More on yesterday's meeting from Hell. The point of the program was to convince a few key (read squeaky wheel types like us) producers to join the new cooperative. There were many slides with program data, historical performance data on the new coop, and its debt structures displayed for our enjoyment. However, there were NO printed handouts, the slides were flashed too fast to copy the material (and I can take notes real fast) and the speakers were usually talking about something other than what was on the slide that also needed to be listened to and written down. Therefore it was darned near impossible to come home, haul out the old calculator and come up with a meaningful picture of just how bad the story is. However, with what I got from my notes, I think there were several expert proctologists among the speakers. Just a sense that I got when they were bragging about all they had done for farmers, all the while telling us that we ought to be delighted to take less money from such an august organization. I used to sit on the board of the coop we belong to now and they always said that equity in a milk was "something you get off a toilet seat." I heard a lot of glad handing and backslapping, butI didn't hear anything that changed my thought on that.

Anyhow, obfuscation seemed to be the word of the day....at least from where I was sitting.