Be patient, Nick gets wound up.
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Hello, folks. Welcome back to the Straight Forward Farming Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Reid, alongside Nick McCormick, as always. What's going on, Nick? We're back. We're back. You don't know how many times we've tried to shoot this podcast. Oh, my God. It's off the charts. At least eight or nine, at least. At least. In our defense, we have good intentions. We come over here. We're going to pregame a little bit, make sure we get our...

Everything aligned, and then people show up, and then we get sidetracked. We shoot a podcast. We just don't record it. Exactly. But here we are, killing it. Now we're actually going to do it. We're recording this one. You're here. We're here. Everybody's here. And we have a special guest tonight. Once again, we're standing there drinking beer, and somebody shows up. Somebody shows up. Bang. Here we are. Tonight, we're putting our foot down. You're going to be on the fucking podcast with us.

Here you are. So we're here with Mr. Matt Forkham. He's one of these real estate guys, kind of likes to screw people on the backside. He's pretty much the Donald Trump of real estate in our area. Exactly, yes. Go ahead, Matt. Yeah. Go ahead and say hi. This is fantastic. He was reluctant to be on this podcast, but we didn't give him a lot of choices. Exactly. He had no clue what he was getting into, but that's all right. Yeah, he was pretty much sat down or...

But the options are not good. Yeah. Do you need more paper to write on? You've got just a little bit there. No, thank you. Okay. You're good? You're all good. Feel prepared. Thanks. Feel free to jump in at any time. Yeah. Nothing is off limits here. You can say whatever you want. We're as unfiltered as it gets. Exactly. About five microns. There you go. Perfect. There you go. All right. So here it is. Soaking wet. Central Illinois. I didn't even look. I've had close to an inch of rain today. More on the way. Yep.

Virtually no farming done been in this area, virtually. Just very, very little. We planted 80 acres of beans over two weeks ago now. They're up, but that's it. Yeah. Who knew? Should have kept going then. Exactly. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. But we're kind of all in the same boat, though, because I think everybody I knew planted a little bit and stopped. Yeah.

And that was it. Because it wasn't looking good. And it's like, well, we'll wait, and it's going to be better. And it probably hasn't got better. There's as many guys who haven't planted anything as what there is who've planted just a little bit and stuff. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. So, I don't know. So, you want to talk real estate, Matt? Let's talk real estate. What do you want to talk about, Matt? You got any deals on the table you're trying to screw anybody on? Yeah. What's going on there? Some widows or any ground you're trying to steal? What do you got here? Yeah. What do you guys want to know?

I want to know, do you really think, and I'm just going to throw out a figure, let's just say a good piece of farmland around here, it's realistic to bring 12,000 or 15,000 an acre. That's not off the table. I don't think it's off the table. I think for around here being this big,

This township being within 100 miles, what are we talking about? Like very hyper-local where we're at. The $12,000, $15,000 an acre, I think you've got to have some events that kind of align to command that price point. Sure. It's not out of the question. I don't think it's out of the question. The question I have for you is, will I look back in 20 years and say, man, I could have bought that for $15,000 an acre and now it's $35,000? Sure. You think so? Yeah, I do.

Okay. I do. That's what a good realtor would say to anybody. Absolutely what a good realtor would say. A great realtor follows that up by saying, just sign here. Oh, yeah, that's true. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. We can make that happen. Yeah.

It's like land hit hyperinflation, though. I mean, I remember in 08, like, you know, it went to 7,000 acres. People were just, like, having a stroke. And, I mean, it's like we skipped all the way through 8, 9, and 10. It immediately went to 12, 15, even gets up to 20 on a very rare. That's not the norm, but it's happened. Yeah. Farmers are quick to the punch. They are. They don't hold back. Yep, they are.

Yeah. So do you do any social media, Matt? Do you get on TikTok? Do you have your realty page? Do you get on there and like...

Facebook is kind of our dominant messaging platform. Copy. Yeah. Not a lot of time. I'm not well-versed in the TikTok. So you're catering to the old folk, okay? Yep. Old people have money. Now, pull that mic down closer, Drees. You look uncomfortable. Go ahead and just put it right in there. He's got a blue ribbon chair over here. Yeah, he's kind of a husky fella. He's reluctant. He's reluctant to participate. Yeah.

This is going to take your business to the next level. Yeah, I believe that. I trust you. Yeah. That's a sketchy decision, but hey, it's your choice. It'll either make you or break you. Yeah, either way. We can delete this when we're done. I mean, we're not going to. You're on either way. But, you know. For the right price, we would. Yeah. You'd be our first sponsor. The first one that paid us to delete a podcast. Yeah. There you go. Here we are. Trendsetter. Anyway. What else has been going on, Tony? Anything exciting? Nothing.

Nothing really. I mean, just when it rains and pours every three days, it just kind of set back and don't do anything. I hear you.

yep how about you matt what's going on in your world outside the realty business tell us what's new in your life for the real estate business yeah because there's there's things changing in the real estate business currently right sure yeah yeah evolving every day well go ahead and lay some of that on us elaborate yeah i'm happy to elaborate nick thanks there you go thank you for asking yeah it's fantastic um

Real estate, I guess I can talk a little bit. Real estate is facing, residential real estate is facing some very interesting stuff right now. Apparently, according to some lawsuits that were filed in Kansas City, realtors have been screwing people over. And that's, you know, goddamn, that's news to me. So are you listed in the lawsuit? No.

Not personally, no. Okay. Which I actually did see here a month ago, whatever it was. You know, there was a whole gamut of laws. And some of them was even the, not the non-disclosure, but what's the non-compete clauses? Like, you can't do that anymore? Did you see that? Yeah, yeah. So FTC prohibits non-compete stuff now. Yeah, I saw that.

What sparked all that? I mean, that's been law forever, it seemed like. I don't know. I think we're seeing a lot of regulation by executive authority, you know, with that kind of stuff. Not to go off the political tangent here, but yeah. We can. We don't mind. Anything goes. Where do you want to go? This is fun. You lead, we'll follow. Yeah. Okay. Yep.

Yeah, we can debate that. Have you seriously never listened to one of our podcasts? I've seriously never listened to one of your podcasts. Oh, God. Yeah, see, I'm an absolute podcast virgin. Yeah, thanks for the support, but you're also being a little sheepish here. Yeah, don't hold back. Yeah, anything goes here. Go ahead and tell us what has sparked some of these lawsuits, et cetera, et cetera, in the real estate world. Okay, okay, I can do that. So the real estate lawsuits in a nutshell, kind of the way residential real estate has worked,

generally and historically is for a seller to pay a commission to a real estate company and that real estate company, and then to offer a portion of that commission to a realtor, that would be what we call cooperating compensation. So, you know, I'm, I've got Tony's house for sale and you're a real estate agent, Nick, and you, you bring a buyer. We're going to share a portion of what Tony's putting the money in the bucket. We're going to share a portion of the money out of the bucket with you for, for the work you're doing to help facilitate the deal. And that, um,

according to this lawsuit, is anti-competitive and creates a collusive environment and so forth. And so there's a lot of struggle with that. And so I think it's really going to change the dynamic of how realtors are compensated. And it does affect realtors being a term for members of the National Association of Realtors. So it's a trade organization. I think it's going to really impact the way our business looks. I can see that. Yep, I really do. And so, and I guess...

Don't say anything that you could incriminate yourself on here because I'm just asking because I don't know. So let's just say that you're a realtor. I list my house with you, and I think that I'm doing business with Matt Forkham. And then you pick up the phone, and you call your buddy who's a realtor of three towns over, and you're like, hey, I just got this listing. And then he brings somebody to the table. Is that kind of what you're saying? Is that what goes on? Yeah, yeah. Obviously, I'm not an attorney, and I haven't read every page of the lawsuit transcript and the testimony and so forth. But, yeah.

I think that's really the premise of the deal is you thought you were paying me something and didn't realize that something else was getting paid. And conversely, on the buyer's side, Nick, if you come and you're buying the house, who's really paying that? It's like the buyer's premium at the auction sale. Who's paying it? Because the seller's paying it on paper. The seller's a paying commission on paper, but the buyer's the only one bringing the cash to the table.

So who's really financing the cost of doing business, if you will? So, yeah, I think it's going to be a time of change. But somebody's got to get paid. There's work being done there. Somebody's got to get paid for it. Sure. They can do it for free. So do you think it'll go to like a flat?

I think we're going to see a lot of interesting models. I think we're going to see a lot of evolution in a short amount of time. I think we'll see some really good innovation happen. I think it'll make the industry stronger, make it better. I mean, that brings me to another point. Look at the shit that we've seen just in the last six months that is once-in-a-lifetime deal. We've had eclipses. We've got fucking cities coming. We've got real estate changing. I mean, what a time to be alive. What a time to live. I mean, that's just unbelievable.

Yeah. We got a guy that literally can't walk, talk, or chew bubble gum leading the whole world. Yeah. And here we are enjoying all of it. It's going great. I love it. Hyperinflation. He don't know what to say. He don't know what to say.

He's not really used to us yet, but we're going to break him in. That's right. Today's the day. That's right. So I'm used to doing a lot of things with Nick, just never with an audience. Yeah, that's true. And for the IRS, we don't exchange cash. That's true. Yeah. Nope. We're all good there. Not a taxable event, as we would say. I'm a cashless purchase point.

So do you think this whole real estate deal is good or bad for the industry? Would you rather just leave it like it is? I think it's good for the industry. I mean, change always happens, right? Evolution is always going to happen. The world's turning every day right around us, and I think it's going to be good. I think it's going to make our practitioners stronger. I think we're going to be more clear to our customers in how we're doing business, who we're working with, who our customers have on their team, if you will.

and more clear on how the money moves. So it's definitely going to change the way we're accustomed to doing this, but I think it'll be healthy. From what little bit I know, it seems like to me like it's going to be the same amount of money, but it's going to be more defined on who's doing what for what money. Am I wrong there? I don't know that you're wrong. Potentially it could be a totally different price point for this stuff.

And that goes to the innovation piece of, I think we're going to see a lot of different models sprout up. So, like, give me an example. Like, what do you think something that could happen? And we're just shooting from the hip. Like, what do you think would change? I mean, I think you'll see an advent of flat fees or maybe, you know, discounts on...

what's been paid in the past. You know, maybe folks getting more competitive on price. We're seeing nationally a pretty strong compression of housing inventory, right? We don't have a ton of houses. Now, interest rates have slowed that down a little bit. Buyers are buying a little bit less. Sellers are less inclined to sell their house and go from their two and a half mortgage to a six and a half percent mortgage. So inventory is kind of staying parked. But yeah, you know, I don't know. I don't know that I have the crystal ball here, but I do know

the change is definitely happening. You know, it's happening around us. And I think those firms that struggle with evolution are going to struggle with survival. Gotcha. Makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. I'm trying to think. The last time I dealt with a realtor, when we bought this farm, I just bought it individually with the guy who owned it, but we sold our other house to a realtor. Would around 6% been right back then? 6.5%?

