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

theguardian.com

281–290 of 391 posts

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

#281
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's land in the middle of nowhere. If you're near a city you can get a nice premium as the suburbs expand. 4x is a bit extreme (been a long time since it was that much). But it's expensive. In the middle of nowhere there have been quite a number of land sales with $10k+/acre in the past handful of years. Farmland prices have been kinda crazy over the last 5-10 years. As a quick example of some math: * Rent prices…

Wow! I wish I could have gotten that price for my corn last year. You quoted the price for beans, not corn. Corn averaged 3.40 over the year (currently, around $3.05 cash, not CBOT). That means it was about $640/acre for income. And that's assuming 203 bushels for all farmland. 180 is a better rule of thumb. Of course, when a bag of seed corn is selling for $275-300+...not to mention input costs of equipment, fuel, f…

Oh crap you're right! The price seemed high, but I grew up in the city so I don't track it much - just whenever I catch it on the local radio station.

The numbers were way better than I remembered, so I kept trying to figure out where the costs came in...I wasn't finding it.

Thanks for the correction.

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

#283
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Hillary wasn't a liberal. I don't know why you're bringing her up. You're using the term 'liberal', but I haven't got a clue what people mean when they say that anymore. What's your definition? You say what Hillary is not, but you don't say what she is. I don't separate her in any way from the Democrats politically - at least those who hold power currently - not the rank-and-file of course. > We are now in the…

Are you perhaps looking for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve ?

I guess so. What would be critical to me is how the model is constructed. I want it to be formulaic, if possible, to come closest to optimal and without being subject to gaming by political parties in order to score political points.

I want cold, scientific, numbers-based, optimized rate setting.

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

#284
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The 7k price would be for good land with quality soil and a high Corn Suitability Rating. But yes, 7k+ is certainly normal for Iowa. (The surrounding midwest states like MN, ND, IL and WI would be lower - in the 1-4k/acre price)

There has been some land in Iowa which has still sold for $9-10K/acre this year. Very good CSR. But it's definitely not the norm anymore. $7-8.5k/acre seems to be the range.

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Hillary wasn't a liberal. I don't know why you're bringing her up. You're using the term 'liberal', but I haven't got a clue what people mean when they say that anymore. What's your definition? You say what Hillary is not, but you don't say what she is. I don't separate her in any way from the Democrats politically - at least those who hold power currently - not the rank-and-file of course. > We are now in the…

> I disagree, you're just assuming everyone's stuck in old tribal thinking when there's so much evidence to the contrary. I wish you were correct but what evidence? Facebook and the Internet has increased Tribalism to Yellow Journalism levels. We have Breitbart and MSNBC. People mostly just read news and opinions that they agree with and don't listen to the other side. http://fortune.com/2017/01/13/fake-news-tribalis…

> Facebook

Obama ran great campaigns, including social networks where his opponents did not -- won in landslides. Same with Trump and Hillary. Winners targeted, with laser focus, on individuals. The messages resonated; people DID listen to the other side!

Meanwhile, especially in the last two years, traditional media has totally faltered. News agencies rocked by fake news scandals, Hollywood getting #metoo'd up the keister, Amazon acquiring WaPo. YouTube is TV for a lot of kids. It's a huge shakeup going on.

> Gerrymandering

Hillary was a terrible candidate. There's no excuse for losing some of the states she lost. I don't get the opposition to the Electoral College system, it's a check on large population cities/states running the board. Hillary would have creamed Trump if she had any substance.

> Wait what? If you mean that if working poor made more money they would need less benifits????

No, I just took your "Case in point" about increased wages and benefits as equating to less tax revenues being collected (you had "less government spending" on the right, which I read as govt having less to spend.) Maybe I misread your point as it pertained to repubs, sorry if I did. I agree repubs are all talk on cutting spending.

> Your asking a political science question. Economist don't get to say what our tax rates are but our politicians and there isn't one economist in the bunch.

It really shakes my confidence, what are any of these numbers based on?? It's a miracle anything works at all.

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

#286
post #97

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.

I was one of those people who didn't understand it enough to think that an increase once you got to a new bracket applied to all your income. In that situation, it's logical to be careful not to move to the next tax bracket accidentally. It wasn't until later that I understood that the bracket applies only to the amount of your income that is above the bracket amount. I think it's a common assumption to make if you don't research it more carefully.

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

#287

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…

My parents almost invested in an Apple II solution in the early 1980s that made robocalls using a wardialer and playing a message to people and telling them where to go or call to buy things.

In the meetings where farmers as well.

The company said the system was designed by Steve Wozniak at Apple and very reliable.

Farmers did not want to buy it but rent it instead.

Why?

When you rent equipment you can claim it as an expense on taxes, anything from a telephone to a computer to tractors, etc. Another reason is if they broke, rental company would fix it or replace it with another one.

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

#288
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true at all. An LLC passes through these things for tax purposes only . Each owner is taxed on their pro-rata share of the business’ income offset by its losses, but the business doesn’t have to distribute anything at all. It’s common to distribute at least enough to cover those taxes but it’s never normally required by state or federal law. Edit: you can’t keep an untaxed rainy day fund, that’s true. If you keep…

What if I take sell $100 product through LLC and book it as profit, pay taxes on it and after that, the customer files a chargeback. Where will the chargeback fees plus the original amount come from?

[deleted]

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

#289
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true at all. An LLC passes through these things for tax purposes only . Each owner is taxed on their pro-rata share of the business’ income offset by its losses, but the business doesn’t have to distribute anything at all. It’s common to distribute at least enough to cover those taxes but it’s never normally required by state or federal law. Edit: you can’t keep an untaxed rainy day fund, that’s true. If you keep…

What if I take sell $100 product through LLC and book it as profit, pay taxes on it and after that, the customer files a chargeback. Where will the chargeback fees plus the original amount come from?

Your scenario seems implies that the original charge and the chargeback happen in different tax years, because if it was the same tax year, the chargeback would just invalidate the original charge.

In the cross-tax-year case, you pay the chargeback from the historical profits you have been booking from the LLC and book it as a business expense in the current tax year.

If you are running an LLC with zero cash backup to handle such situations, there could be a problem with the business model.

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when the truck depreciates so much. That's several thousand right there.

Yes, two comments up mentioned deprecation. Maybe you're forgetting that you can offset deprecation in your taxes for the next year?

Deduction, not credit. Deductions aren't nothing, but they're just a percentage. Good if you're already going to spend the money, or if it's close. But spending a dollar to save a fraction of one can bite you.
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