 Everything I want to do is illegal and coincidentally that is the name of a book that I recently read and I highly recommend it So I want to talk about it in this video. So what is this book about first off everything? I want to do is illegal by Joel Saladin You can see it down there Based boomer Joel Saladin. What is this book actually about now first off even before I mention the topic of the book? I'll just say this is one of those rare books You should read just because it's written by someone who actually knows what they're writing about And that sounds like a weird thing to say I mean who writes books about stuff, you know, they don't actually know about well Most books a lot of books out there nowadays are like written by journalists or they're written by people who are sort of like voyeuristically looking at other people's lives and trying to understand them This is actually written by the kind of guy who like knows Intimately the detail not just like in terms of knowledge. He has a very direct exposure to everything he talks about Now what does he talk about in this book? Well, he Joel Saladin is a farmer. He has a farm. What is it poly face farms now? You might be totally uninterested in farming. I mean if you are you should read this book In fact, maybe already have but even if you aren't you should still read this book. Okay So first off, what is the title about everything I want to do is illegal. What kind of clickbait title is that? well, um, so the gist of the book is basically Him talking about his he's not just a farmer, but he's a sort of traditional pre-industrial farmer You might call him an organic farmer. I mean not exactly the same thing. I mean he sort of has his own thing He explains it in the book, but you know, he's basically talking about how Difficult it is to just do everyday things as a farmer how basically everything from like in terms of safety regulations in terms of Tax code in terms of just the zoning laws and stuff like that All of this stuff conspires basically to make farming illegal or impossible for most people who actually do it and what's happened is that Farming and of course other things as well, but I mean he's he's talking about farming but you know, it's gotten to the point where it's nearly impossible for a non-corporation to You know work, you know, actually make ends meet and he explains why and he explains why it's been so frustrating for him Now I will go and say this book. I'll go into some of his examples, but this book is Triggering, you know, this book will like get you mad Because every chapter is like frustration Because basically, you know the chapters are divided by sort of topics sometimes food types sometimes, you know, there's a chapter on You know insurance chapter on taxes all these kind of Stuff like this, but every single one of them he goes through these stories from his many years of farming and a lot of them are Just so frustrating the kind of things he has to deal with but just to give you a sort of I guess general idea And I read this book a little bit ago So if I get some details wrong just double-check the book But I'll explain the gist of some of the things he talks about so take for example Bacon, okay, I think there's a whole chapter on bacon. In fact, you know, one of the things he notes is one time You know someone asked him, okay, you guys sell all you know, you guys sell ham and all this stuff Why don't you sell bacon? Okay, you can make it and what he goes into is if you wanted to sell bacon For example, we like to think that you know if you have pigs you can process them. You can make bacon out of them but one of the things about the regulatory structure is that if you have a farm and You want to make bacon? You have to of course cure that meat or smoke it or whatever so you have to basically process that meat and In terms of zoning laws, for example, you like the processing plant on which you would You know make that bacon, you know cure that bacon. How are you gonna do it? That has to be legally is like in terms of zoning laws that has to be distinct from like the agricultural land that you're on So in order to make bacon You have to you know to basically transport your pigs somewhere else somewhere that's zoned differently So you can process it and of course that processing plant you can't just make a building. You can't just do it out You have to have You know, it has to be a building that's up to code. It has to have Bathrooms it has to have the right door knobs. It has to have the right luminosity of lights and of course in order to get there You have to buy Particular refrigerated cars that you know can be ensured that they keep bacon at this particular I mean you can't just like drive next door to the building right next to you and drop off the pigs You have to have everything, you know, everything is meticulously legislated. Okay, so that's the kind of thing that you know That sounds like a minor nitpick. Okay, that's a weird thing in bacon But that's basically how the entire thing is there's a part where you know he wants to sell beef in I think it's Washington, DC and in order to transport it over state lines He has to find a federal Inspection facility so he actually ends up he's in Virginia I think and he has to transport him to a inspection facility in North Carolina down south and then go back up after they've been You know tested or whatever To go back to you know, Washington, DC or wherever they want to sell them just weird stuff like that So the book as I said is pretty frustrating. He goes into now I will say the number of boomer takes in this book are just like, you know They're hot and heavy and they start almost immediately. You will enjoy this book. It's it's pretty funny I mean, I'm not I'm not like downplaying the guys takes because some of them are I mean that I think he's right But they're just I don't it's kind of a hokey book, I guess But so another thing he talks about Let's say taxes. Okay taxes is something you hear people complain about all the time, but he really I think does does a good job at Explaining