What did you pay? You're probably in the ballpark there. I couldn't remember. That would have been in 2000. Well, this was 2016. He was still excavating. He wouldn't endorse the podcast. That's just the way it goes. We're not going to use him tomorrow. He didn't even listen to us. Strangers listen to us, but not you. It's okay, man. It's all right. We're cool with it. This podcast brought to you by Century 21. Yeah.

The more you know. Anyway, yeah, I could see some big industry changes there. I have used realtors in the past for a lot of things. It's been a slow progression for me to move my wife south. But I've got her here now, and we have used realtors in the past.

Very successfully. It's all been pleasant. Out of your territory, Matt. I feel really blessed. I just want to say, Nick, I feel blessed to have been able to sell your house even though it wasn't for you. You did sell my house on the backside. Not really for me, but it was my house one time. I missed that house on a lot of levels. I miss that house. I don't miss the location. I do miss the location because there was no traffic. If it could have been closer to Tony's like I am now, it would have been way handier for us to hang out. Yeah, added bonus. But

Pick the houses up and swap them. Yeah, absolutely. I miss the property. I miss the house. It lived easy. The house lived so easy. Of course. Who are we shitting, Matt? I mean, he literally bought a Jeff Bezos house now. I mean, this thing's Mongo. Won't pay those taxes. Yeah. You know. Boy, some...

Hodgepodge Carpenter 1985. It might be Tony's dad. Who knows? It's built really well, but it's taxed through the roof. I'm getting kind of tired of that. You've got to pay for quality, man. It is quality. It is way more quality than the house that I had. I'm not saying it's not.

It's just way more house than I need, but there I am because I wanted to go to my home school district or want my kids to go to there. I'm not going again. There's some stuff I didn't learn. Small school advantage, but then they co-opted anyway. Yeah, I should have stayed. Look at the amount of money you pissed away. About $150,000 here, as I can tell. Should have stayed. Been less miles to drive. Does that hurt kidney stones? Is there a sensation, pissing out $150,000? No.

Well, it's not so much all at once, but it's a slow drain every month. Yeah. It's just kind of, yeah. Yeah. You'll have that on those. Yeah. I could have just stayed. Yeah. Yep. So Matt used to be an excavator back in the day, right? I mean, your dad's still, is he retired or still? Pretty well, fully retired. Still got some equipment floating around, but yeah, he's pretty well done. Tell us about your excavation days. Yeah. Oh, they were great. You're a cat man. You're a yellow guy. Yep. Yep. For sure. All yellow. Your dad was yellow from way back.

Yeah, dad retired from the Caterpillar factory, the shop floor, and he's actually, I think, maybe second cousins with Randy Lewis, who was the guy that got out, you know. Who was the guy around here. Who was the guy for around here and then for quite a ways. And when Randy was getting ready to sell Caterpillar,

Dad had thought about, he was going to retire from Cat and he always wanted to build a pond on some acreage. And he said, and so my dad had worked for Randy when Cat was on some, some. Sabbaticals. Sabbaticals. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So he had, he'd run some equipment.

And he said, well, I just, you know, I'll go buy the dozer and I can run it and I'll fuel it and flip it when I'm done, build the pond. And that turned into a conversation with another guy that had worked for Randy, Dale Navis had worked there for years and years. And Dale's a great guy. And long story short, they ended up, we ended up starting two excavating companies and we walked out of Lewis's auction with a shoot, two bulldozers and track hoe and semi in a dump truck and a whole bunch of stuff, you know? So I, I,

Got into being a bulldozer mechanic literally overnight with a cat part book from the auction at a craftsman tool set. There you go. There it was. I can tell you this much from working on my dozer this winter with Jeff Boehm here in the shop. Oh, yeah. That there's nothing easy about working on dozers and nothing clean about working on dozers. Anything that you've got to drain or whatever else, it just goes all over you. You're rolling around underneath there and just literally soaking oil from the time you start to the time you quit. Nothing easy about it. Does not look fun to me.

But Matt loved it. He did. He loved it. That's good stuff. I mean, the far end of an 80, pushing dirt, middle of July, nobody comes out and taps you on the shoulder. No, your pony ring, if it is, you can't hear it, you're good. Within the next year and a half to two years, there probably won't be a single tree left on my property because that's how I do it. I get on mine, I'm like, I'm just going to clean this little spot up over here. I'm like, well, that looks so good, but now it looks awkward because this is kind of growing around us, so then you just keep making it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

And, yeah, so pretty soon I'm just going to have a few big giant trees left, and that's about it. It's pretty much going to be Brazilian acres here. Yes. Clean as a whistle. Nice, manicured. Yeah. Yep. Well cleaned. Yep. Seems very sporty. You know how many trees you need on a farm? Zero is the number you're looking for. Yeah. Yeah.

I've heard that. I like them in my yard. I don't need them around my car. I'm a prairie dweller. I like to see far. Yeah. Well, newsflash, asshat, you moved to the middle of a state forest. I know. So you might clear your property off, but you're still going to look about 50 feet. But hey, you know, whatever. There's nothing I can do about it. Better get a taller ladder there. Exactly. I tell my wife every day, that's the only thing I hate about this. I can only see about a quarter. I can see a quarter mile.

East and west, nothing to the north and a long way to the south. I want every tree cut within a mile radius of my house. All of them. Ground cut, clear cut. If you see the Tower of Babylon going up, it's me. That's Tony. Yep. Putting it up. Yep. I'm going to have the only skyscraper in Clarksburg Township. There you go. On the top floor. There you go.

Kind of have goals. That's it. Life goals. Yep. So what else is new? Anything? I mean, not too much. Not too much. No. I'm on a podcast. That's new. That's new. You don't have to listen to them. Now you're on one. Yeah. If you tell me that you listen to this one next week without listening to one prior, I'm kicking you right square in the ass. Because you need a basis for comparison. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Just saying. There's been a few. We've got really drugged in. I don't remember what the hell we talked about. Yeah, that's true. Then I get the phone call. Man, you were so right on your podcast. I'm like, about what? The guy was like, oh, you talked about this. We did? All right, cool.

So we kind of veer. Here in a minute, we're going to get off on a tangent on the World War II and old trucks and old tractors because that's kind of what we do. Okay. So just get your thoughts going on that. Yeah, we generally just go all the way around the world. All around the world. Okay. So we've covered real estate and how you're, you know, cheating widows and kids out of their family inheritance. But, you know, it's neither here nor there. Now, you're also an auctioneer, right? Yeah, you auctioneer. But you don't do like...

estate sale? Like you're not selling couches and cookie jars, are you? Or are you? We do, as it relates to real estate sales, it's a solution that we've really designed to say, if we've got the house, the house is usually the biggest single asset, and then you've got stuff in the house. We see it a lot with estates, especially estates that may have out-of-state relatives or something. It's just difficult to manage personal property. So we've done that for several clients where we've stepped in and

kind of configured an operation to monetize a personal property, you know, donate and dispose of other stuff as needed. And it's worked out really well. So we do that. We focus exclusively on online auctions. Really? Yep. That's the direction. So if I want to do an online auction, I still got to be a licensed auctioneer though, right? Even though I'm not...

banging a gavel talking fast in front of people like like literally if i had the software nick and i could have an online auction auction off this computer and this printer and this table and this desk right absolutely and nobody would know the difference yeah absolutely can you talk fast this is kind of what he's getting at yeah yeah i can i can i mean and i don't i honestly i don't enjoy it

It's just, I mean, I love going to a live auction. I just don't, I mean, I'd rather watch it. I don't like doing it. I do miss live. Online auctions are way handier. I do love that part, but I do miss live auctions. I miss the in-person auction. So I could really go either way on that. Yeah. And the in-person auction, I mean, the live auction, the historical, right? The Strasburg Sunday afternoon, 3 o'clock, Shade Tree. Yeah.

auctions yeah right all the shits on the rack wagon it's you know people been milling around since 6 30 in the morning you know pilfering through stuff and whatever and what it just just a social casually rearranging the boxes to their benefit yeah why nobody's looking and you think i'm gonna give 20 bucks for that hydraulic jack right there but then once you get in the heat of the battle you go to 35 nobody wants to be beat you always want to win yep yeah

So, yeah, I do miss the live auction, but the online is way, way, way easier. I do like that. Depending on the auctioneer, you may not know that you're actually in the bidding, so you just know what the hell is. That's true. I've ghostbitted a few of those. Do you have ghost bidders attend your auctions? Yeah. We're not going to tell nobody. Just do it.

Tell me you're looking at the software and my minimum bid's always going to be what I get it for, you know, regardless. Yeah. Do you know of any auctioneers that have actually got hung with, like, big, big items at ghost bids? I do. Do you really? It'd be a weird feeling. Yeah.

On some large things. I've heard some stories about a very, very large auction company who got stuck with a very, very large tract of land by ghost bidding. But I'm not going to mention any names. Me either. I wasn't there. I wasn't either. But sounds sketchy. But Matt's not into that. He's all in the up and up. He is. I have stuff in my shop that purchased off one of his online auctions. Yep. There you go.

I do. Now, actually, I'm going to catch some flack for this because I'm good buddies with Trent Schmidt, who's like the premier auctioneer in the area. Yeah, I like Trent. Yep, and so now I've got his competitor on the podcast. Yeah, well, it's Trent's fault for not showing up. So we might have to see if Trent will pay us not to air this podcast. I don't think I'm hurting his bottom line. Is that right? I don't think we're really going head-to-head on a lot of stuff. No, you're not in the same market. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I get it.

No. I've always said, though, an auctioneer selling land, and I'm talking land where you're not carrying shit out of a house for three days, but selling land, that actually is pretty good money. I mean, I'm not saying they don't deserve it. Don't misunderstand me. I mean, that's

pretty good money with land prices doing what they've done absolutely you know yeah it's different when lands 300 an acre and you get a percent or two to print a few flyers but yeah i mean it doesn't it doesn't take you know much percent of the pie it you know when you start you start selling the million dollar increments yeah yeah so you know to be money ahead yep and especially if you structure it you know where that maybe that customer is also fronting the cost of advertising or some of your other overhead right isn't coming out of that commission yeah

Yep. Definitely laid it up in the pocket pretty quick. It's kind of surprising, though, around here how many auctioneers there are for really no more live auctions. Yeah. I couldn't tell you the last live auction, like a farm sale that I've been to. I mean, it's been years and years and years. Well, a couple more years of Joe Biden's America, there'll be more of them. Well, that's true. Yeah. There'll be some more. If you can afford to put your hand in the air. Oh, yeah.

