Scam Inc 1: Pigs in a barrel

The Economist in the summer of 2023 there was a drought in Kansas but Jim Tucker's family had weathered worse Jim's great-grandfather had first settled here as a homesteader not long before the dustbowl era in the 1930s a tall affable man still Farms the family plot today it's home and he loves it you know we're in the southwest corner Kansas very rural area and You Can See For Miles in every direction miles out across fields of wheat corn and sorghum and up into a night sky unspoiled by City Lights stars are just fascinating here and and often you know on a night you can see planes twinkling that's comforting to be here in the middle of nowhere you feel safe you feel isolated from the rest of the world and and so when there's major conflict you know with Wars or something often time people will say there's no place I'd rather be than Morton County Kansas cuz we're so far removed from it when 9/11 happened I remember thinking one night as I was outside it was very humbling because there were no planes in the sky rural Kansas might feel far from the wide world but sometimes the world comes to Kansas and a couple of summers ago it came to a community bank in Morton County's largest town of Elkart so I first learned there was an issue at the bank on the 5th of July of 2023 elc elcot only has a couple of thousand residents big Banks generally don't open branches in places so small bank's own CEO Shane Haynes it didn't make sense Shane had run the bank successfully for 12 years it shook everybody Jim's dad Bill Tucker was chair of the board we was happy with Shane we thought he was a Dandy boy he was smart as a Dickens and you know he he'd made higher grades in college