like how onerous these things are so the way he estimated it, you know He has something like a 50% tax rate something ridiculous like that All all things considered at all levels or you know, there are things like Inheritance tax I remember the way he put it is, you know His barrett the the farm that he's on his parents bought it, you know way back in the day for like $50,000 or whatever And um over time, of course tax assessors have come and gradually said, okay, this is worth more and more and more and more Um up to the point where it's like, you know, two million dollars or something like that. I forget what it is And you know, he mentions that means increasing property taxes, but also there are things like inheritance tax And the way he put it is, you know, when my mother dies In order for the government not to take away my farm. I'm just gonna have to pay $250,000, you know that kind of stuff Um and and one of the things I think he mentions Maybe it's in the the chapter on chicken or something. Well, actually it's a recurring theme Is that you know, there are all these regulations that I think a lot of people put in place because they have the they imagine That they're like sticking it to the man. They're sticking it to like, um, you know, you're you're putting on high taxes Because that hurts corporations or something like that or you're regulating more because that hurts corporations and that's good or something I mean, I think this is sometimes the mentality of people but you know, one of the things he notes is let's say, you know, there's some extra Uh safety inspection. I think he mentioned for a chicken. Maybe it was chicken or beef. I forget what it is Um, but the way he put it is in order to comply with it It would cost about 100 bucks a day. Okay Now for a big company, that's no big deal 100 bucks a day. That's no big deal But at the scale he is 100 bucks a day is like all of the day's profit for that beef or chicken, you know, it's basically Uh, totally useless and this is despite. I mean, of course, he's not Advocating nasty foods. In fact, one of the themes of his book Um, you know the kind of farming that he does which is sort of pre-industrial Is often a lot cleaner even though it often it doesn't abide by code It's often a lot cleaner they they give the example if he had a chicken processing plant, I think Or plant that's maybe the wrong way to put a building, I guess Uh where it wasn't like a full building. It was just sort of a covered area I think and sort of had open walls or something like that And um, you know, eventually the inspector came in and basically complained you have to if you want to do this You have to build this big facility Despite the fact that, you know, other inspectors in the past had You know basically said nothing about it. That's the other thing the sort of arbitrariness of a lot of these rules Uh different bureaucrats can take them differently and there's nothing you can do They can find you a million dollars a day and you basically have to put up with it But you know one time this person came in told them. Oh your facility. It's open air. It's it's you're contaminating the chicken Uh particles are going to blow in uh, they're going to be all these microbes and stuff and um, you know As it ended up, I think a student or some maybe a grad student or a professor or something Ended up actually comparing the you know microbial content of their chicken in the store versus factory chicken in the store and of course, um, their chicken was actually, you know, had Or the the factory farm chicken had like 20 times the microbes or something like that So a lot of times, uh, I mean that and that's sort of the theme of the book I think he has his own views about farming Uh, which I think he's written other books. I haven't read them, but I think he goes into those ideas more there He sort of has an internet presence this guy. Joel Saladin Um, so you can probably look him up But um, uh, you know, there's the one aspect of him endorsing a more traditional way of farming Uh, but also, you know, the thing he wants to emphasize, I guess is that just doing things that we think of as being like totally basic Are nearly impossible, you know, for him or there are all these crazy regulations on, you know, doing all this stuff And as I said reading this book Um, it will definitely like make you mad. You'll definitely be Uh, you'll definitely go anti bureaucrat gang. You'll just like it'll Um, but I highly recommend it because it's one of those especially those people who have Uh, I think oh, I think a lot of people could get a lot from this book But if you want to be Moved by it, I think there are a lot of people out there who have this kind of engineering mentality when it comes to business in particular like um, we have to You know regulate all businesses for child safety or Health or all this stuff and I think this book really shows you like ground level How that doesn't work and all the negative consequences of it Um, I mean he even goes into stuff like, uh, you know child labor child labor where Basically he says You know, he goes into like how easy it would be for You know young teenagers to work at his place or you know people to come visit But it's basically illegal, you know, uh, or it's illegal for him to You know a school group can't come and pay to look at his farm And be exposed to everything because that would make his you know His farm an amusement park and he'd have to pay taxes on that or it's not properly zoned He doesn't have the required bathrooms that kind of stuff Um, but it's just one of those things that you'll I'm just warning you you'll get mad reading it, but you definitely should read this book So I highly recommend it again. Everything I want to do is illegal That's my recommendation. Go go go out and get it. You got it. Oh, yeah, I didn't even really show you the cover There's the usda tank rolling in on the former. He's just doing his thing So anyway, check out the book. That's about all I got to say, uh, you can read more about it But uh, yeah, I will see you guys next time