Yes, that's exactly what I pointed out was a risk in my first post. As a landowner, if you put someone between you and your customer, you are inviting exactly what you described. The landowners intermediary accepting bribes in exchange for hiding what could be valuable information (and at least letting the landowner who has a bigger stake decide). There are landowners who don't care how much they lose as long as someone else is handling the headaches. But those are few and far. And based on the fact that in your case the manager decided NOT to tell the landowner, your landowner ain't one of them.

If you have had the same leasees for the past 20 years, are they at the mercy of having to always be the highest bidder?


Some ranchers are ran by board of directors, they set the price. Rancher/Operations Manager is there to make sure that price is met, while insuring the “liabilities” are kept to a min.

A ranch run by a Board of Directors. Count me out. Owning, serving on the board, leasing...whatever.

So BoBo, say you’re away on a sheep hunt in Mexico and you leave a hand in charge of selling your cotton crop. Your hand decides since you care more about a sheep hunt than being there to sell it yourself, that you don’t really care how much you get for cotton. He gets chummy with the buyers rep and sells your crop for 20% less because well.. the buyers rep is a nice guy and takes your hand on a gulf fishing trip.

Pretty dern near exactly what went on in Kansas. The names have been changed to protect the “innocent”. Lol

You can count them on one hand. Even ted turners isn’t run that way.

That’s dumb and weird example market sets the elevator price not the buyer. Plus most guys contract out for a certain amount...

That’s dumb and weird example market sets the elevator price not the buyer. Plus most guys contract out for a certain amount...

If I empowered him with the selling ability, then it comes with perimeters. If his sell price fell with in those perimeters, then not getting maximum price is on me. If it fell below those perimeters, I would suspect he would be gone before I got home.

If I wanted maximum money, I’d bonus him on total NET profit

Man, I thought this thing died along time ago. Somebody must have broken a tooth while biting on one of his gold coins.

It ain’t dead til I say it’s dead. Or a mod decides to flex.

What if you were offered a steak and a round of golf?

Bunch of high school drama in here...

Somehow I had a feeling that the bribing the ranch hand thread would come back around.

Obviously ranch hands are underpaid... at least my buddies hand sold illegal hunts to earn real money. Lol.

Uh, it’d have to be a steak and golf round worth 10 or 15 grand. And then it would be my decision. If I found out that the steak and golf were being given to hide another dollar per acre... someone would lose their job.

Ha! And trexs only took bribes.

It was a hypothetical knucklehead. Don’t get lost in the fine points that don’t matter. Just remember the facts. A ranch hand was bribed to hide a better offer to YOU. And you never had the opportunity to accept or reject the offer.

And you’ve made it clear that profit is important to you. BTW, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, is more common by 90+%, and is the biggest driver in a capitalistic free market. You aren’t against that are you??

And so goes the way of the world...mans word, loyalty, friendship, proper management of land, improvements to the land, and increased value of certain assets all contributed to another mans property aren’t worth a dollar an acre to a land owner. Should be sold out from under them for $1/acre to a random off the internet

Don’t get mad at me about you bad hypocritical...lol

You arguing with out all facts. Not my place or lease although I know it well.

I look at a dinner and golf as a thank you more so then a bribe, especially in this case.

Nice try nimrod, but that’s not at all what I said. I said if an employee lied by omission I’d fire him/her. I said it should be my decision. Every rancher with my tenure has had and probably turned down offers for more money. But it always needs to be my decision. I don’t need employees susceptible and willing to be bribed to hide information from me. Good employees are hard to find. And they’re valuable. Cause there’s always some “good ol boy” trying to get them to screw their boss for a little graft.

He told us all the facts. It is benchmark bribery. The steaks and golf kept the price of cotton from the guy making money off cotton. It’s as simple as that. It ain’t hard. Even you could figger it out.