No doubt. We'll do like the old 80s movie, no sale, no sale. Oh, God. They're good times. Yeah, that's for sure. Auctions are fun, but if you're not willing to stick your neck out there, you can end up just wasting a day. That's true, yeah. You stand there all day for five minutes, that's the only item I'm after, and you don't get it. Sending my dad and my brother to an auction is a complete waste of time.

I mean, obviously, my dad can't go anymore, but back when I would send him, he'd get...

He would eventually say hello, then he'd come home. My brother would get frustrated by the whole process. He'd leave. I'm like, I thought we had an agreement we were going to give this for that. I wanted to leave and it hadn't sold yet. Now, the only time I ever went to an auction with your dad, we bought a pulling tractor. Remember that? We went to buy a 1206, I think for your uncle. And there was a guy, and there was, like, it was just a bunch of old antique tractors. And some guy from the pulling world said,

seen this auction so he put his pulling tractor on the auction but didn't buy it on the auction bought it after right we had to stop at dairy queen for ice cream naturally but you're dead yeah we were set we were sitting there and this guy who had the tractor he'd already loaded it up when it no sailed whatever come through the parking lot and he come already pecked on your dad's what your dad knew the guy i mean it wasn't like a total stranger

And he said, my wife's going to kick my ass if I bring this thing home. He said, are you sure you don't want to buy that? Your dad said, nope, that's what I was going to give for it. I think he ended up saying, you know, if you'll give me whatever you ran it up to on the auction. He said, it's on the trailer. I'll just deliver this son of a bitch. Yeah, something like that. So he did. No doubt. My mom was super impressed when he brought that home.

Hard to believe. We already had one pulling tractor. He showed up with another. What'd you buy? I bought another pulling tractor. He did what? No, I'm going to sell it. Trust me. Which he did. Yep. That was in Nekomas, Illinois. Colder than Billy. Hell, thank God it was cold. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, and we got there just in time. And secretly, I think that was the only reason he went to that son of a bitch was to bid on that pulling tractor. Who knows? He was going to auctions, but he didn't stay long enough to buy anything. We literally got out of the truck, walked up to the auction. We were not there 10 minutes. He stuck his hand up two or three times. Nope, didn't get it bought. Boom. Got in the truck and left.

Bird don't fool around. If you want to go to an auction, I'm the guy for that. Back in the day, I haven't been to one for years, but the few that Dad sent me to, I'm like, well, if I've already taken the time to go, I'm coming home with some shit. Agreed. I'll give you the extra $5. Yeah, dragging the trailer and all that bullshit. We're coming home with something. Absolutely.

But I got to admit, though, too, online auctions are the same way because they put that fucking clock on there and it keeps counting down. You're like, oh, I got 10 seconds. Now I'm really on edge here. I got 10 seconds to make or break. I don't like to lose. Exactly. I'm kind of looking to be the Michael Jordan of auctions. I don't want to lose. Now I'm bidding over it because I just want to make sure that I don't give too sweet a deal to the next guy. Yeah. Just like Whistlin Diesel said, though, when he crushed that 1206, he's like, auctions are easy. You just keep your hand in the air and you'll win every time. That's true. Just keep your hand up. That's true. He ain't wrong. You bet.

Yeah, I've been there. What's your favorite part about the real estate business? Like what's the one thing that just every morning I'm going to get out of bed because...

This is the part that I love. Interesting question. I like the challenges, which we get, you know, for me, a couple different layers. I've got the, you know, ownership and management challenges. I get exposure to a lot of different situations and challenges from our team, and that's great to help folks work through and develop their business and help them grow and become better at what they do. And also, you know, I really like...

creating the market or building the deal, you know, which I find a little bit more in land, commercial real estate, things like that, non-residential stuff. You've got to go out and find it and put it together and, you know, make the connection, get the networking and really create the business rather than just to be reactive. Because your niche, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Matt, but like your niche is a little bit like, hey, I want to start

this company in this town, I need a property that meets these specs-ish. Sure. And then you kind of put that together. Sure. That's kind of your wheelhouse, right? Yeah, I enjoy that, yeah. Because, I mean, I guess... It's not necessarily for sale, but if I find what you want and I ask the guy, now it's for sale, now I'm getting the deal. Sure. Yeah. Because, which I guess I never thought about that, but like residential, basically...

Mom and pop come to you. Hey, we're moving to the assisted living and we want $67,000 for out. You know, they've already predetermined. This is what we want. You might say, well, it's actually worth 62 or whatever, but everything's pretty cut and dried where this guy comes says I'm looking for a 400 by 600 building. Yeah. You know, that's going to house this, this and this a $4 million deal. And you're going to try to put this together.

Yeah, yeah. And it does, you do have to go bird dog stuff on the residential side sometimes as well. I mean, you do. You have to go out and find it a little bit. But it's just less, you know, it's, the commercial real estate is professional buyers and sellers, right? They're not anchored by emotion. They're anchored by what makes my numbers work. Here's what I want to do with my business, my expansion, what have you. And the... They generally have the financing. Yeah. So that's not a hold up. But to, you know, to use Nick for an example, to...

take him from where he has planted his flag on this shining hill, this Taj Mahal, if you will, of McCormickville, this fantastic property tax albatross that he has dumb lucked himself into. Love it there. You know, what number could I possibly put on that property to drag you and Kel out of that place? Oh, there's a number. You can get me out of there. Absolutely. Absolutely.

But I guess I say all that to say residential real estate has a lot more emotion. It's your life. It's your family. You're living there, you know. And so you have memories there. You have thoughts and so forth. And that's harder to do. Well, and even if it's a house that you're buying, well, we didn't really like the house, but we like the location. It's got a neat passion. Like your neighbors. Yeah. Yeah. Something dumb. So you end up giving $100,000 more because somebody like you dickbags them into it. Yeah. And just completely fucks them on the deal. Yeah. Yeah.

But I get it. I know what you're saying. Where the commercial guy, he's like, nope, fuck you. I'm paying this and that's it. No more. Not a penny more. Yeah. Sometimes I fuck the commercial guys. Well, you have to. Well, I mean. You just can't tell them that. Yeah, what goes around comes around. They got to have their piece of the pie too.

No, the commercial stuff, that to me is just what trips my trigger. To me, it's just more fun. It's just more complexity. So on the commercial side, do you see both sides? So when I think commercial, I think of this factory here that basically just kind of shut down. So we've got this great big building here, and who's looking for it? Or do you actually get this factory that's still going on?

gangbusters and this guy's like, you know, I'm done. I'm retired. I went out and you're buying the whole gamut. I mean, the machinery, I mean, you're going to run this fucker without a hitch. Nobody even know it changed owners. I mean, do you get into that kind of stuff? Yeah, it can go either way. It can go either way. And you can, you know, to tie that back to, uh, take that back to farming. I mean, take that back to a farm. That's an operating concern, you know, where somebody wants to sell it, maybe turn key and you're, you're at a level where you're absorbing operations that may have, you know,

transportation, grain storage, I mean, big level stuff, right? The seller may be advantaged to sell that as a turnkey operation. It's just hard to parcel out. They're not going to get near the return on that if they chop it up into pieces. And to have, you know, especially if that seller maybe has concerns operationally that they want to make sure their people stay employed. They want to make sure that that farm legacy moves on and then the name stays active, you know, whatever is important to them.

So maybe you get somebody that comes in and says, yeah, I'm going to buy it turnkey. I'm going to one money and right down to the propane in the tank, and I'm going to buy it. You see that in commercial real estate as well. It just depends on the buyers and sellers and what their objectives are really. So we see real estate property sell as the factory building. We see the going concerns sell as the operating factory both ways. Yeah, makes sense. I can see that.

So when it comes back to the farming side, do you think here locally where we live, there's a magic number of acres that sells better? So like when land gets so high, let's just say I had 240 acres. Fuck it, I'm selling it all in one chunk. Well, not just anybody in our area can buy that. There's people that could, but not very many. So is it more of that nice square 40s, the sweet spot? Because even if it brought 10,000 acres,

Most guys 60 years old that have been farming a long time could swing that.

or is it bigger or smaller there don't matter it just you know i'm not i'm not sure i have the crystal ball there either i i'm not sure that it matters honestly um because there's going to be so much appetite you know for acreage there just really is i would say if you get into the if you're going to take that that 240 and put it into 80s right if it lays that way or you can you can parcel it that way or maybe it is just parceled that way if you can sell it like that you're going to get

quite a good selection of people that find affordability to buy an 80, but it's also enough that they're willing to travel a little bit to do it. Sure. You know, if you're 15 acres, how far am I driving for that? Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe it just simply doesn't make as much sense, you know, to go across the County. Uh, but if I can plant my flag and, and, and buy 80 and then, you know, buy eventually by the 80 next to it or something. Now, you know, you've got the foundations of a, of a farm, eight, 10, 12 miles away and it's, it's doable. Um,

So I think, you know... If it's a big chunk, you've got investors from out of town. If it's 240 all in one chunk, then you've got investors from out of town that are like, well, it's 240. They're not driving there for an 80, but they'll drive there for 240. Well, you know, obviously, look at our plat maps. How many 200-acre flat...

square pieces do we have in Prairie, Richland, Clarksburg, Holland townships? Zero. You get north, you go north 15 miles, and you're 240 or 320 acres, a whole different ballgame. And you may have those farms there, and you may well have those

Yeah.

and your farm operators that have some sort of maybe external business concern or doing other things. And we've talked about that a little bit. The folks that have external capital and access to that capital, they're coming in and they do want that. They do want to say, I might move 40 miles.

It's no big deal. But I want 600 acres at a time to do it or whatever. And I want absolute class A stuff. I want the high PIs. I want the great drainage. I want stuff that's already tiled that's turnkey. So you as a realtor, and maybe this crosses into laws and stuff that you're not allowed to do, can you ever get into the side of brokering the rent side of that? So pension fund goes north of town here. They buy 600 acres.

And so then you can step in and be like, well, I know a guy that would probably be interested in renting that for top dollar. Or is that a no-no? Like you can't? No, there's a couple ways to skin that cat, if you will. There's, you can get into, there's actually an auction mechanism for auctioning cash rents. Sure. You know, that's not super popular here, but I mean, it happens. Let's keep it that way. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah.

But it is a mechanism. It's a way to accomplish that. And the other thing is the farm management side. And that's what we tend to see more. If you're going to do that, whether that's your bank trust or your ag management,

operating company that's putting the acres under management. Probably the more common way to see that go. And in there, they're very competent professionals that manage acreage for a living. And they may also do some brokerage and some appraisal and some other stuff. They're going to add on those services, but they're very good at making sure that you're an absentee owner. And maybe third-generation absentee owner that just gets the check in mailbox, but stuff's taken care of. Sure.

