I, we probably have another couple months before this happens, but not that much longer.

Vance Crowe [00:32:38] Yeah, I agree. And to, to be fair, that analogy was from Warren Buffet. So Warren Buffet came up with that analogy, so I better give credit where credit's due, but I agree a hundred percent. We've had a 10 year bull or 15 year bull market run. We've got price to earnings ratios that don't make sense. And there's been a lot of stuff that's been pushed into the closets on the corporate level in order to continue to make their quarterly number while they've got a gimme now for the entire year, they can go out and, you know, share all their dirty laundry, they can even go and buy stuff, do some accounting to buy stuff for next year to make next year look better because they want to manage those expectations and manage that earnings per share. And they can do that by going out and letting all the bad news out this year. And I agree a hundred percent that that's gonna happen and that's, you know, where we're gonna see. Yeah. Does the, does the stock market come back down again? I think it does. I think we've almost reached near time highs again, and it doesn't make sense. And a lot of that is just the fed printing money and, and pumping money into the economy. And as part of being the world reserve currency, a lot of that is a function of being able to print money, go and print $3 trillion and have four investors come in and buy one and a half trillion of that because through a time of economic crisis, they will want to know that they can have that money again down the road and have it available for them. So there, there's definitely some benefits to being the World Reserve currency. And in a lot of ways I think we're able to weather this and the stock market's been able to weather this better than the European Union or some of these other countries.

Dwayne Faber [00:34:14] Yeah, I mean on some level I have to just say like, I no longer believe in gravity because it would've appeared to me that the stock market would just take an absolute, you know, tank for, for a while and it, and it didn't. And so I sit here and think there is probably some market forces, not, not probably there 100% are market forces that I do not understand because my impression would be the outlook of the future looks pretty bleak and people would be pulling their money out. But then I guess the question would be, if you took all your money out of the stock market today, where would you put it?

Vance Crowe [00:34:51] Absolutely. Right. You put it in a interest bearing account of, you know, half a percent or 1% a year. And that's where we've been punished as savers. Savers have been punished for the last 20 years because of fiscal monetary policy and the world bank's pumping money out. And that's what, that's what's leading to a lot of this. We've got too much of everything because money was so cheap. So we went out and we drilled wells, we went out and mine copper, we went out and made corn and soybeans, and now the world is just swimming with all of this product and there's nobody to buy it but the US government. And so at some point, this all has to come into account, that ledger has to come back to zero. And I don't know what it's gonna take for us to get there, but at some point somebody's gonna run outta money.

Dwayne Faber [00:35:39] Would you ever consider running for office?

Vance Crowe [00:35:43] Oh boy, probably not.

Dwayne Faber [00:35:46] Why?

Vance Crowe [00:35:46] Probably not. I get frustrated by the, I get frustrated by politics, people not saying what they think or what they, what they should be doing and all the special interest groups. And to me that's discouraging. But I've also said some bad things on Twitter that if they found those, it'd probably just decimate everything. So,

Dwayne Faber [00:36:10] Oh, I think you're like Teflon. You know, I, I, when I was younger, you know, I would only think like, oh, I, I want to, I wanna go for some big national office, right? You see that. And along with my West Wing hypothesis, I've come to the realization that most people, even myself, don't really take seriously how important local government is. And as much as I don't want the headache of like, you know, these town hall meetings that, that people have or county council, it turns out those are the people that right now have me on indefinite house arrest. They don't even have to give a date when they're going to let me out of my house. And so you start thinking like, wait a second, you really do have a huge impact if you are involved in local politics. And I have no desire to do it. It's not like an aspiration, but I often now think about like, well, you can't go around claiming those are the actor class of politicians and then you not wanna do anything about it. So I have to consider, I wonder where, where would be a good place to serve. I don't have any interest in doing national level politics, but maybe locally.

Vance Crowe [00:37:16] Yeah. And, and we're seeing that you, you get to the point where the, the regular person or the person that's qualified gets so frustrated with what they're seeing in government that then they run, we had that in Seattle in King County where the homeless are just taking over the city and there's homelessness everywhere. We spend a billion dollars a year on the homeless right now. We're giving 'em free weed, we're giving 'em free booze just to keep 'em contained. And finally it was a couple, wait, wait,

Dwayne Faber [00:37:42] Wait, are you serious? You're giving 'em free weed?

Vance Crowe [00:37:45] Yeah, yeah. There's taxpayer dollars that are going into buying edibles to keep homeless contained because they don't want all these homeless going out on the streets and, and potentially dying on the streets from COVID.

Dwayne Faber [00:38:01] Whoa. I didn't know anything at all about that.

Vance Crowe [00:38:04] Yeah, it was a big revelation. They were getting, somehow they were, I forget how they were doing it, but some, I believe nurses, they were convincing nurses to do it and then they were somehow getting paid back because they didn't want it to be obvious that the government is going and buying this. Well, it's what they're doing now already. I mean, the government wants us to stay home. So weed is an essential service. So is booze and, you know, stay home.

