Saturday, January 1, 2011

The Pie



(click on image to enlarge)

At: http://www.agweb.com/assets/1/6/D10188.pdf
is an interesting presentation.

The fact is the dairy pie is finite, with a limited amount of money. If you believe the above presentation, you might be led to think any and all can be winners. Not so. The game being played is a zero sum game, meaning, for there to be winners there must be losers. "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4:9)

What is the fate of the losers? Do they disappear, blown away like characters on a video game?

I would hope this year we can put more of an effort into seeing the importance of all in the dairy community.

6 comments:

  1. Carl needs to get a life! He puts up good slides though. I wonder if his strategy doesn't work does he lose money? Milk brokers are even slicker than ole Jesse James. My risk mgt. theory is to not give money to snake oil salesman.

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  2. The fine print at the bottom of the first page says it all:

    Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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  3. John,
    Obviously the key to Mr. Babler's success,(or lack thereof) is his sir-name itself: "BABLER"!!! The more he babbles the better his chance of finding another sucker... regardless of the fine print the bastard will make money coming or going!
    Happy New Year, John, and thank you for all you do!

    Nate Wilson.

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  4. Don't ya just love the manipulative psychology behind this so called conference. First calling it elite like we would really want to be a part of their elite. *sarcasm intended* And then it goes on to blame the farmer.

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  5. What would these bloodsuckers do without farmers? Try to milk a soy?

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  6. John,

    I appreciate the links to data / reports you often provide. I frequent your blog on a regular basis. This is one idustry in the middle of a huge change. When congress went to FASB with a gun in March 2009 and forced them to legalize accounting fraud, the supply of milk never fully corrected. Fortunately, high feed prices, poor conditions, and emerging demand have helped pull simple economics back towards equilibrium (though I'm not convinced we are there yet).

    Regarding this post... I know a lot of dairyman big and small. Those with the right mindset (minority), are almost always pulling money out of the markets in their hedges. They don't get cought up in the day to day numbers when referenced to a biased year.

    Let the instincts and human psychology we are all born with drive your decisions, then expect to hand all your money to the winners in that zero-sum world. Or, look at it from the net-winners prespecitve.

    Capital Ag addresses good points in the first part of that pp. I have no experience with their brokers or their business. But for those who are still reading and interested in learning, make sure to find a broker that isn't pushing trades or offering advice. Almost every broker that offers buy/sell advice was a "net loser" at one point before they became a broker. It all starts with an understanding of how you think.

    Happy new year

    Dave, FL

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