Around here, like if a pension fund was to buy some land, and maybe you don't know the answer to this, when they buy a piece of land, are they looking at a 30-year investment or it's like we're going to own it because the numbers look right now, but if this fucker tanks, we'll sell it tomorrow? I don't have an answer for that. I think it really is going to be most of the time from what I'm going to see, it's portfolio specific. So they're trying to balance their asset portfolio situation

in a way that they, you know, real estate is something they need. They need, you know, whether that's buying the Dollar General store that's, you know, that's going to be leased or buying the farmland or whatever, even amongst the real estate asset class, you know, if you have a massively big fund, you know, they may have diversity in warehousing space to tillable land to, you know, whatever else. So, you know, I don't know the answer to what they would want to do with that. I would think that

For the most part, they're probably in a position where if they need to liquidate it, they can and be okay. But, you know, they're... I didn't know how jumpy they got. So, like, say they give $12,000 for this. Market pulls back a little bit to $8,000 or $9,000. Are they starting to sweat it? Or it's like, nah, we're going to ride this fucker out for 20 years. I mean, I didn't know how jumpy they get.

when it comes to that kind of stuff. I think appreciation is probably a factor there, as it would be for anybody with a real estate asset, but probably more practically looking at what's my net operating income. How much dollars does this investment print? I put X dollars in, I get Y dollars out. Does that math work? And I think that's really what they're looking at. Economy is a scale on their side. That's the important part, is that they're going to engage...

competent management to do that so that they're going to have, hopefully, a good level of control and understanding of managing input costs and future forecasting that stuff so that they can stay on top of those things and not be blindsided by the oh crap moments due to market volatility. But it still doesn't mean that they're going to always be ahead of the curve. Yeah, exactly. You can take your Lehman Brothers, your whoever, look at the past. Very, very large

Companies that went down. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I got to ask, with you being in real estate, do you get to see both sides of the coin of Farmer Joe here that's 75 that's seen land on RFD TV that sold for 29,000 an acre in Iowa? So he comes to you and he's like, I want to sell my farm and I want 29,000 an acre for it.

And then on the other hand, you've got little old lady over here whose husband died. And she's like, well, I'm going to move to town. And, you know, I'd like to get 5,000 an acre. What you clearly know that this guy was worth way less and hers worth way more. Do you, do you see, do you have people come to you? That's like, well, you know, your land is worth more than that, or it's worth less than that. Or do you just got to kind of.

Say, well, if that's what you're wanting, that's what we'll advertise it at. Yeah, well, both of those things, it's tempered. You know, it really is, it's tempered. If you can get an understanding of, you know, what a person wants out of their asset, you've accomplished a lot of trust there. You've got an understanding of where their mind is, and then you at least have a baseline on,

You know, how do we pull you if we have to pull you back, pull you down from that number or explain to you that, you know, that number should be higher. I can relate, you know, just anecdotally here, I can relate to two things that I'm working on right now. It's not ag land, but on a piece of unimproved land. These folks bought it and they asked me to value it. And they bought it for somewhere in the neighborhood of four times what I think it's worth in today's market. You know, and that's, you know.

That's a factor. That's definitely, you're a little bit far off there. And so I'm trying to determine, is there something here that I'm not seeing? You know, was there an improvement on that property when they purchased it that's been removed or, you know, some thing because you're way worlds apart. And really, I don't think, you know, you should be worlds apart. On the flip side of that, I was engaged...

to give some advice on, excuse me, on a residential piece to carve off of a larger land parcel. And they're trying to think about what should we do with this? Should we, you know, cut this off? How much should we cut off? Should we just tear it down? You know, would we be better off if we bulldozed it and then put it into production? And I came back to them and, you know, knowing that mindset of, you know, their alternative is to

put put capital into this to theoretically improve it but really it's i mean it's going to cost them a bunch of money to tear something down that isn't going to gain them anything it's going to cost them in the long run right so you know giving that approach and kind of starting that conversation was you know don't demolish this you know it it may not have a ton of value but as a package as a rule piece of ground you know it's attractive to people in that case you know just to be specific we're dealing with a

deal with an old barn with a you know a center alley and corn cribs built in and whatnot and you just can't do a lot with that structure you know it's hard to say you can put modern machinery in there because you're pretty much stuck with you know the 10 foot wide stuff or whatever um you know the best thing you do maybe pour concrete floor and make a shop out of it insulate it you know just small stuff in there whatever but uh you know pretty limited uh but still

the alternative cost of paying somebody with an excavator to come in, demo it, truck it out, you know, wrap up a lot of money in something just to not have it anymore. So we definitely do see both sides of that. Folks that are for, for one reason or another to one end of the spectrum or the other kind of disconnected from the marketplace. And you know, it's an exercise in,

developing trust very quickly to say, you know, this is what the science side of things, right? Here's the data and here's how to interpret the data and here's how it applies to your situation. Yeah, makes sense. I mean, absolutely.

Yeah, this day and age, you just never know because you get some people that are just dead set that they've seen this piece 300 miles away, so for this, and by God, that's what my ground's worth, you know, and, well, that's not necessarily the case here. Quite honestly, you know, in my business, I'm seeing a lot of that in residential stuff. Really? You know, we're seeing sellers being stuck in 2020 when...

Money was cheap, and buyers were in a frenzy, and people were just climbing over each other to have the opportunity to buy something, and we're not there anymore. I think you mentioned Uncle Joe's American and what interest rates are, how that's impacting people. So it's a big change. That puts a big dent when interest has essentially –

More than doubled. Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of it when you start talking $400,000 or $500,000 a piece of property. I mean, that adds up in a big hurry. Well, and that's just looking at a fixed simple interest situation. Yes. Not taking into account the adjustable rate stuff for operators that may have really be facing some serious credit crunch right now. And with the other uncertainties on the ag side...

cost to do business goes up. What you make at the end of the year goes down. And in the middle, the bank says, give me more, you know, because that's the deal. And you know what, how do you manage that? Do you ever see or get reports, you know, from, and I'm talking, it would have to be bigger cities away from here. Cause you know, we don't have giant cities here, but you know, there's always the big thing after COVID when everybody realized that, Hey, I can pay these dipshits to just sit at home and work on the computer. I don't need this great big giant office building.

Did you see a lot of that flip hands and it went from commercial to residential? Like, you know, we got this skyscraper with 4,000 square feet on this floor, but nobody wants it, so we're just going to put apartments in it.

And make it residential. Do you see reports or different stuff from other cities like that? Yeah, that's pretty interesting. That really is the core of what's being decimated in commercial real estate right now. We're starting to see that urban density, that concentration of particularly office buildings because there's no return to work, if you will. Work is here in the basement. Work is in the home office. Work is at the shared workspace place. But it's not at your cubicle.

On the 37th floor of the Watch McCulloch building. So I would assume, based on those references, let's just use Chicago, for example, big city. Sure. So that had to decimate the housing market there, didn't it? Because now you have an influx of...

living space available, right? Because before we had X amount of houses, but now we're turning skyscrapers into houses or not, or am I wrong there? Well, and some of the concern is a lot of those office, it's the conversation right now about what to do with it because it's set up to be an office. So how do you capitalize that as something other than an office? And seeing the conversion to

you know, mid density and lower density residential. If you make, you know, townhomes, apartments, you know, penthouses, whatever out of this stuff to, to try to get the monetization back because it was a, that was an, a floor of office buildings, right? Was generating X dollars a year for the landlord. And without that income, what do you do to replicate that?

You know, so if your skyscraper had a net operating income of, you know, $50 million at the end of the year, you convert it to an apartment and you sell it, you've lost that. Right. You know, you've created a condo and, you know, so...

understanding how to monetize that and how to do something with it, I think is really the big challenge there because the value of the underlying asset, commercial real estate, you know, it's all, it's production, farm ground, right? You know, what's the income going to be? I'm buying a thing that's going to produce money. I'm buying a business investment. So with that, with the floor, the building, the office space, when it's no longer productive investment, you know, the value of the asset from a cashflow basis is, is,

decimated it really is so do you think that's what helped drive farmland prices it's like i owned and let's just i don't know how skyscrapers work but let's just say i owned a quarter of this skyscraper and it's like well fuck it i'll take my 25 million my quarter of that and i'll go by farmland at least it's still appreciating where this motherfucker's going down you know well i think so and i think this is just my personal speculation i think we're starting to see

in the land industry, ag or not, in the concept of land and land ownership, we're starting to see a lot of existential pressure on what's the utility of land. You know, here, the utility of land is let's do some growing corn on it, right? Let's row crop it or maybe have some, you know, livestock on a little hillier ground or whatever. But now you have the pressure of, well, you know, maybe that ground's cheap enough compared to an acre, you know,

16, five an acre compared to an acre of ground on the North end of Effingham at $237,000 an acre compared to an acre of ground in Chicago at whatever the hell that price is, you know, where am I going to put my solar panels, for example, right? So there's the existential pressure of, you know, something that's complete curve ball and let's, let's come in and we look at ground prices and we think, you know, Holy shit, how am I going to pay for this? Right. How's the production ever going to compensate, uh, paying this, this price tag and that hedge fund, uh,

that has a trillion dollars laying around or whatever, you know, burn a hole in their pocket. They look at it and say, you know, let's go buy 10,000 acres in Shelby County and put the solar panels on it because the ground's cheap. It's close enough to where we want to ship the power and whatever. And solar panels, I'm not trying to go down that rabbit hole of just solar, but what's the next thing? You know, we have solar and wind today. What's the next thing? You know, we've all faced pipeline intrusion and power poles. Yeah.

You know, so what's the next thing? And that's maybe the next thing is drinking water. You know, there's crazy stuff happening. So I don't know what the next thing is. The carbon credits, you know, that's a big thing now. That's coming on board, you know. Sure. And I don't know how all that works, you know. Are you carbon friendly, Nick? Absolutely. Yeah, you're looking a little green. I am carbon friendly as you can get.

I'm the most carbon friendly person you can find. My corn takes a lot of carbon out of the air. I am carbon friendly. Take your word for it. Do the math. I'm killing it. I am killing it.

Yeah, and real estate, well, then, you know, it's a humongous part of the economy. I mean, it's one of the main drivers. You know, you've got to have somewhere to live. Yeah, for sure. And it don't matter if you own it or rent it. You know, if I'm the owner renting it to you and I had to pay more for it, then guess what? The rent goes up. You know, it affects everybody.

Yeah. One of my favorite things, and I'm not picking on anybody that rents, you know, but the idea of renters coming in saying, well, you know, I'm going to rent a house because I don't have to pay property taxes. Yeah. I'm going to rent a house because I don't have any maintenance.

you know, missing kind of the forest for the trees because it's all built in, right? Because not only are you paying for all those things in the aggregate, you're paying a profit on top of it because the guy didn't go buy a million dollar apartment complex to go broke. Right. You know, exactly. So you're not cutting the check to the county for the property tax, but he's getting paid. The part that worries me is someday, and now granted, this has never happened yet, but you know, my property taxes here are atrocious. A house that was built in 1988, 36 acres,

two junk out buildings and now I build a shop, you know, but my tax and the new shop ain't even on the tax bill yet. My taxes are $4,500 a year. So every 10 years of my house is not increasing by $45,000. I'm going backwards. Yep. So far that's worked. And will it continue to work or will it not? So, you know, I don't, I don't know. Hmm.