Dwayne Faber [00:38:27] How many m milligrams of of THC do you get in in order to like stay at home? Like what, what kind of deal are we working on here?

Vance Crowe [00:38:34] Yeah, I, I might be gone for the afternoon, I'll find out, but, but it was essentially police officers that were so disenfranchised where they finally said, Hey, we're running for office now. And so you have career law enforcement individuals that are going and saying, Seattle, you are so stupid in your politics that finally we're going to run for office and, and you're gonna see more of that, right? And people that are not typically desirous of or aspirational to those callings that are now gonna say, Hey, we have to because we've got complete morons that are running the show.

Dwayne Faber [00:39:10] Yeah. And I think in the past we have just kind of grown complacent because all of the big issues are the ones that seem like that grab our attention. We're all at the national level, but coronavirus, just like all of politics is a hundred percent local, right? It is. What are your people around you doing?

Vance Crowe [00:39:27] Yeah, absolutely. Right. Absolutely. I did see something the other day that somebody leaked in St. Louis in your city, all the names and phone numbers of people that were tattling or telling, calling in saying, this person's having a house party. What, what are your thoughts on that?

Dwayne Faber [00:39:48] I mean, I feel very, I I have an extreme distaste for people that call on their neighbors to report them for things. And I, I mean like I understand that people were really worried about this disease, but we 100% want to always be united that people before government. And if you've got a problem with your neighbors, you need to find a way to communicate with them. But using the government and particularly using like services where you're, you're, you're allowed to be anonymous and you can report on 'em, like none of that, I mean like, I got people in my neighborhood do things I don't like at all, right? I gotta, I got a neighbor that their dog barks constantly at me. Just n never ends. But unless I am going to go knock on his door and solve that problem myself, I'm the one that has to deal with the barking because this thing where you report on your neighbors, this doesn't end anywhere good. It only goes down the path of, of bad and probably the path of evil, right? Because you get to a point where I'm gonna go tell somebody they can get my dirty work done. I, I don't, I'm, I really don't like that. So anything that would dissuade people from doing that would be probably a good thing. Although I, you know, I don't wanna, I don't, I don't think doxing people is a good idea.

Vance Crowe [00:41:06] Yeah. It's, it's been amazing to see how we've all interacted with each other through this, all right. And it's bring in a lot of ways it's brought out the best in people, but it's also brought out the worst of PE in people and it's going to, it's going to have some ugly moments as well.

Dwayne Faber [00:41:20] Well Dwayne, I know you have a big afternoon ahead of you and you've got daughters that you are having practiced their dairy cow handling, aren't you?

Vance Crowe [00:41:31] Yeah, you bet. We brought a cow home. We look like real rednecks. So we have a baby calf in our front yard and the kids have the responsibility of feeding it morning and night and then they lead it around with a halter and absolutely, it's been great.

Dwayne Faber [00:41:42] So my question in the past for people was, what do you think the world looks like in two weeks? I think that things have slowed down enough that that's a kind of a hard thing to say if people kind of say, well it look pretty much the same as it did. So I'm gonna start with a new question, which is, what is something that you are buying today that you were not buying before Coronavirus started and why?

Vance Crowe [00:42:04] So I, I did go and buy a little bit of Bitcoin and I don't know that I'm a complete believer. I'm not one that is, you know, I didn't make a religion out of it, but I, I like the blockchain technology, I like the ability for people that live in a country where they're scared of fiat currency, where they're scared of the governments that are watching over them, the blockchain. I think eventually we're gonna tie that to the ability to vote, to put numbers on votes and, and so yeah, I've dabbled a little bit in that and that's kind of where I've been going. So I'm not a die hard where, you know, they're the fringe of the Bitcoin community, but definitely pick it picking at the edges a little bit. So, I

Dwayne Faber [00:42:44] Mean, it's hard for me to even believe that you're not just teasing me because I mean, I, I'm a, I'm a bit Bitcoin guy, but I love to hear that. And I think basically if you want a good weekend project or a good evening project, going and buying even one Satoshi a 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Bitcoin and it cost you less than a cent. I mean it cost you something in transaction fees is totally worth it because the experience of buying something like a Bitcoin helps you think about money in a different way. How was the experience for you? How did you do it?

Vance Crowe [00:43:17] Yeah, it was through an app. It was an app that you brought up. So I, was it the

Dwayne Faber [00:43:21] Cash app?

Vance Crowe [00:43:21] Bitcoin Wallet? It had the Cash app, thank you. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So I gotta set up with a wallet now and move it over, but yeah, it is with the Cash app so it's just sitting in there for now, so.

Dwayne Faber [00:43:32] Well good. So Dwayne, I'm gonna let you get back to your Bitcoin purchasing. If people wanted to see more of your fantastic Twitter feed or talk with you more, how would they reach, reach you?

Vance Crowe [00:43:42] Yeah, add DFA 84. Just hit me up on Twitter if you have any questions.

Dwayne Faber [00:43:47] Hey man, thanks to the, thanks to the chat late this afternoon.

Vance Crowe [00:43:51] Yep, thanks man. Appreciate it.