Riding Herd
“The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” by LEE PITTS
– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
January 15, 2018 • www.aaalivestock.com
Volume 60 • No. 1
Watch Your Step
BY LEE PITTS
Y
ears ago I was at a bull test sale in Idaho and a friend of mine called and asked me to look at a bull for him. It had been a wet winter in the great Northwest and the pens were a little boggy, to say the least. I entered the Hereford pen where the bulls had gathered at the far end and as I started walking towards the bulls an old timer warned me, “You better watch your step.” Paying him no mind I’d not gotten 20 feet from my embarkation point when I sunk two feet into the muck and the mire. When I tried to lift one boot out of the mud and manure I heard a great sucking sound. While I’d managed to raise my foot, the boot remained where it was planted. Everyone was now watching as I tried to balance on one foot and remove my boot from the stinky gumbo, only to have the other boot get stuck. I had to be towed out and hosed down before the sale and the old man watched the whole process and just smiled.
Trickle Down Economics
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
That old man’s warning replayed in my head as I read a story of how the CME Group, previously known as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, had come to rancher’s rescue and
If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’. had declared victory over cattle market volatility. The story, written by Tom Polansek and carried by Reuters read, “CME Group Inc plans no further moves to reduce volatility in its cattle futures market, after making a series of changes to rein in wild price swings that drove away hedgers,” a managing director said. “Generally the feedback we’re getting from the industry is it’s working, let’s leave it where it is.” Reuters also quoted Brett Gottsch, managing partner for Gottsch Cattle Company who
said he felt the market still remained volatile. “I would say that our market’s not fixed,” Gottsch said.
Fixing The Futures Market A year ago at this time cattle feeders were spitting mad about how volatility in the market had caused the biggest fall in fed cattle prices in history. When the drastic fall in fat cattle prices trickled down to calf and yearling prices ranchers joined the call to rein in the futures market, yet again. (I’ve been in this business for
45 years and when I started the BIG issue was getting rid of cattle futures trading.) You may remember a story we wrote about “spoofing”, which also played a role in the price plunge. It uses a computer algorithm that was designed to unlawfully place and then quickly cancel orders in exchange-traded futures contracts in an attempt to manipulate prices. Of course, the CME says it never happened but tell that to the traders who made fortunes doing it. Once again, the NCBA came to our rescue by sending a letter to Terry Duffy, President for the CME Group, and asked for changes that might fix high-frequency trading for the cattle futures market. Duffy even showed up at the NCBA convention in San Diego. He admitted, “The elephant in the room is volatility.” continued on page two
Mistrial Declared in Cliven Bundy Standoff Case BY MAXINE BERNSTEIN/OREGONIAN.COM
O
n December 20 2017 the federal judge declared a mistrial in the prosecution of Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy, his two sons and a co-defendant, citing the government’s “willful’’ failure to turn over multiple documents that could help the defense fight conspiracy and assault charges in the 2014 Bunkerville standoff. “The court does regrettably believe a mistrial in this case is the most suitable and only remedy,’’ U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro declared, issuing her ruling from the bench before a packed courtroom. The judge listed six documents or types of evidence that she said prosecutors willfully, not inadvertently, failed to turn over before trial: information about the presence of an FBI surveillance camera on a hill overlooking the Bundy Ranch, documents about Bureau of Land Management snipers outside the Bundy Ranch, an FBI log with entries about snipers on standby, maps, threat assessments that indicated the Bundys were not violent and the Bureau of Land Management was trying to provoke a conflict by antagonizing them, and nearly 500 pages of internal affairs documents
involving lead federal land special agent Dan Love. The internal affairs material suggested that there was “no documented injury’’ to the endangered desert tortoises from cattle grazing on the federal public land outside the Bundy Ranch, the judge said. Prosecutors belittled Ryan Bundy’s pretrial motion for information on the “mysterious’’ devices outside the family ranch in 2014 as “fantastical,’’ and a “fishing expedition,’’ the judge noted. The government willfully withheld a March 28, 2014 law enforcement operation order and an FBI report that showed there was an FBI camera trained on the Bundy home for surveillance. The judge also found prosecutors withheld documents that identified U.S. Bureau of Land Management snipers outside the ranch, and noted “the government’s strong insistence at prior trials that there were no snipers,’’ Navarro said. The judge also cited an FBI log with entries that said “snipers were inserted’’ and on standby outside the Bundy home, at least four threat assessments that indicated the Bundys continued on page four
Social Insecurity
N
ovember 17, 2017 was a BIG day in our lives. It’s a day my wife and I have been working towards since we were teenagers. It’s the day we signed up for Social Insecurity. I’ve paid into Social Insecurity since I was 16 years old and now I’m... well, let’s just say I’m 462 years old in dog years. We debated on when to take it. The spry 62 year olds argue, “We want to get some before it goes broke.” Then there are those like me who waited until full retirement age who didn’t want to be limited on how much money we could make. Besides, I don’t know how many years I have until I take that trip in the long, black Cadillac with no back seat. I already know I’m over the hill, I just don’t know many years I have until I’m under it. I gave serious consideration to waiting until I was 70 because then I could get three grand a month! But I wouldn’t know what to do with such riches so I took it at 66. We had three options for signing up: we could do it online, on the phone or in person. I signed up for Medicare online and my wife did it over the phone and it was all a nightmare, so we decided to sign up with a real person. They tell you to bring your Social Insecurity card, marriage license and birth certificate which prompted a nationwide search for documents I haven’t laid my eyes on in 40 years. When we finally found my Social Insecurity card it was so old and delicate it was ready to instantaneously combust. One of the signs you’re ready for Social Insecurity is you get lost trying to find the right building. The last time I saw this particular piece of ground it was a cow pasture. Another sign is while you’re waiting in line outside the building a guard comes out and offers you a chair. Once inside we all sat in a classroom surrounded by kiosks with big numbers on them. When I looked around all I saw was a bunch of old and decrepit
continued on page thirteen