Should run for the school board. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because that's where it all goes. My kids don't even go where I got one kid going there. But yeah, prior to that, none of them did. And then when they're all graduated, none of them will again. That's where it goes. Don't even get me started. Yep. That's the killer in Illinois is the property taxes. You bet. And it kills me because we could be a powerhouse of an economy with our location, our

With the industry, with Chicago, as bad as I hate to say it, but I mean, you know, we could truly have a lot of things going for us if they wouldn't have ruined it. But they have just flat fucking ruined it. At some point, you know, not to go on the patriotic tangent here, but at some point I just have to look, just me, individual, personal, American citizen statement. At some point I look at this and I say, at what juncture does the average human, the average American wake up and say,

I'm buying more than I want, right? I'm not just, I'm overtaxed, but, but get granular and say, you know what, to hell with that. I don't need that service. And maybe the government's not the best one to provide it and et cetera, you know, and, and why don't you just let me keep that money and I'll figure out something good to do with it or I'll, I'll take care of what I need to take care of, you know, good luck with it. But you're exactly right. But

Holy cow. I can't name one thing that the government does better than the private sector other than tax and fuck things up. Yeah. That's the only thing they do better. And neither one of them are positive to you or I, so. Yeah. Buy some license in Illinois for anything. Yeah. Holy cow. It's salty.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's like we was talking earlier out in the shed and, and I truly do see it both ways. And, and this, this may sound shitty or whatever, but all I'm saying is I see it both ways. So originally that's why our ancestors left Europe because shit got so high. They're like, fuck the average man can't afford nothing because these families just kept snowballing and snowballing and snow. It would be no different than farming around here. If, if my neighbor kid, if his mom and dad own 10,000 acres, uh,

and me and my wife own 40 acres, and we pass it on to the next generation tax-free, who do you think is going to have more buying power? My kids or theirs? Clearly not mine. So I do see where the inheritance tax and all that come from to try to bust this shit up to where people can't just amass giant fortunes.

I also believe, and once I buy it, this is mine. I don't know that you're necessarily entitled to it through taxes. So I don't know what the correct answer is there because once again, we're the guys stuck in the middle now because the people around here that do own 10,000 acres can afford four lawyers to fight the tax loopholes anyway. And your mom and dad died on 160 acres and you're paying out the ass on taxes just to keep it. So,

I don't know how we ever navigate that channel and try to get it back, but we have literally reached the point, I honestly feel like, that the snowballs are getting so big that there's no stopping these people now. You know, this is a whole different animal from the 1950s. You know, okay, this guy, sure, he was a wealthy man back then. He owned 300 acres. His net worth was $150,000. Yeah. You know, you got people now that are worth $150 million.

And there's no stopping it. I mean, they can literally go out and buy five, six, 700 acres a year and not even miss the money and just, and just roll it and roll it and roll it and roll it. And so I don't know what the answer is there. I'm not saying tax the piss out of everybody because the government ain't going to spend it more efficiently than we are, but I don't know how you,

Well, yeah. I mean, hey, I like having paved roads and fire departments and running water, right? You know, I'm not trying to be, you know, completely the tax for general social good isn't the answer ever. But I also look at it, you know, as a business operator, it's compressive. It's just compressive. And I look at, you know, I find myself...

Where do I go from here? You know, what's next? And what's the right move? What risk do I want to assume? Knowing that I open another office and it comes with another property tax bill and, you know. It's like around here when you build a new house and your property taxes immediately go up, it stifles development, right? Sure. If they say, okay, if you'll build a new house and pump all that money into our economy through the lumber yards, the concrete guys, the construction workers, all that, you won't have to pay property taxes for 15 years.

People would be all over that, but it's the exact opposite. It's like the minute the last nail was drilled, fucking just boom, they just stick it right up your ass, and it stifles development. Well, and that's, you know, how short are we in housing right now? Right. You know, I mean, in the quantity of millions of units, right, nationally. It's a huge problem. And it's just, you know, it's not getting particularly better. We've really got to change that conversation, I think. Yeah, for sure.

Nick looks like he's got the answers. What do you think, Nick? Well, I think all those people that shouldn't move to the country, they should live in apartments in the city. And that would solve a lot of this. Because next thing you know, they're upset about the smell. They're upset about the traffic in the country. They're behind a tractor. Rural water. Rural water ruined this country. Keep your ass in the city. Before, when you had to buy a piece of land...

Build a stick, build a house on it, drill a well. You had all this upfront cost. A lot of these GIPs are like, I don't know if I'm really going to do that. But now it's like, yep, I'll buy a double-wide. I'll have Morton put me in a little 20 by 40 shed. I got rural water. I can have it all, internet, everything.

Boom, fuck yeah, sign me up for the country. But then as soon as you pull it down, well, goddamn, I just swung laundry on the line and you're blowing dirt all over it because you're working the ground next to my house. I don't like the smell of your cows and everything else. Fuck you. I was here first. Just the way I feel. I look at it as I own this piece of land. I pay the taxes. If I want to turn it into a fucking nuclear waste dump, I should have the right to do that. I agree with that completely. Completely. But a lot of people don't see it that way. No, no, they don't. Unfortunately.

Except world. It is. It's a sad state of affairs. Yes, absolutely it is. I don't know how we fix it. Don't know if we can fix it. Well, we sit here and we bitch about it. That's how we solve it, Tony. Well, yeah. What I've learned from college kids is if you just protest enough, things will change. Oh, yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about the college protest, Matt? Yeah. We're out on Hamas. Yeah. You know, I've got to admit, I'm not especially educated. I know probably enough to be dangerous in the conversation. What I understand, there's some pro-Palestinian...

going on, right? And I guess on some of these campuses, these professional education participants got a little unruly. And they kind of got their ass handed to them by some fine folks at University of North Carolina. Thank you for that fraternity, for putting the American flag back up. Here's what I know. Here's what I think I know anyway. Most of those people that are participating in these protests...

If they really want to make a difference, pack your shit, grab a passport, fly to Israel. Pick up arms. Most of the shit they believe in, Hamas will shoot you dead on the spot. You'll be done. They do not agree with your values, if you can even call them values. Hamas is bad enough that, like, Saudi Arabia, they were like, hmm. They're so bad. Other Muslim countries don't want them. Like, yeah, these guys kind of suck ass. Like, we're not really willing to take them in. We're kind of hoping the Israelites, like, take them out. Hmm.

They're nothing good. Yeah. Kind of, kind of B rate just kind of from what I've noticed. Well, I did hear, I want to go back to, you're talking about the American flag and I want to explore that a little bit. Cause that that's, I mean, maybe I'm a little bit more educated on that, but I found that very interesting. I think my wife was talking about that a little bit. She was kind of filling me in on some of this stuff, but yeah,

but I was really, really intrigued by a group of people on American soil who would take an American flag and take it down. And not, I mean, conceptually even have a fucking inkling of the implications. Like, you know, to your point, my property, I'm going to do what I want with it. So if I come to your house and take your American flag down, how does that go for me? Yeah, we're going to have a problem. Yeah, not particularly fucking well. Exactly. It's not going to go well at my house. It's not going to go well at Nick's house. And the flip side of that is, is on your property, if you want to fly a Palestinian flag, that's your deal.

That's your property? Have that on my tax-funded property? Yeah, no problem. Pack your shit. We're putting you on the next thing smoking. We're shipping your ass out of here. Yeah. You're done. At the end of the day, could you... You lost your scholarship. You're over. Could you imagine if social media would have come out? Let's say Facebook and TikTok both come out in 1990. How much the dynamics would change back when it was the fucking Wild West and you could say anything, do anything. Nobody got offended. Yeah.

You see this on TikTok, these people taking the American flag down at a university. The volume of people that would be on TikTok just eating these people alive would be atrocious. But now you can't because the video immediately gets taken down. We're not going to have that. That's hate speech. They can do all they want to do, taking shit down. But the minute you bitch about them taking it down, well, that's hate speech. Yeah.

But it would have been the wild west. And actually, even back to 2020, when I first got on TikTok, it was the wild west compared to what it is now even. I mean, they just keep wrenching it tighter and tighter. And I don't give a shit if they ban TikTok tomorrow. Everybody's all up in arms about it. I don't care. Ban it. Who cares? Life will go on. I couldn't care less. Yep. The world's always turning. Exactly. It shouldn't get banned. They're just scared you get informed too many people too quickly. Yeah.

Without them being in control of it. We saw in the last election cycle, whichever side of the aisle you're on, I mean, I do care, but I don't care. Like, it was clearly one-sided. Clearly. Like, that's where they're at. That's their narrative. And they own it. And that's fine. I don't have to participate in it. I don't have to believe it. Whatever. But, like, when you force the opposing side to bow down to you, well, maybe that's, now maybe we have a problem. Yeah.

I just get tired of how stupid they think we are, that TikTok is a national security threat, but the southern border is wide open. Just bring in whoever you want, buy the truck. It's the point that they have proved their audacity and they realize that essentially the American people won't stand up for shit. For our ancestors being not much older than our children, when they founded this country, honestly, they were 18 to 21-ish, 18 to 26, let's call it.

and founded the greatest nation in the history of the world. And here we are, enduring all this stupid shit. They were dumping tea in the harbor over a small tax. We're putting up with way more shit than that. By far. I'm just sitting here bitching about it. Like...

Because we're not that hungry yet. Exactly. And I'm as guilty as anybody. Oh, for sure. I am too. Absolutely. You know, I would be the first, I would happily March if we're going to March, but I'm still in, you know, I'm just bitching about the dipshits protesting on college campuses, laughing about how clueless they are. I just want to be left alone.

I don't want to pick any. I will pick a side if you force me to pick a side, but I just want to be left alone. Yeah. I don't want 1% or less setting the narrative for the country. Absolutely. You know what I mean? It's the classic squeaky wheel gets the grease bullshit. Yeah. And nobody, I'm not going to say nobody, but virtually the vast, vast, vast majority of people do not feel that way. Yeah. But yet they're getting by with all of it. Yes. Stop. Stop.

It gets the difficulty of the snowballs. You talked about the snowball economically, but apply it politically. And Nick, you know, how long in the effort to chase the land of opportunity, how majestically we fucked up the land of opportunity here. Right. You know, we've let the snowballs snowball. Yeah. And now you have this this.

beautiful bureaucracy that you can't kill a piece at a time. And I think that's the conversation on the national level politically, right, is you can't make a course correction, or at least a lot of people feel like you can't make a course correction. I don't think you can. Do you just reach the point where you take it back down to the foundation and say, hey, we're going to do it a little bit different? Did you ever happen to watch the show Alias? No, I don't know that I did. With Jennifer Garner.

