101–110 of 284 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not. For me, "most" is 50% + 1 (Edit: or more).
This is interesting. So you're saying that majority and most have the same meaning?
Most people who voted for US President in 2020, voted for Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
The majority of people who voted for US President in 2020, voted for Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
(I'm a native speaker, but there might be some regional differences here.)
Most farms are not owned by farmers, most housing is not owned by tenants, most airplanes are not owned by airlines, etc., etc.. Vertical integration can have benefits, but it isn't necessary and has drawbacks. Even when vertically integrated, regulations are often written under the assumption that everything is leased, not owned, so compliance is easier if you own a company that owns an asset, instead of owning that…
Have you seen how expensive a tractor or combine is? The economies of scale are real in farming. You need ~$1M worth of equipment to farm 80 acres (~$1M worth of land), but that same equipment can basically farm 800 acres (~10M worth of land). An equipment issue can destroy a years worth of work with 800 acres (e.g. frost damage from delays), but with 8000 acres you can have spares / avoid the loss with some overtime…
All new? That seems way too low. You'd struggle to get into a combine alone.
Used? That seems way too high. I doubt I'd get any more than $300k for my equipment (and that's more than I paid) if I were to sell it today, and it's pretty nice equipment compared to what I see a lot of farmers using.
> 80 acres (~$1M worth of land)
We always wonder why so cheap? The 18 acres for sale down the road from me wants just about $1M (I expect that will be a hard sell, to be fair). The 130 acres further down the road wants nearly $4M (quite realistic; comparable parcels have sold for more). If you could pick up 80 acres in these parts for $1M, you just won the lottery. And, to be clear, it's not like on the edge of a city or something where other interests are driving up the price. It's just farmland. The yields are respectable, but not quite like Illinois will produce.
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> Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred acres (maybe worth $5M) will only churn out a few hundred grand in profit -- not even better than holding t-bills. Non-judgmental curious question: why do you keep doing it? (As opposed to selling the land and buying tbills.)
I imagine there's some satisfaction in feeding people that money can't buy.
I had a coworker once who lives in this region and owns some amount of farmland in a similar situation. He could have sold it and moved his family to at any point; even now I think it would be easily done, if not as easy as in the past. But of course he still lives there, immiserating himself to keep the farm barely viable and working a second job to provide a livable salary.
Why? Because selling it would offend his dead father’s pride.
Most farms are not owned by farmers, most housing is not owned by tenants, most airplanes are not owned by airlines, etc., etc.. Vertical integration can have benefits, but it isn't necessary and has drawbacks. Even when vertically integrated, regulations are often written under the assumption that everything is leased, not owned, so compliance is easier if you own a company that owns an asset, instead of owning that…
So most homes are owned by the occupant. I suppose if you want to be pedantic and say mortgaged homes are owned by the bank, sure I guess?
But I think homes should not be included in your list here.
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It's actually an FAA regulation. If you are not a licensed commercial pilot, there are extremely strict rules on how and when you can accept ANY money for flying, use of an airplane, etc. Actually, even if you are a licensed commercial pilot, there are still strict rules around payment. You can be paid for your skill as a pilot, but you cannot, e.g. charge for giving rides in your personal airplane.
> Actually, even if you are a licensed commercial pilot, there are still strict rules around payment. You can be paid for your skill as a pilot, but you cannot, e.g. charge for giving rides in your personal airplane. While that sounds like a bad rule when I first read it, I smell Chesterton's fence here. I'd like to understand why that regulation was written before getting rid of it.
It's simple. Getting a commercial pilot license is a much more involved process than getting a private pilot license.
A private pilot needs just around 30 hours of flight time to get a license. A commercial pilot needs at least 250 hours and a medical certificate that needs to be renewed periodically.
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Useful to who? It's working exactly as intended. You shouldn't get to unilaterally change the terms of a contract. If both parties agree, then sure. But if not, you have to accept the good with the bad, it's a compromise. We've gotten a lot more out of the deal than it has ever cost.
The electoral college was invented in part to increase the ability slave states at the founding of the country keep a certain amount of control - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/electoral-college-slav... . It set up the critical vulnerability that we have today, that in states where the votes are close at the state level, switching just a handful of votes completely moves the votes in the electoral college. Thi…
They explicitly negotiated the electoral college to protect their ability to not be overwhelmed by more populous states, and forever maintain their voice in the union. It is working exactly as intended, and is essentially a contract we are all a party to.
We don't let one party unilaterally change other contracts, why should we here? It seems you'd have to be a very big hypocrite to support such a thing. You should honour the deal or find a way to renegotiate it that makes everyone happy, not just yourself.
I own the farm and farm it in Illinois. I owe the land through an LLC, because farming is dangerous and I don't want to go bankrupt if somebody sues me. Farms are expensive and hard to subdivide, so people will put them into a legal entity and pass down to the next generation via a trust. All of my neighbors are doing the same, so we're all counted as "not farmers" here Farming is a terrible business. My few hundred…
Most farms are not owned by farmers, most housing is not owned by tenants, most airplanes are not owned by airlines, etc., etc.. Vertical integration can have benefits, but it isn't necessary and has drawbacks. Even when vertically integrated, regulations are often written under the assumption that everything is leased, not owned, so compliance is easier if you own a company that owns an asset, instead of owning that…
In the US, home ownership rates usually hover around 60%. So most homes are owned by the occupant. I suppose if you want to be pedantic and say mortgaged homes are owned by the bank, sure I guess? But I think homes should not be included in your list here.
Well, pedantically, you own the home, but the bank has a lien, and contractual rights in the event of default. But the title is in your name.
Contrast to a vehicle, where the lender is the Legal Owner on registration docs, and retains title (in all but two states, I believe).
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Too bad there aren't books that describe the meaning of words, so this website will have to do... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/most No, "most" does not mean "80%" or any other made up number.
Not the friendliest way to reply, but are you saying 65% does not mean most? Just wondering if we're violently agreeing. I shouldn't have said 80%. Was just trying to articulate that most is a high threshold and also not defined as an absolute number.
I prefer Merriam Webster, which is far more clear. Definition 2 (defn 1 does not apply in this context): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/most
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine there's some satisfaction in feeding people that money can't buy.
There’s an exceedingly strong cultural drive to keep farmland “in the family” even if it impoverishes or otherwise inconveniences the descendants. I had a coworker once who lives in this region and owns some amount of farmland in a similar situation. He could have sold it and moved his family to at any point; even now I think it would be easily done, if not as easy as in the past. But of course he still lives there,…