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

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

#341

Post by azernik » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 11:41 AM UTC

workthrowaway27 wrote: post #255

Analemma_ wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's not an example of a market inefficiency. It's an example of Amazon having a structural advantage that allows it to be profitable at a lower cost to consumers.

The market inefficiency being referenced was not Amazon coming in; it was the existing producers keeping their prices above fair market value by gentleman's agreement.

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

#342

Post by xioxox » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 11:41 AM UTC

QAPereo wrote: post #202

cnlwsu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

As someone else who also grew up on a dairy farm (UK), it's very hard to find reliable people to do the work. I can understand that as an office job has a lot of attractions compared to being out in rain in the winter darkness. They will often leave with no notice and it can be very hard to find someone reliable to replace them.

I don't see much progress on this, unless farming becomes profitable to employ staff on top wages or robots can become cheap enough to take over. Therefore, my family, though managing the farm, will often have to get involved in long hours manual labour.

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

#343

Post by dejv » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:41 PM UTC

s3nnyy wrote: post #322

dejv wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsidising farmers is double edge sword, it do inflate the prices of everything you are supposed to buy with that money, be it tractors, land, fertilisers and such. Dealers know how much you are going to get from government and they want some of it.

Sure but the Swiss are the most risk-averse people on the planet. In case again a world-war breaks out they need to be able to feed the country without relying on imports. That an important main reasons for subsidies. If somehow it could be guaranteed that there will be no war in Europe ever, my best guess is that the Swiss would immediately drop this "inefficiency" (they love to be efficient).

Sure, but my comment was about the effect of subsidiaries to profitability of given farms. What I see, as a small scale farmer myself, and as having family members having executive roles in big industrial farm conglomerates, is that those subsidies have effect on pricing of farm inputs.

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

#344

Post by madengr » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:42 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #97

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.

I still remember a HS teacher insisting that because she got a raise she took less money home. A friend of mine was the son of a CPA and all but called her a liar in the middle of class.

In my case it was true, because I became ineligible for overtime.

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

#345

Post by arethuza » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:46 PM UTC

outsideoflife wrote: post #331

Many 'family farms' even in the dainty UK are multi-million $ businesses, run by people who know how to shear sheep and bunt hurdles and wurzels. They complain about the effect of market prices, and the worry they create, but they are taking on these risks unhedged (and farmers being unhedged makes me giggle). Similar size businesses would we hedging their FX risk through their local bank with simple FX forwards. Far…

In the case of Brexit "Fear of immigration drove the leave victory – not immigration itself"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/voting-deta...

Dominic Cummings, architect of the Vote Leave campaign has been pretty open about what they regarded as the winning factors:

" Would we have won without immigration? No. Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests No."

Even though I was a Remain voter I have to credit Vote Leave with how dynamic and data driven their campaign was - they knew what buttons to press based on large quantities of raw data.

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

#346

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:48 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #345

outsideoflife wrote: post #331

Many 'family farms' even in the dainty UK are multi-million $ businesses, run by people who know how to shear sheep and bunt hurdles and wurzels. They complain about the effect of market prices, and the worry they create, but they are taking on these risks unhedged (and farmers being unhedged makes me giggle). Similar size businesses would we hedging their FX risk through their local bank with simple FX forwards. Far…

In the case of Brexit "Fear of immigration drove the leave victory – not immigration itself" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/voting-deta... Dominic Cummings, architect of the Vote Leave campaign has been pretty open about what they regarded as the winning factors: " Would we have won without immigration? No. Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests…

> I have to credit Vote Leave with how dynamic and data driven their campaign was

Almost all of it was false. There's no credit here.

> they knew what buttons to press based on large quantities of raw data.

Well, they do have a large country backing them.

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

#347

Post by arethuza » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:52 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #346

arethuza wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Brexit "Fear of immigration drove the leave victory – not immigration itself" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/voting-deta... Dominic Cummings, architect of the Vote Leave campaign has been pretty open about what they regarded as the winning factors: " Would we have won without immigration? No. Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests…

> I have to credit Vote Leave with how dynamic and data driven their campaign was Almost all of it was false. There's no credit here. > they knew what buttons to press based on large quantities of raw data. Well, they do have a large country backing them.

Note that I am not saying that the claims they made in their campaign were correct - far from it.

What I mean is that they managed their campaign in a data driven and dynamic way - even to the point of hiring developers and writing their own polling platform VICS:

https://www.flourish.org/2017/02/a-short-walk-around-vote-le...

Both sides had crappy campaigns full of lies - the Vote Leave lot were unfortunately much better at it.

[Edit: For the avoidance of doubt, I've always been and will remain a strong believer that the UK should be in the EU].

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

#348

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 1:05 PM UTC

totalZero wrote: post #305

Spooky23 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way. Land has low carrying cost and people will sit on it for years to speculate or hold neighbors hostage.

In theory, does land appreciate at the risk-free rate? Or does holding land mean that you lose the opportunity cost of what you could have otherwise done with the money?

No, there is lots of risk in land, particularly if you borrow money to buy it!

People have different risk evaluation and time horizons. If you are sitting on a lot of capital, it’s a no brainer to buy land when financial bubbles pop and leveraged owners need to unload cheap.

Not only do you have a long term inflation hedge, but it’s real property, which means you can borrow against it to get cash without paying taxes via dividends or sale.

Iowa is great for investors like this because the whole state is just a big corn factory. The government tries to keep commodity prices less volatile, so you can project lease income with some precision using the value of corn.

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

#349

Post by murph-almighty » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 1:14 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #191

avs733 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that its only a $150,000 tractor until you drive it off the lot. I would be if the day after you bought it you are lucky if it is a $120,000 tractor. Averseness to government is taxation is so engrained in some country it is almost genetic...and it leads to utterly bad thinking by individuals.

Maybe we are not doing a good enough job of promoting civic duty, including payment of taxes? After all those taxes are used mostly for Medicare, Medicaid and the Military, all of which seem like worthy causes to pay for right? Not including State and Local taxes used for more immediate local functions, of course.

I lean liberal but a significant portion of my family is conservative.

Their thinking with regards to taxes is that it's spent on one of the following:

- Welfare, which is supposedly rampant with fraud to the point that most people who are on welfare don't "need" it

- Unspecified government waste

Not that these don't exist- it's just that it's the majority of government spending, according to them.

If taxes are cut, they claim welfare will get cut, forcing people to find work, and that government will somehow cut their other wasteful spending while still managing to fund the necessities.

I live in suburban NJ, so it's a bit easier for me to see where my taxes go- police, fire, public transit, a handful of schools. But in rural America, where 911 response times can be around 30 minutes, there's no train to get to a nearby city, and there's only two schools in your town? It looks like that money vanished.

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

#350

Post by soundwave106 » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 1:49 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #334

yters wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmland is essentially a complete livelihood, whereas other land is just a place to park a house.

Yes, but so is a business and it doesn't seem to induce the same type of ownership.

To be honest, I'm willing to bet that the sense of history you get with a multi-generational family farm, probably is matched in other multi-generational family businesses as well.

(However, most businesses don't have the option of the ultimate fallback of subsistence farming if times got really rough. :) )