Long story short, she's a double agent working for this organization and gets pulled in by the CIA. We're on this. And so she wants to take this office down. I'm like, well, it's bigger than that. That's the arm. This is the monster. And they pull out the map and the monster is big. Right? Like, to take it all down, it's huge. And I think that's where we're at. Like, it's way bigger than what we think it is. It's so off the chain, unhinged.

Like, we just want our freedom, right? Like, I don't really care about what's going on in New York, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, whatever. Like, I care, but I just kind of want to be left alone. Do my deal, live on. But it's way bigger than that. The government's got so big. Like, let's look at the people that are in charge of our country, okay? If you're going to start a business tomorrow, ABC company, XYZ company, are you hiring Nancy Arnott?

Pelosi, are you hiring Joe Biden? Are you hiring any of these fucking people that are so goddamn old that they don't even know where the nursing home's at? They're so unhinged, they couldn't find this son of a bitch in 24 hours, even though they should have been in there 12 years ago. No, you're not hiring any of them for any of that. And that's the people that are running this country. Because the people that founded this country were young. They got out.

Hand it off to the next generation. I don't mean to go down the boomer kick, this, that, and the other, but it kind of plays into it. Now that generation has managed this deal for decades upon decades now. None of those asshats you would hire to run a lemonade stand at the park. I can't fathom what I would hire Nancy Pelosi to run. I don't know what it would be. It would literally have to be the stupidest business plan in the world to have her run anything. But she's pretty high up on the totem pole. Joe Biden at this point is just sad.

Like, regardless if you're left or right on politics, the fact that he's in charge of the nuclear football and the greatest country in the history of the world, that he's in charge of it, is sad. Now, I don't care which side of the aisle you're on. I mean, I do care. But regardless of which side you're on, the fact that he's in charge of it, you wouldn't hire that guy to coach a JV football team. You wouldn't hire him in charge of hauling the equipment.

to a JV football game. And that goes for Mitch McConnell, any of them. Yeah, Mitch McConnell, all those guys. Pick your poison. Yeah, pick your aisle, pick your oldest shit guy. You wouldn't hire them to do shit because they're well past their prime, if they even had a prime. Joe Biden has been a bona fide idiot since the day he started in Congress. Go back to his earlier clips. That guy's the dumbest son of a bitch we've ever put in charge of anything.

I wouldn't put that son of a bitch in charge of cleaning out a gutter or coaching a little league team. I for damn sure wouldn't put him in charge of a softball team. He'd be sniffing the shit out of them. But you wouldn't put him in charge of anything. Like, that guy is that dumb. He was that dumb 48 years ago. Yeah, they're just leeches. Now he's just an old guy that's super dumb. Well, I was going to say, I think, you know, his potential is maybe with a shampoo company.

A smell tester or something like that. Actually, that would be where his niche lies. Yes. But you take all those guys. Like, you can't be, and I'm not being mean at some point, but like, once you're past, as far as I'm concerned, once you're past 65, if that's the retirement age, you can't run for office anymore. Agreed. Your ass lives underneath the lulls that you passed. I'm not a pilot. Do you guys know, is there an FAA mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots? Yes, there is. There is. Absolutely there is. Because I'm 65.

I might kill 300 people on this airplane. But you could kill the entire world. But because I'm 95, I can fuck up life for these 300 million people. It's no big deal. Because they're never going to live underneath those walls. Yeah. You wouldn't put those guys in charge of shit. And some of it's just age, right? Like, most of those guys are career politicians. They're just shitty. They have been shitty for years. They've never done nothing their entire life. They've done nothing. They've never had a real job. They've never done anything. They've never produced anything. They've never built anything. Because they're shitbag people. And that's fine. Whatever. Whatever.

But once you're that old, even if you are a good person, you're just that freaking old. You can't do shit. And that's just the way the world works. It gets old. Like, if I'm going hunting tomorrow with a dog, are you taking one that's 75 fucking years old? Or are you taking one that's four? Yeah. Yeah. You're going to walk three miles. The 75-year-old dog ain't making it. Right? My dog ain't going to make it. And I don't even mean to be mean, but you think differently. Like, my dad and I get along totally, perfectly fine.

But he thinks different than I do. Sure. And it's just a degeneration gap, you know. So, like, my dad, you know, he grew up in a huge family. They were poor as a lot. Like, even to this day, 20 bucks is a lot of money to my dad. Yeah. It really is. I mean, that's a lot of money to him. 20 bucks is like, I don't even miss it. Yeah. Because I grew up in a different time. It's like, 20 bucks don't get you nothing. Yeah. Yeah.

Barely get you McDonald's at this point. Yeah, exactly. And I don't mean that meanly towards him. I truly don't. But you think differently. He's always had the mindset of $20, and it was a hell of a lot of money when he was a kid. As much money as these old politicians are pissing away, Tony, think what... I mean, they're pissing away trillions. Yeah, and don't even bat an eye. Think what it would be if they had our mindset on where $20 isn't that much of a dollar amount. Yeah. I mean...

It'd be tens of trillions. Exactly. No big deal. And how, you know, I'm going to go down the politics rabbit hole here, or maybe the government rabbit hole. How much does that happen locally? It happens at every level. The fucking big spooky monster that is national government. It happens at every level. You know, it amazes me to pay attention to how much stuff is just

absolutely sideways at the local level with you know it is and not just that but how many local levels we have you know your local fucking mosquito abatement district yeah your library council your you know watch mccullough this and that you know lug nut collectors of america fucking whatever it is you know all these layers of stuff that it just we just take a little little bit little fraction little little nugget on that tax bill right yeah to support this or that um

I've made taxes to a library district that's 45 miles from here. I didn't even know they had a library. I can't fathom that it's that great. You should read more. Can't. If I try to read online, it just scrolls to some damn ad, and I've got to click the next page, and that's when I'm done. It's absurd to me. Absolutely absurd. Yeah, they've fucked her up good this time, and it's appalling.

Then it's gotten this far out of hand. I mean, regardless whether you're on the left or the right, you're seriously going to hire a guy who cannot walk from the podium to the exit of the room, cannot walk up a set of stairs. You wouldn't hire that guy to do anything in your business. Yep.

They figured out 100 years ago, divide and conquer. Yes, absolutely. And you can take your pick whether you want to say it's Trump versus Biden, you know, Obama versus, but take your, as long as they know that we get these two guys on the main stage and we know that half the people are going to fight over each one of these.

Tomorrow, let's just say that Nick and I both said, fuck it, we're running for president, and I'm on one side and Nick's on the other. People are going to be like, well, fuck, I kind of like what they both say. We can't have that because now we don't have division. As long as we're fighting each other, we're not fighting them. Exactly. That's what they don't want. Absolutely.

And until people get it through their head that it's us, the blue-collar working man, against every one of those son-of-a-bitches, all of them, both sides of the aisle, it'll never change. I see it every day on TikTok. Somebody will start out with a comment that, fuck Joe Biden, and then it's, oh, fuck Donald Trump, and just right on down the list, and it's divide and conquer. Until you dipshits realize, fuck all them people. I'll even go as far as saying, fuck Donald Trump, all of them. Fuck all of them.

I'm done with every fucking bit of it. Fuck them all. Start over. It's never going to change. Ever. And I'm going to go out and make a bold-faced prediction. I was a Trump supporter. I thought the guy was done fine. But he will not get elected because there's too many wishy-washy Republicans that are going to, you know, too many mean tweets and

And so we'll be back at fucking square one again. Can you fathom, though? Let's back up here four years, whatever, five years. Can you fathom if Donald Trump said the stupid shit that Joe Biden said? Yeah, exactly. Like that guy literally couldn't read anything off the teleprompter and get it correctly. Like he's going to mess it up regardless.

You leave him on his own, he's going to say some really stupid shit. But even off the teleprompter, he messes it up bad. How bad the Saturday Night Live, the news agencies would have just obliterated Trump on presenting it as such. Don't you find it oddly coincidental that we didn't have presidential debates? I don't care if COVID, we can do debates online. You can sit in your living room. I can sit in mine via Zoom. We can have all the debates you want to have. Yeah.

You can't pull it off with his equipment. No, just can't do it. Sure don't look. I mean, do you guys, and I never thought about this, so I've seen this on TikTok, and I just seen it yesterday. So we are, what is it, May? So, I mean, we're seven months from an election thereabouts. Yeah. Do you guys not find it really odd that there ain't yard signs plastered everywhere, billboards? That's already been decided. That's what I mean. Not much going on in the political arena whatsoever.

It's pretty quiet. For being seven months out, we just went through a primary election in March, right? Yeah. And the fucking signs have been plastered since a year ago. That was a local primary. Yeah. We're talking president of the United States, seven months away.

The only signs you see are the ones that have been sitting in this guy's yard since the last election. There's no one to worry about. You're just going to print it when you're done. Yeah. So are we expecting a big change on the ticket? I mean, we're going to we're going to have a rematch, right? We're going to be it's going to be Biden and Trump. Yeah. I mean, for me at 38 years old, which granted to the kids, they're just now voting. I'm a fucking dinosaur. Right. But I mean, at 38 years old, I'm not overly thrilled about the choice between 80 year old number one and 80 year old number two. You know.

I guess the way I look at it, and this is the way I feel, that once you reach a certain age, you're done. Trump falls under that category. Sure. He does. I don't mean that to be meanly. I'm sure people will fucking delete me off of this podcast. I'm not saying I don't like Donald Trump, but we can't have it both ways. Is that not the thing we always bitch about? We got it two different ways, right? So which way are we doing it? Yeah.

And I don't want to hear this shit as, well, it's the lesser of two evils, because where the fuck has that got you the last 50, 60 years? It's got you nowhere. That's the only choice we've had for as long as I've been voting. Yep. Lesser of two evils. Yep. And I'm done with it. Well, I'm not doing the lesser of two evils. We're either going to fucking fix it or we're not. Take your pick, because I'm done with the lesser of two evils fucking bullshit. I'm done. When George Washington ran, it wasn't the lesser of two evils. It was freedom or the king. Exactly. Fuck the king. We'll just shoot his ass and his troops and their fucking...

Trumpet-blowing war. Yeah, red coats. You fuckers are goddamn it. Yeah, you guys are cheating. You're cheating. You're fucking hiding in the woods and camouflaged. You gotta wear red coats and die like a man. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, fuck you. Beat your drums and say, yeah, whatever. You guys literally hurt the entire world and lost it all. Yeah. Covered some shitty little island. Exactly. That we saved your ass. You guys were the Mike. That we saved your ass from speaking German from. You were the Mike Stamp of the fucking world. Oh, man. Yes.

