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Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

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Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#221

Post by seanhunter »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #184
bruce511 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Personally I don't understand the love that agriculture shows to the Republican party, but hey you get what you vote for. It seems like this whole year has been implementing policy after policy that screws over agriculture. USAid (big purchaser) gone. 40 billion sent to Argentina. Antagonize Canadians (Canadians !!) so they boycott American produce. Tarif China so they'll reciprocate on soy beans. Deport far…

> 40 billion sent to Argentina This is nonsense. The US has a 20B USD currency swap agreement with Argentina. Currency swaps aren't free money. It is basically a line of credit between central banks. When you use it, you pay interest on the borrowed money. You would be surprised how many of these exist with the Big Three (US/EU/JP) central banks with other, smaller central banks. Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs-…

A currency swap absolutely isn't "basically a line of credit". Any swap is a credit agreement insofar as each party is committing to future possible liabilities, but a currency swap is a very standard instrument which is part of central banks' monetary policy toolkit and helps them in their mandate to ensure currency stability. Swaps can be extremely flexible so the terms differ wildly, but they're not generally a line of credit that can be drawn from, they're an agreement to pay or receive amounts based on future movements of some underlying rates.

So what is a currency swap. Well any swap is an agreement with at least two legs, a pay leg and a receive leg. The normal type of swap is a interest rate swap so say I agree to pay you every month 3% fixed interest on 10m USD and you agree to pay me some floating rate (say 3m usd libor + 100bps) interest on the same amount. So every month we do a calculation where if libor+100 is greater than 3 then I pay you otherwise you pay me. We might do this to hedge our interest rate exposure. Like say you're a bank and I'm a bank and most of my borrowers are fixed rate mortgages and most of my savings accounts pay floating rate interest. I want a hedge so the floating rate doesn't end up costing me too much.

A currency swap is like that but with different currencies. So say we change things so it's 10m USD on one side and 15m EUR on the other side and we agree to exchange principal amounts. So that sets an exchange rate of 1.5 as well as the interest rate thing from before. If interest rates or exchange rates now move, this provides a hedge. So the hedge now is not just against the rate changing but also against the currency moving adversely. Central banks use this to ensure the import/export vs domestic balance of their economy is appropriate given the levels of trade between nations and also as a hedge against adverse currency movements affecting both assets they hold (yes they hold bonds etc) and their outstanding debt (which for the Fed will include "Eurobonds" they have issued in other currencies than USD).

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currencyswap.asp is a general explanation

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb-and-you/explainers/tell-me-mor... is the perspective of a central bank on currency swaps and their use

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#222

Post by mlrtime »

kasey_junk wrote: post #205
mlrtime wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most large farm owners are very well off Most family farms (From my area) are land rich. The land is worth a lot, but they never sell it. The farming essentially pays for the land, and maybe a little to live off of. They are NOT raking it in. Also almost all of them have notes on this land, not owned outright.

What % of farms in your area are small family farms (either by count or economic %)? In the country it’s like 40% of the farms and 20% of the value. That stat alone shows the real problem, big agricultural is wildly more efficient (without wading into the externalities). And big agricultural gets the lions share of the benefit of the subsidies. I’m not even sure that’s a bad thing but half the reason these conversati…

I'm not sure the definition of "family" farms, you can have a family name corporation that is still $100M+ in value. Even then I have no idea who all of them are.

My family farm is small enough they alone cannot support a entire family upper-middle class lifestyle, but the land is still worth millions. But they all have notes, good years mean the crop pays the bank and maybe some supplies for next year.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#223

Post by mlrtime »

jiggawatts wrote: post #196
mlrtime wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and I listened to some pro-Trump people who seem otherwise intelligent that tried to explain this effect. If all you know is by listening to people recently on TV then you don't know farmers very well.

I try to get almost all of my information from long-form interviews. From what I've seen, few people (mostly professional politicians) can lie non-stop for several hours in a row in a consistent fashion.

Isn't that still biased towards people who want to record themselves?

One problem in this entire thread is "US Farmers" in one group... The industry is too big to lump them all into one category.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#224

Post by galangalalgol »

mlrtime wrote: post #183
joe_mamba wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>farms get all sorts of special treatment for taxes, bankruptcy and inheritance When I see the amount of exploits the wealthy use to avoid taxes and maximize profits, I realize working a 9-5 job is for fools, considering how much taxes I'm paying on my salary.

Agreed, and thats why I continue to vote for representatives who won't raise those taxes. The corruption will continue but at least I don't have to continue to feed it.

They instead lower taxes for every bracket except those making 2x to 5x the poverty level. The lower brackets are a bribe, and the upper brackets and corporate/payroll tax cuts are the purpose. Meanwhile medicaid getting cut just shifts unpaid er visit costs onto that same middle range. The middle gets hollowed out by both parties.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#225

Post by pjc50 »

mlrtime wrote: post #220
pjc50 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the alternative strategy that gets them over to ""woke""?

Well the first thing is removing identity politics, especially in replies or discussions. Also, not viewing it as "Come to my side". This isn't star wars, rebellion vs empire.

