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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

#241

Post by mexicocitinluez »

throwaway422432 wrote: post #165
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…

I am not a US citizen, just an observer. What is the alternative when the Democrats appear just as much beholden to corporate finance, and position themselves as the party for city dwellers? I also disagree on the wealth redistribution. Government agencies are managers of risk. * Is there a risk to the country's food security if farmers go bust on mass? Then the Government needs to mitigate that risk. Fairly simple.…

> What is the alternative when the Democrats appear just as much beholden to corporate finance, and position themselves as the party for city dwellers?

For the love of God, please don't "both sides" this stuff.

When is the last time you took a look at the bills coming before Congress and how they were voted on? Like, literally go to the congressional website and view bills and vote tallies? Would you believe it if I told you stuff like "Prevent rich people from stealing wages from their workers" are voted SOLELY ON PARTY LINES.

In fact, we have the most divided congress in like 100 years. There has not been a point in the last century in which the 2 parties were so different.

Lastly, there are at least 50 Dems in congress right now who explicitly aren't beholden to corporate finance and regularly introduce bills to remove money from politics.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#242

Post by jfengel »

UncleMeat wrote: post #234
sellmesoap wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the US money tends to be distributed from more populated regions to less populated regions. The idea that rural americans oppose social spending because they don't have access to these programs is false.

It does seem that they are often unaware of the the social spending on them. Some of it is surely economy of scale: it's diffuse so everything costs more. Delivery of social services is much more efficient in urban settings, and its failures make the news.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#243

Post by jyounker »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #152
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…

> Maturity means suspending judgement and listening to people you disagree with, but I feel that's very out of style these days. This applies to all of us these days. I'll lump myself in there too. I don't care what "side" you are in, if you get angry hearing someone you disagree with politically you're not helping matters any. We're too polarized. I wish we could stop with the bickering and find common issues we agr…

Political polarization is an active choice made by right-wing media in the US. Creating dissension and outrage is the bread and butter of Fox News, OANN, etc.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#244

Post by mexicocitinluez »

mlrtime wrote: post #192
throwaway422432 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a US citizen, just an observer. What is the alternative when the Democrats appear just as much beholden to corporate finance, and position themselves as the party for city dwellers? I also disagree on the wealth redistribution. Government agencies are managers of risk. * Is there a risk to the country's food security if farmers go bust on mass? Then the Government needs to mitigate that risk. Fairly simple.…

You are correct, no replies but people don't like your message.

No, they aren't.

Go look at the bills coming before congress and tell me how many are voted purely along party lines? Then look at the bills themselves.

And the vast majority of the party is actually working towards real change. And guess what's happening to those who don't (the Schumers and Pelosis of the party)? They have a 5% approval rating and have to CONSTANTLY deal with people from their own party telling them to step down.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#245

Post by mexicocitinluez »

delfinom wrote: post #230
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…

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.

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

Anything specific? Because from where I sit, the Dems aren't anywhere near as strict as they should be wrt to gun control.

Or are you just believing the stuff you're hearing from conservative media? Are you really of the belief that "farmers" need assault rifles? What about bump stocks?

How many school shooting have we had? What legislation came from those? Can you even name any?

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#246

Post by ben_w »

modo_mario wrote: post #240
ben_w wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try, but the unemployment levels in the USA have not generally been low enough to find enough workers in total in recent decades. Worse, even the last few % of unemployment is a deliberate policy choice to prevent a rapid cycle of wage inflation as everyone competes for a limited supply of workers: The farmers would have to pay enough for "seasonal work spending all day doing manual labour in the sun without…

>not something which is an easy one-liner. It seems to me like it would initially make inflation spike a lot if applied abruptly but regardless of the timeline would also increase the standing of the lower classes doing menial work substantially. This also has an effect on those other cushier low wage jobs as they then have to compete with the previously unattractive fieldwork. And they bloody well have to compete be…

> The government has no mandate to benefit them over it's own citizens beyond the obvious (foreign aid, disaster relief, etc) though.

Yes, absolutely, I'm just pushing back there against "basically totally control them thru deportation threats should they get to uppity on Freedom Land's supply"; this was, previously, a mutually beneficial relationship despite being… I was about to write "second class citizen", but no, less than citizen even then.

That said, current regime clearly regards foreign aid, disaster relief as not worth supplying, they either don't understand the soft-power benefits to the USA or don't care.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#247

Post by windowpains »

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.

This is a lot of it. Urban liberals see rural working class as backward and racist and uncultured. Just having a non-coastal accent (eg southerners) is treated as a marker of low character in our media. I recall how GW Bush’s accent was treated, as do many rural voters. Look at the discussion here, it’s about “those people” being too dumb to vote for their own interests. Unsurprisingly, people resent that.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#248

Post by kasey_junk »

mlrtime wrote: post #222
kasey_junk wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The USDA where I pulled that stat defines it as farms that have less than 1M in income (gross) per year. A farm that makes that much is going to only support at most 1 full time farmer. The further subdivide farms under 350k which clearly falls into some terrible definition of hobby.

Which tracks with my experience. I don’t know any family farmers where farming is their only, or even primary, occupation.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#249

Post by nemomarx »

mlrtime wrote: post #197
enaaem wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what foreign aid is for: 1. Keep strategic production capacity alive. 2. Spread American soft power. 3. Get warm fuzzy feelings because you prevented millions of people from dying of starvation.

No, the US will not depend on foreign aid to [primarily] feed it's citizens. Never going to happen.

You've got it backwards - foreign aid using US grown crops provides increased very stable demand. Take any excess grains made in a given year and ship them to another country, the farmers get paid well for it so they keep their productive capacity high, and the marginal cost of getting it to a charity overseas is low anyway. This means there's always enough grain to feed our citizens.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#250

Post by UncleMeat »

jfengel wrote: post #242
UncleMeat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US money tends to be distributed from more populated regions to less populated regions. The idea that rural americans oppose social spending because they don't have access to these programs is false.

It does seem that they are often unaware of the the social spending on them. Some of it is surely economy of scale: it's diffuse so everything costs more. Delivery of social services is much more efficient in urban settings, and its failures make the news.

The huge bulk of social spending is in the form of direct payments or reimbursements. Medicaid, disability, snap. That stuff. I don't buy that this is much more efficient in urban settings.
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