Yeah, you guys, you would be speaking German had we not saved your shitty little island. So we're done. No offense to the British people. I don't have a huge problem against you. But you guys literally owned the world and fucked it up. And we kicked your ass. Exactly. You know. You guys learned your lesson. You signed with us in the end. Yeah. But.

You cost my country a shitload of people defending your shitty little island. Yeah. Because you guys just wouldn't make peace with Adolf. Yep. And let him fight the Russians until you killed them all. Fuck with Ukraine right now. You see, they killed them all. Yeah, then you could have got half the world back, but no, you had to be, you know, fight this official war, whatever. Thanks a lot, Winston.

Yeah, and I'm sick of the Ukraine deal, too. I'm sick of all that. I don't give a fuck. I want to put a fence up all the way around the U.S. and fuck all you guys. I'm not giving you no money. I'm not doing nothing. Fuck everybody. We got too many problems here at home. We get this sorted out, we'll talk. Yeah, we'll think about it. So we can throw $81 billion my way. Yeah, exactly. Maybe sometime this week would be good. Yeah, I could put a dent in some of my shit with that. So tell me if I'm wrong. So to me...

The government, in a sense, is a business, right? If you and I were the only two people in charge, they said the whole government, there's no Congress or no nothing. You and I are running the whole ship. We look at it as a business, right? Are you just going to willingly give just $80 billion here, $20 billion here, a million here? You've got to look at it even different from that, Tony. Are you going to borrow $80 billion from Matt to give to China? Yeah.

You're not giving it to China. You're borrowing it from China, giving it to other countries. Why don't we just pick up the phone and say, hey, we ain't got $80 billion. Call China. They'll give it to you. Maybe. Agreed. Why are we paying interest on it? Call them. And that's where I want to tell China, too. By the way, all that interest we owe you, yeah. Yeah, that's all. Pound sand. Yeah, we're done. Fuck you. We're done with that, too. Yeah, we're not paying it back. Turns out you are not getting any of it. Yeah. We're done. That's where I'm at.

So did you kind of get to feel how these podcasts go now? Yeah. We start out politely on real estate and end up really pissed. Yeah. Can you imagine, like, the greatest day for me is the last Ukrainian and the last Russian are holding pistols at each other and they pull the trigger simultaneously and they're both just done, which is what Patton would have done for us

Have we not killed him off in this bullshit jeeping accident? Have we just fueled up the Germans tanks, give them hot meals, some warm clothes, said, hey, would you guys follow us to Russia? We'll finish this son of a bitch. We could just kill them off. Then there's no Vietnam War. That saves us, what, 70,000 people-ish. There's no Korean War. There's no communist Russia. There's no Cold War. That saves us, I don't know, roughly $20 trillion and pissing money away on that because communism dies at that point.

I think it would have been a win if we had just smoked them out then. That's my personal opinion. Could have took them down. Wouldn't have been that hard. They were like four gas tanks away and a hot meal from taking the Russians down anyway. He's not wrong.

And FDR sucks. I'm going to go out on that limb, too. He sucks. Sucked my hairy white ass. But when you read your social studies book, who was the greatest president ever? FDR. He brought power to rural America. Meanwhile, he screwed the world blind. And Adolf Hitler was a bad guy. Not saying he was a good dude. But, like, we were all against Adolf because we had German heritage. Meanwhile, we sided with a guy who killed...

10 times more freaking people of his own people, Joseph Stalin, for those socialists out there and those communists that think that's great. We sided with a guy who was 10 times worse than Adolf Hitler ever thought about being on his worst day. Yeah. And so for you young kids, the New Deal was basically this. We were getting fucked in the front, and FDR was like, yeah, we got to rephrase this. So the New Deal is we're going to fuck you from behind. So that's what he did. That guy was fucking worthless. Absolutely worthless. Yes.

Well, Woodrow Wilson was probably the most worthless. Yeah, Woodrow started it all. He was the most worthless son of a bitch we've ever had in this country. And then he got it going, and then it's evolved from there. But most of you younger folk don't even know who Woodrow Wilson is. But he was a useless piece of shit. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And, you know, staircases, since I'm in a wheelchair. But hey, it's true.

You're awful quiet over here. You're just letting us go off on this. Right now he's like, damn, I wish I had exited out of this deal about 20 minutes ago. Here's where we're at, man. This is how we go. This is how we roll. We've solved America's problems. We can solve it. They make big problems out of small problems. You see it at the local level where it's township, school board, whatever. They make a huge problem out of a small issue. The United States government is no different.

For God's sake, they can't run the post office. The other day, I sent a package, priority, mind you, to Pennsylvania. It got 30 miles from the guy's house. They sent it to Kansas City and then brought it back. Now, I'm not good at the Pony Express. I don't run logistics companies for a living, but I can tell you the closest way to rural Pennsylvania...

when the package is already in Pittsburgh, is not via Kansas City. Had it not even been there yet, it's still not Kansas City because that's a long ways west of us. Like literally anywhere but Kansas City for that.

But now they're closing all our local post offices here in the upcoming shortly. They're closing all our mail is going to go to Chicago. You might as well say the hell with it. Mail just ain't going to happen anymore. Yep. That's where UPS needs to get on board and just be like, yeah, 50 cents, we'll ship a letter for you. Which, who writes letters anymore? You know, but still. If you ship much UPS lately, though, since their last union contract, you ain't shipping shit for them without it being 30 bucks. Really? Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

I'm sure that didn't go to the drivers from what I've seen, but they are higher than giraffe ass. Yes. Really? And now they're still the best option, but holy cow, are they pricey? Yeah, I can see that. So what do you think? You just said to her like a bump on a log. I am. I'm taking it in.

There was quite a bit of evolution here in this conversation that lasted about ten minutes. Well, there was evolution and revolution. Which would you like to get in on? Yeah. Where do you want to take it, Matt? That's interesting. We're on board. Nobody on this podcast gives a fuck. Yeah. Just say whatever you want. But we're not wrong in what we're saying, are we? We've got a clean house, and I mean all of them.

I don't care who you are. I don't care if you served on a drainage district board for two years or two terms. Your ass is done. I want a whole new slate, all new people, top to bottom. You sat on the school board. In fact, you was the youngest person around here to ever be elected to a school board, right? You were. At 18 years old, right? That's what they tell me. Yep. And it's a shit show. You can't get nothing done.

It was a great experience. Great experience. And I would do it again, but I would never do it again. You know? Superintendents run the show. I don't care what anybody says. They set the narrative, or they do now. Maybe they didn't then. But...

They come to the school board, well, we need to do this, and nobody wants to buck the system, so yeah, we need to spend $93,000 on the pitcher's mound. It's the big problems out of small problems, like Nick, like we said. And I think the biggest thing is nobody takes a step back, in my experience. I should say nobody takes a step back. I experienced a lot of challenges where we're having a conversation about an issue,

without ever saying, why in the fuck are we talking about this? Agreed. What is the purpose of this conversation? It's literally that if Nick and I are planting corn tomorrow, and row one plugs up on his planter, and there's rain coming in, and we've got to get this fucker moving, and I'm at the front of the tractor being like...

This fucking left weight needs painted. We can't do nothing to this left weight's painted. It's like, what the fuck does this have to do with anything? Nothing. And it always has to be some stupid lady who's a good 80 pounds overweight that has to throw out the what-ifs. Well, I'm not talking about the what-ifs. We got to get from point A to point B. She always wants to throw in the stupid shit. It's like, shut the fuck up. We're not even talking about that. It just has nothing to do with anything. That's my point with meetings. I don't go to them. At some point...

Every meeting I've ever been to comes to the point of, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Exactly. You shouldn't be allowed to speak anymore. And I'm not saying all my ideas are great and I should run the world. I clearly shouldn't.

Every meeting I've ever been involved in at any level always comes down to some jack wagon with a personal agenda. Agreed. Wants to veer it off into no man's land over something. Well, Toto wanted to shit on the neighbor's yard, but that's not legal here. Can we change that? We're talking about putting new water pipes in. Next thing you know, your dog is shit on top of where the water pipe should go. And now we got to get somebody involved. You made a mountain out of a mole. Yeah. Now we have to have some environmental study over where your dog shit.

How about you keep your dog in your own yard and let's move forward? Every meeting I've ever been in ends up being in that deal. To the point that you just can't take the stupidity. They overcomplicate everything. If we said the three of us are going to go to town right now, I got a minivan out here, we can easily fit in that. Let's go. Somebody would throw a fucking wrench in it. He's handicapped. That's a handicap. Fucking on and on and on and on.

Well, some of it comes back to back in the day when you did stupid shit, somebody punched you in the face. Agreed. We have to get back to a society where punching somebody in the face to solve the problem is just the end of the problem, right? You're right. Now, I'm not saying we're just ass-kicking on every corner, everybody's John, Claude, Van, Kelly, whatever. But, like, at some point in time, like, you've got to get back to the point of dumb shit gets your ass beat up. Like, bullies have a purpose.

We've talked about this on other podcasts. At some point in time, stupid shit has repercussions and you have to get your ass kicked for it. Back when I was a kid, well, not all that long ago, take two years ago, if I fucked up, my dad was kicking my ass. You do dumb shit, he's putting your foot in your ass. That's just how it was. Clear back to when I was a little kid. That's the repercussion.

That's the thing that kept me from doing this, this, this, and this. Knowing I'm getting a foot put in my ass. And we have moved so far in society away from the fact that somebody's going to whip your ass.

We've got to get back to that one way or another. Whether it's the cops whipping your ass, your dad whipping your ass, your uncle whipping your ass, somebody needs to whip your ass for doing bad shit. Agreed. That's just what we've got to get back to. You see it every day on the news. If somebody had whipped their ass three years ago, that shit wouldn't have happened. Yep. Tell me I'm wrong. No. No, you're not. Ass-kicking solves a lot of problems. All this shit with the Hamas protesting going on?

Prime example, the other day on that flag at UNC, they did the right thing. They put the flag back up. They could have solved it way quicker if they just whipped those guys' ass. Exactly. We're going to whip your ass. We're going to put your ass on a plane and ship your ass back to the country you think Hamas is great. We'll ship your ass there. You can pick up arms. Oh, newsflash, asshats, when they drop you off in Israel, Hamas is going to shoot your ass because they don't put up with queers, this, that, and they don't put up with any of that shit. They're going to mow you down the second you get off the plane. Hey, we're here to defend you. We don't like you. You're done.

Ass kicking solves a lot of problems. It does. Totally does. Not saying there's not rights for people. Everything can't be solved with an ass kicking, but a lot of shit can. We've just become too pussified. Absolutely. The world is soft. We give our personal responsibility. Absolutely. And everybody's...

