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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

#201

Post by dionidium »

yufeng66 wrote: post #183
dionidium wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a failure at root to understand how marginal tax rates work. There is an honest-to-god, widespread folk mythology about how you can actually earn less by earning more, because you'll pay a higher tax rate. You can hear this opinion expressed by people of all intelligence levels and in all professions, from fry cooks to engineers. This, in my experience, drives a lot of insane opinions about taxes.

US tax code is a strange animal. While in general you take home more if you earn more, the curve is not always smooth. There are several spot you suddenly lose the ability to claim certain benefit as income increase. In a situation like that you could take home slightly less as your income increase. If your income is high enough, those doesn't apply to you. All you need to worry about it the different tax bracket.

Yes. This is absolutely a big problem. The incentives are all wrong here. But that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about working people who aren't receiving any additional government assistance not understanding marginal tax rates.

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

#202

Post by QAPereo »

cnlwsu wrote: post #56
mc32 wrote: post #6

There was an article on HN not long ago [1] about professionals leaving their jobs in record numbers to pursue life as a farmer, producing and living off the land. How do we reconcile on the one hand farmers by trade leaving and wannabe farmers wanting to join a farm life? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15771168

"The grass is always greener". I grew up on a dairy farm, its easy to romanticize it but the reality of waking up to literally chip and shovel frozen shit at 5am (almost daily chore to clean barns in winter) gets old after a decade. I worked hard to get out of farming and never want to go back. I love my tech job.

The people leaving tech for farming are not mucking barns, they’re managing farms and hiring people to do the hard work. Think of more as a new-plantation, rather than a farm. I worked on a horse farm as a kid, and like you it was backbreaking, shit-shoveling, hay-slinging work. Now I have a good friend who owns horses, but she “has people” who do the hard work. She rides, and grooms a bit... money you know?

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

#203

Post by walshemj »

ams6110 wrote: post #193
dionidium wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a failure at root to understand how marginal tax rates work. There is an honest-to-god, widespread folk mythology about how you can actually earn less by earning more, because you'll pay a higher tax rate. You can hear this opinion expressed by people of all intelligence levels and in all professions, from fry cooks to engineers. This, in my experience, drives a lot of insane opinions about taxes.

But it is true that the marginal earnings decrease. If I suddenly am making less on the margin for working more, that might be enough to tip the decision to "not worth it."

But from experience in the UK where there are some points in the tax scale that have odd high marginal rates (about £110k I think) but if you in that rage your employer normally pays you enough to jump over that band and you can do salary sacrifice or extra payments into a pension for some juicy tax benefits also EIS's and VCT's come into play at that level.

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

#204

Post by walshemj »

tomjen3 wrote: post #91
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…

Doesn't it make more sense to buy insurance, if they want to forward the money to next year? Insurance is usually overpaying for future events, but if the cost is losing 30% to the IRS or 50% on stuff you don't need it might make sense.

Depends do farmers avoid tax on fuel like they do in the UK

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

#205

Post by ferongr »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #129
bluGill wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your own semi is very important during harvest: your combine will fill up in 15 minutes. That means every 15 minutes you need to unload it. 2 combines worth of grain is as much as your can haul in a semi (because of road weight restrictions). When the farmer is harvesting they don't want to stop: every delay is a chance that a storm latter will destroy the rest of the crop. Farmers often hard hauling to a elev…

Tesla Semis owned by a coop would be killer for this use case, with charging facilities at the elevator. Very similar to the runs Tesla is going to use them for from their lithium evap pond partner in NV and the Gigafactory.

Like clockwork.

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

#206

Post by eropple »

baldfat wrote: post #151
EdSharkey wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought of "trickle down economics" as an overly-rosy way of saying that we'll "grow our way out of the hole". Nevermind the 'conservatives' will never stop digging, will never cut spending, even occasionally spinning up another entitlement of their own, and only occasionally toss their people a bone by slowing existing programs' growth rate. I don't think Reagan thought of government size as being a prob…

But Hillary wasn't a liberal. Liberals actually hated her. We are now in the world perception of Democrat = Liberal and Republican = Conservative and its just wrong. I grew up being a Republican and I don't think I have changed much in my political stances but everyone else has moved far to the Libertarian doctrine. Case in point: Increase the wages and benefits = less government funding. Never going to get backing f…

Hillary Clinton presented, by not a small margin, the most left-leaning platform any major-party Presidential candidate has ever put forth. Modulo foreign policy, the daylight between her campaign and the Sanders campaign was pretty narrow.

I don't know where this "Hillary Clinton isn't liberal" thing comes from, but it is demonstrably untrue.

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

#207

Post by Analemma_ »

Moru wrote: post #26
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #7

Local farm services guy had this to say: "Used to buy truckloads of fertilizer, then the coop would buy train car loads and undercut us. So we bought a train car - they bought a train. We bought a train - they bought a barge. The margins are disappearing entirely" Almost everybody is being squeezed out by 'economies of scale'. And its going to get worse, when we start making simple foodstuffs electrically (starch, su…

The first thing I learned when I started working life in a store was: "We do not compete by undercutting the competition. That will kill us both."

Which only works until someone like Amazon comes around. Market inefficiencies which only persist by mutual agreement are doomed in the long run.

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

#208

Post by [deleted] »

ferongr wrote: post #205
toomuchtodo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla Semis owned by a coop would be killer for this use case, with charging facilities at the elevator. Very similar to the runs Tesla is going to use them for from their lithium evap pond partner in NV and the Gigafactory.

Like clockwork.

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by zodPod »

curtis wrote: post #33

One question I would ask: Has the average age of a farmer gone up substantially in the last couple of decades? This alone could be a major contributing factor, because the male suicide rate (at least in the U.S.) goes up with age.

That's an extremely interesting suggestion!

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

#210

Post by [deleted] »

mistermann wrote: post #169
froindt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

[deleted]
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