Convenient shorthand for a huge number of issues. OK then, how about convincing them to support:

- impeachment and prosecution for high level corruption (e.g. the Presidential cryptocurrency)

- prosecution of constitution-violating police and Federal paramilitaries, e.g. in Minnesota?

- leaving LGBT people alone legislatively (at this point I'm not going to ask for improvements, just that the situation not be made worse)

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#226

Post by squeefers »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #182
unglaublich wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People outside of the US look down on inferior products like HFCS, bleached chicken, hormones used in beef cattle, prevalence of GM crops, the preventive use of antibiotics in poultry, hen battery cages, and permissive-by-default use of additives. If at least all those bad farming practices would lead to very affordable food, then one could make an argument for it... but currently the US just does worst of two worlds…

> bleached chicken I don't understand this meme that appears whenever US vs "Europe" food/crop standards are discussed. I Googled for more info, and I found this quote: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/15/nx... > Less than 5% of poultry processing facilities still use chlorine in rinses and sprays, according to the National Chicken Council, an industry group that surveyed its members. (Those tha…

> What do European chicken meat plants use to reduce bateria load?

sanitary conditions

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#227

Post by sellmesoap »

jfengel wrote: post #181
bruce511 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Personally I don't understand the love that agriculture shows to the Republican party, but hey you get what you vote for. It seems like this whole year has been implementing policy after policy that screws over agriculture. USAid (big purchaser) gone. 40 billion sent to Argentina. Antagonize Canadians (Canadians !!) so they boycott American produce. Tarif China so they'll reciprocate on soy beans. Deport far…

The Republican party has a well polished message assigning blame to anyone else: gays, Muslims, illegal immigrants, trans people, feminists, government employees, etc etc etc. If only they can put those people in their places, prosperity will rain down on the proper Americans. As it did in the 1950s when those people didn't exist. It works. And it will keep working.

I think a lot of it comes down to the rural/urban divide, in a rural setting there's a lot less convinence, fewer services. A need to be more self suficcient. While urban settings have many amenities and services, they also tend to be hotspots for mental illness, crime, lack of housing for those who don't or can't make enough money to afford increasing rent and food costs, it's harder to police (more resources needed) illness from concentrated pollution. Theres some who see the conservative side of politics as fiscally conservative, and the liberal side aiming for more social support. This is a gross simplification of U.S. politics (I'm Canadian, we have a rural divide as well, take a look at how the urban Canadian centres vote vs rural, the difference is our party colours are backwards to yours!) So many rural folks see the tax bill and say "what do I get for this" and many urban folks see the need for stricter regulations, more social support etc. And say "We need more resources, let's throw money at the problem". Coming from a small town if you see someone in need it's not too burdensom to lend a hand, in a dense urban situation it's neccesary to turn your back on the many individuals and say this is a social problem that is more comfortable to abstract to the government to handle. Now subsides for farmers seem weird from my vantage point. On one hand the scale of operations for a farmer do seem lofty compared to my experience as an individual earner, I don't have to budget for sub $1M equipment upkeep/replacement etc. But on the other I'm not beyond considering "conspiracy theroies" like "sugar makes us more susceptable to influance, and lowers immune response, leading to higher healthcare costs" - bassically we are the product not the customer.

More importanly there's a rift between "I care" and "I'm paid to care" that's common for social support, just like it's common for the tech industry.

All this is an over simplification, but I'd love for us to do better as a whole. I think that starts with people using their empathy and curiosity to understand the divide. Maybe through understanding we can be less judgemental of each other and find ways to work together, or at least understand and build boundaries to make the divide more livable.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#228

Post by reactordev »

mlrtime wrote: post #209
reactordev wrote: post #54

There’s only two meat packers… two. Where are the cattle farmers to go? It’s like this across the industry thanks to monopolies like ConAgra, Tyson’s, etc.

There are many many meat packers, or you just mean two big ones?

“The U.S. meatpacking industry is dominated by the "Big Four"—Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—which control 80-85% of the beef market and significant portions of poultry and pork”

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#230

Post by delfinom »

bruce511 wrote: post #124
csours wrote: post #107

Of all the guns that rural Americans love, the humble foot-gun is the most beloved. --- Someone else can argue the morality, ethics, economics, and politics of it all, but VERY simply, US Federal Government Agencies are machines for redistributing wealth from cities to rural areas. Rural America voted quite heavily to stop those subsidies. That's what efficiency means. --- Maturity means suspending judgement and list…

I agree. Personally I don't understand the love that agriculture shows to the Republican party, but hey you get what you vote for. It seems like this whole year has been implementing policy after policy that screws over agriculture. USAid (big purchaser) gone. 40 billion sent to Argentina. Antagonize Canadians (Canadians !!) so they boycott American produce. Tarif China so they'll reciprocate on soy beans. Deport far…

I think it's actually because of the gun control crap that Dems push.

Farmers really like their guns, not because they need it to compensate for themselves, but because they really do largely live in areas where the local police response is 30+ minutes because they are in sparsely populated counties that are just farms, farms and more farms.

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