Everybody likes to talk about the idea that the glamour of personal responsibility, but they don't really want to take it. No, absolutely not. You know, you watch your buddy do some stupid shit and get his ass whipped. You know, you get defensive about it. Why would you fucking hit my friend? You know, now you want to be in the middle of this beef. You look at your dumb shit buddy and say you're a fucking dumb shit. Yeah, yeah. Get your ass hit for a reason. You got out what you put in, chief. So good job. Let's tie a bow around it and move on. Yeah.

Absolutely. And that's pretty much where I come to with politicians. Well, this is pretty much what you put into it. So you got an ass kicking coming now. Am I wrong?

That would go a long way. That would go a long way if we just let some ass-kickings happen in Congress, because Lord knows, very much then it could defend shit. It's got so far ahead now, it's got to go back to judges. I mean, all of them. You're seeing all kinds of this. Trump trial is a make-believe bullshit deal. There's a thousand precedents already been set on that.

Depending on which side of the aisle you sit on. Why is it such a giant... They admitted to witness tampering, all this shit, but we're still having a trial? Why is it a giant deal when any president, I don't care if it's Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, picks a Supreme Court justice? Well, I can't do this. I thought a judge was impartial. Why does it matter which way he swings on the aisle? Yeah. Because they're not impartial. Exactly. It's all fucking pay to play, even down to the local level. Yes. Absolutely.

Yep. It's absolute fucking bullshit, as Bobby Knight would say, and I agree with it. It's a shame he's still alive. I'd run him for president. It's awesome shit. Yep. That's why I think blowjobs should still be $3. Well, honestly, if we could just get some prostitutes for every guy that's running for president or is going to be president, I think we could solve a lot of these issues. I think so. Because it always comes down to sex in the last 10 years, right? Yeah. Or 20 years. Bill Clinton's doing all kinds of women.

They get shot in the back of the head. It's a suicide. Barack Obama's dating a man, but we're playing it off as a woman. George Bush, I don't think, had any issues. Trump's grabbing him by the pussy. Yeah, Trump's doing something. He's got prostitution. If I had $10 billion and I wasn't married, yeah, I'm probably doing some shit, too. I'm not saying that makes it right. The Christian in me says that's wrong, and so I'm going to try to avoid it. But you've got $10 million.

It's a lonely night. You can try a little less hard. Maybe you're just buying it and going on. Maybe you are. It's like a Ferrari. I kind of want one today. I'll take one. Yeah. You know, Joe Biden been sniffing kids for years, doing God knows what else. Showering his own daughter for life. Showering his own daughter. Now, all of a sudden, P. Diddy is the world's biggest ass rapist you can find, apparently. You know, everybody's coming out on that. Like, apparently anybody with any money...

cannot find it from their own home front. They got to go buy it somewhere else or force it upon somebody else, which just boggles my little mind. I just can't wrap my head around it. Like, how do you end up in that position? I don't understand. Now, I understand if you're Bill Clinton, you're married to Hillary. I would literally do a train track.

Yeah. Well, a train runs over it, over her. I fully understand that. Yeah. I think that's why people forgave him, right? Like, they're like, well, shit, I'd have cheated on her, too, because, well, it's Hillary. It baffles me that Stephen King, one of the most masterful writers in the world, can write some really twisted shit. Yes. Can't even come close to the U.S. government. He's like, yeah, fuck it, I'm out. Yeah. Can't pull it off with this equipment, Tony. Yeah, but... Can't pull it off. You guys have fucked this up enough, I couldn't even make this up... No. ...with my twisted imagination. No way around it. Yep.

I just don't understand it. I don't either. We need a house cleaning. House cleaning from top to bottom. Yep. If you think you're going to vote your way out of this, you are sadly mistaken. You're going to throw some tea in the harbor, grab your musket, and march your happy ass into the woods. That's the only way you're getting out of it. Yep. As bad as I hate to say it. That's the way it looks.

And they don't care. It's just blatant. They don't give a fuck. They have thrown so much stupid shit at the wall. I'm like, oh, that'll never stick. And it has. I'm like, well, shit. We can keep pushing it. Nobody's going to stop us. You cannot tell me that all them fuckers, both sides of the aisle...

Don't get on TV and put on this big theater that, oh, we're doing this and we're fighting and we're feuding. That they ain't having $1,000 steak dinners a night bumping each other saying, could you believe what these dumb fuckers did? Could you believe it? Could you believe they bought that shit? They've got side bets going on that says, I'll bet you cannot pass a fucking law that is dumber than the one I passed today. Bullshit. And they're fucking, and they're doing it. They're pulling it off. Every day. Every single day. Yeah. It just, it is infuriating. Yeah.

And then we get the double fucking in Illinois. Yeah. Remember, things were going to change when Mike Madigan got thrown out of office. As long as we can get Madigan out of there, God damn it, that's all we got to do. Things are changing. What's really changing? It ain't changed for shit. It's got to fucking work. It costs more money to license a fucking utility trailer to haul your lawnmower on than it costs to buy a Super MTA when it was brand freaking new. That's a fact. That is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. You can buy it, but you just can't haul it now in Illinois because it's too expensive.

Okay, cool. Makes good sense. Look at the simple shit. Back when we were kids and the lottery was getting big, right? Like getting bigger. That was a big deal. The schools were going to be funded. I'm just going to rake it in. So goddamn funded. We're just going to be raining money. Kids are going to be putting cap and gowns that's made out of $100 bills. Top to bottom. They're just going to be, we're going to have so goddamn much money for the schools that these kids are going to be so fucking smart that we're just going to blow the Chinese up with our brain power. They're just going to be thinking about it and just blow them off the face of the earth.

Oh, man, the school's still broke. I don't know how every goddamn time I go to a gas station, there's 25 people in line for scratch-offs. We got lottery shit everywhere. We got gambling machines in every goddamn gas station, bar, restaurant. Like, to the point the bars are like, fuck it, we don't even sell beer here anymore. We just got gambling machines. Fuck, that's all we got. You just walk in. We don't even have food. We don't have gambling machines. All we got is gambling machines. That's all we got.

You don't have to push, pull the lever. People got so goddamn lazy they can't even pull the lever anymore. Can you click a button? Ooh, I mean, I guess. And that's the entire revenue for the town is 25 dipshits pressing this button. Yep, that's what we're doing. Meanwhile, the schools are still broke. They still ain't got no money. Where'd it go? Oh, well, we sidetracked that money along with Social Security money. Welfare's never went broke. Social Security's going broke.

The schools are going broke because we stole the lottery money, too, that was supposed to fund all that. But as soon as Ukraine gets back on its feet, that's what's going to help us. Yeah. Tomorrow when you wake up, does it make you two shits if Ukraine is doing good or bad? Me as a farmer, I kind of hope they do bad. Don't raise a fucking crop. If the Russians could do one thing, could they blow up that goddamn port where they ship grain out of? Exactly. I need one thing from the useless Russians. They've been useless since Clint Eastwood sold that plane from them in the 80s. Yeah.

He had to think in Russian. Apparently it was fast. And they still haven't managed to do anything since then. And that's why the whole fucking thing is a charade. It's all a charade. It's all a bunch of bullshit. It's ridiculous. And going back to your lottery point, how the lottery was going to fix the schools, what's the big fucking selling point of the windmills? Oh, look at all the money it's going to bring to your community. Once again, we're going to have streets paved in gold around here when these windmills get here.

and get here. Absolutely. Yeah. Just look at your lottery. We'll see how that works. You know, to the local government, right? You know, hey, we don't want this, right? This is bad. We know it's terrible. Until it shows up in our town. Yeah. And we get the tax revenue from it. And then they can't suck the gold off the cock fast enough. Yeah, exactly. To put it, you know, put it right there. You know, bring me some more of that shit. Uh-huh. You know? Everybody hates the fucking windmill unless you're the guy that's going to get six of them on your property. Ooh.

Look at the schools that are funded the most. You think they got the smartest kids? Because last time I took the stats, that is not the case. Yep. Pretty sure there's an old song that says if you've got to stand for something, you'll fall for anything. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. And I'm pretty sure that's true. Yeah. And a bunch of those guys lie, just in case you're curious. I just talked to a guy the other day. They flat told him, well, this guy had signed up for him. He's like, really? That's funny. It's my uncle, and he didn't sign up for shit. Yeah.

But they worked that Ponzi scheme. They make you think that the next door neighbor did. Yep. And then there you are. Those things don't make a legitimate kilowatt hour. What a crock of shit. We have no idea if their motherfuckers are even tied into the power grid. Yeah. Do you know for a fact, Matt, that that's tied into the power grid? No. Most of the time I drive by and they're off. I just drove to Kankakee by Chicago last week.

All the way there, windmills fucking galore. I swear to God, on my life, I would put my hand on the Bible right now. Not a single fucking windmill turning. All the way there. Probably too windy. Yep. Can't use them in the wind. Can't use them when the wind's not blowing. It's in that rare time where the wind's just breezy. Yeah. Yeah. Makes good sense. Yep. I'd get all these damn prisoners on horse walkers. I'd have them walking in a circle. I would, too. Oh, is it Lord Ambrose? You want to walk here? Apparently, these motherfuckers have walked from Guatemala.

News flash. We're hooking your ass up to this big thing. We're turning in a circle. We're walking your ass back to Guatemala. In the meantime, we're going to make a power on the U-turn. We're going on a giant treadmill.

I find it funny that they walked from Guatemala, but as soon as they get to Texas, then they're in vehicles and they scatter. Yeah. Well, I mean, you can't just walk from Texas to Chicago. You're telling me that this bitch in sandals walked from, that is 452 pounds, walked from Guatemala? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I believe that. Right. I believe it. Yeah. Our politicians told us, I know it's true. They would not lie to us. There's no, yeah, they are truth tellers. Yep. They're honest as day is long.

So what do you think, Matt? Did you really think you'd sign up for a podcast like this? Yeah. How do you think this is going to go tonight, Matt? Has it been everything you wanted and more? It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. We should have put out the warning banner ahead of this. Yeah.

Maybe we should broke this into two parts. Realty and then shit Matt didn't want to be a part of. Yeah. This has been one of the longer podcasts we've ever had. It's getting close to like two hours. We'll cut it off before we get too far off the rails. Yeah, we don't mean to ruin your business or wah-wah-wah. Yeah.

Once again, stand up. If somebody don't like you, tell them fuck off. That's the way I roll. Take your business elsewhere. Fuck you. Fucking have a shitty day. We're dumping tea in Lake Shelbyville tomorrow. We don't give a fuck. Nobody in this podcast gives a fuck. All right. Thanks for tuning in, I guess. I don't know. Where are you guys? We're going to tie this one, like save it up for Memorial Day weekend when you're on a long drive or something. I don't know. All right. Thanks for tuning in, guys. We'll see you next time.