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The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

theguardian.com

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Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#161

Post by sdljfslkjfdsj »

I wonder how much prior boom times have an impact on farmers because prices on the crops have just languished for years now.

2008 had very aggressive price appreciation in corn & beans. Same can be said for late 2010, all 2011, all 2012, & early 2013. After that prices have absolutely fallen off a cliff & continue to hover near those lows every single day.

I suspect it's difficult to be in the "risk management" business which farmers are by being "long" the crop in the ground & having no price appreciation for years. Meanwhile all other risk assets continue to explode higher. At some point it probably becomes challenging to find a light at the end of the tunnel. Now with rising interest rates the cost of capital is higher & likely going to accelerate higher.

Higher operating costs (wages & debt service) & continually deperessed prices of the product you produce. I don't have a solution for any of this but by putting myself in those shoes it sure does seem horrible.

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#162

Post by jandrese »

mywittyname wrote: post #30
swayvil wrote: post #18

Maybe they have been faced with the prospect of moving to a city and working in an office.

These people are in their 50-60s. That's not a likely transition. A few might be able to get into sales or traveling trade work. But most of them are going to have a difficult time finding any sort of work. Agism and the stigma of being a bumpkin/luddite will absolutely work against them.

On a side note, this is the heart of how Democrats managed to lose the last Presidential election. Telling 50 year old machinists and farmers that they should get government assistance to get a loan to learn computer programming because their job moved to Mexico is much less palatable than the guy who will call the president of the company and tell them not to close the factory.

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#163

Post by adamsea »

cesnja wrote: post #159
ambicapter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could just pay your goddamn taxes and have savings in the bank just like everybody else?

You mean just like everybody else but excluding big corporations and wealthy individuals?

Yes, that's what the parent means.

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#164

Post by hux_ »

ambicapter wrote: post #92
colanderman wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question, as I am neither a farmer nor a businessperson, but is there a way for a farmer to set up, say, an LLC, which holds money from profitable years for use in unprofitable years, from which the farmer takes a steady salary each year?

Or you could just pay your goddamn taxes and have savings in the bank just like everybody else?

Savings!?!...pfft this is America. If you are not in debt how can you buy a house, send your kids to college, take care of the families medical expenses and buy everyone new iPhones for Christmas? Savings he says! What madness!

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#165

Post by linkregister »

giardini wrote: post #48
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have a rural life, and not be hurt by the vagaries of farm prices etc. Me for instance. I live on 80 acres outside Iowa City (a college town). The neighbor does the farming of half the land; he pays rent on the land and suffers the risk all himself. So best of both worlds for me. I have my orchard, gardens, sheds, tractor (for mowing and plowing) and rural vistas. And work remotely at software for whomever, a…

JoeAltmaier says> " he pays rent on the land and suffers the risk all himself." Doesn't that depend on which way the wind blows (you can be exposed to airborne chemicals and organisms)? And what about the water supply - any problem with nitrates, for example? I envy you to some degree, but my mother's relatives lived on farms and paid heavy dues health-wise for that.

Can you go into greater detail?

What happened to your mother's relatives?

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#166

Post by CydeWeys »

yock wrote: post #158
CydeWeys wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those societies are their customers. It's where they're making all their money. Only off-the-grid homesteaders can make any credible claim to having no connection to society at large, but if they get sick, they better be honest with themselves and just die at home instead of going to get healthcare from a system they elected not to contribute to.

Why should they be taxed for the benefit of their customers? Aren't their customers paying them ?

Modern society works by having everyone contribute for the greater good. One of the principal mechanisms by which this occurs is taxation and spending on government services.

You go really far down the civilizational chain if you remove these mechanisms. Almost all the way down to primitivism.

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#167

Post by kbenson »

linkregister wrote: post #160
cesnja wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean just like everybody else but excluding big corporations and wealthy individuals?

Are you claiming that a majority of large corporations don't pay income taxes? Is it even 5%?

I think the claim might be something similar, but not quite that extreme. I don't think it strains credulity to think that the majority of large corporations take advantage of loopholes to drastically reduce their taxes.

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#168

Post by linkregister »

jandrese wrote: post #162
mywittyname wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are in their 50-60s. That's not a likely transition. A few might be able to get into sales or traveling trade work. But most of them are going to have a difficult time finding any sort of work. Agism and the stigma of being a bumpkin/luddite will absolutely work against them.

On a side note, this is the heart of how Democrats managed to lose the last Presidential election. Telling 50 year old machinists and farmers that they should get government assistance to get a loan to learn computer programming because their job moved to Mexico is much less palatable than the guy who will call the president of the company and tell them not to close the factory.

The numbers of votes for the current president were not remarkably higher than for the Republican candidate in 2012. The remarkable difference was a loss of votes for the Democratic candidate compared to 2012.

I do agree that Democrats should be more inclusive and less impractical with the issues they take, and it's a valuable lesson. However, they should bear in mind the reality of what happened: they fielded an unexpectedly unpopular candidate and the votes show it.

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#169

Post by mistermann »

froindt wrote: post #53
gonzoflip wrote: post #9

I have family that farms in Iowa and I also worked in the agriculture industry there for a while after leaving the military. One thing that increases the stress on the farmers is the way they avoid income taxes at all costs so they rarely save any of the profits from good years to help them float during the bad years. This is all anecdotal but I have personally talked with several farmers that would rather buy new eq…

>One thing that increases the stress on the farmers is the way they avoid income taxes at all costs so they rarely save any of the profits from good years to help them float during the bad years. I'm from Iowa and a family member does lots of farm bankruptcies here. This is definitely a thing. Farmers buy new pickup trucks in lieu of showing a profit. Pair that in with land purchases at 7k+/acre and the saying "the n…

> 7k+/acre

Assuming this is pure farm land (no premium for possible annexation or commercial development), is that not an absolutely batshit insane price? I'm no expert but that seems at least 4x what is reasonable.

Re: The suicide rate for farmers in the U.S. is more than double that of veterans

#170

Post by kbenson »

doomcaster1 wrote: post #95
DannyB2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how they see taxes as thrown away? Yes, government is inefficient. And corrupt. But you do need roads. And bridges. And law enforcement. And even military protection, even if it seems far away and remote from your farm.

Many rural areas in the US are heavily neglected; There are roads that haven't seen any upkeep in a decade and have police response times that are over an hour long. A lot of farmers feel that they pay into the system but get only a minuscule fraction back.

I don't doubt that they may think that, but it's a fundamentally flawed line of reasoning. The upkeep of your immediate area is not the only benefit of those taxes. Consider the road system that takes whatever goods they are growing and distributes it to the end consumer. They are only able to make a living growing what they do within this system because the system as a whole functions.
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