Here we go...

Farmers are bidding up inputs, exactly as predicted by Pasour and Rucker in their obscure economic tome "Plowshares and Pork Barrels". One of the first indications is also one of the purest sentinels - machinery auctions.

I think of an auctioneer friend of mine, Dean Eastman from northeast Iowa. Dean had a very nice farm auction last Saturday. I dropped him an email wondering how things sold. His response back really caught my attention.

"My phone has rung nonstop for two weeks asking about machinery. They called the morning of the sale, during the sale, and the day after the sale. I'm still getting calls wondering what stuff sold for from people that couldn't make it to the sale. I feel we had a very good sale on Saturday! I do a low-high price estimate on everything when I have a sale with this many dollars. Low being a train wreck bad day, and high being almost a pie in the sky high price. We overshot the high number by 18%." [More]

Vigorous bidding at auctions will support new machinery prices as well. Already pretty lean on inventory, dealers have strong hand.

While many will wring their hands and lament our lack of control when bidding for combines or acres, history shows this instinct is not unreasonable.

Waiting too long to compete is.