I know folks that have gone out of business fairly recently. Most times it was due to mis-management of money. Money corrupts, and a lot of money causes a lot of corruption. They usually OVER EXTEND THEMSELVES, and shoot themselves in the foot, while blaming it on something or someone else. The farmers I know personally here have nothing but the best. They will not drive a plain ole Chevy Silverado pickup for a farm truck. They drive the King Ranch, and Eddie Bauer editions to the field. They will use a 4 wheel drive break in the middle big wheel tractor to plow the 12 acres behind me when a much smaller tractor would do it just as easily. They take cruises for vacations, and two to four vacations a year, with each lasting 2 to 4 weeks.
They wear ostrich Lucchese boots, and buy their cloths from the nicest stores.
Their wives drive the special edition SUVs, and the best of the Lincoln Navigators, and go on expensive shopping trips to large cities in groups of other farmers wives staying in HOTELS, not motels.
The farmers have hired hands, which are many times Mexicans that don't speak English, or barely speak English, they sit in the cafe in the mornings for two to three hours, and have the final answer for any topic brought up. They complain about grain prices, and federal regulations one week, and show up at the cafe the next week in their 50 to 60 thousand dollar brand new pickup.
I've known most of these guys most all my life, and went to school with some of them. They are usually the elite in local churches and rarely perform menial work in the church but, pull out the 100 dollar bills and hand then to someone in a Sunday School class letting someone else do the actual work.
Now before anyone thinks I am being judgemental about all this, let me tell you it has gone on for a long time, and many in the community resent their arrogance and tax dollar life style. Mine is an observation based on actual data, and yes, I do resent it being dealt out in such a manner.
Recently a local grain storage operator stole wheat from the local farmers over a period of years that he was storing for them. YES! Storing for them. They hold onto the wheat waiting on the price to go up, and then sell their wheat. The farmers ranted and raved for months that it really hurt them in the pocket book. Then we learned that they had quietly and individually BOUGHT THE GRAIN ELEVATORS all over the county for their own personal use. Must have not hurt them as bad as they claimed in the cafe.
Like I said. Its' PUBLIC RECORD, and regardless of what the farmer says, you can look at the TRUTH on the data base I provided. There are some that don't take the money, but MOST DO.
