Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 391 posts

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

#361

Post by JoeAltmaier »

alistairSH wrote: post #359
princekolt wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how objective is the difference between all these three? I have the impression most of the people who buy speciality crops wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them in most cases on a blind test.

Personally, I'm not sure I could tell in a blind test, though I'd like to think I could. But, I do know that when I travel abroad (outside the US), the produce seems to taste better. Maybe it really does, or maybe it's just my own biases. Regardless, we try to buy a substantial portion of our produce at farmers markets, when available (they aren't usually open in the winter months near DC).

There's a huge difference between different vegetables and fruits. But its probably due to selection of variety, not so much how its grown. Mass production limits what can be planted, according to what will survive the automated harvesting equipment and the trip to the store. So, tasteless tomatoes that are hard and picked green etc.

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

#362

Post by grasshopperpurp »

JBlue42 wrote: post #142
nitrogen wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets brought up a lot on Hacker News as if it's a bad thing. One, I doubt it's as universally true as people think (I'd wager that in Utah, say, an equal chunk of taxes comes from suburban as urban areas), and two, people who can't afford the cities need places to live and those who can need places to vacation and buy food.

I don't see them presenting it in a negative, just a fact, and one not understood in rural areas. If you believe in wealth distribution, then richer coastal or urban areas should help out their brethren in the rural areas and spread the money around. It's when those rural brethren then attack the better off coastal / urban folks as stealing their money that things become problematic.

Don't forget that red (more rural) states also receive political welfare in the form of the electoral college, so their misguided views carry more weight.

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

#363

Post by emj »

icebraining wrote: post #317
CydeWeys wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system is what allowed the existence of the medium you're using to argue against it. It is hypocritical to argue against the downsides of civilization while taking advantages of all of its benefits.

So if a thief steals your car and leaves you his bicycle, it's hypocritical to criticize him while using the bike to get around? Or if you're forced to pay protection money by some gang, it's hypocritical to criticize them even if they do protect your business from other gangs? And is it hypocritical to live in the West and take advantage of all the benefits it gained from centuries of imperialism and exploitation, w…

Just some notes: Using an bicycle that isn't yours is illegal even if it supposedly was left there by a thief, at least here. In a similar way it is legal to buy protection from someone if you feel you have a need to, that right is questionable. Private security is much more mob like than taxes IMHO.

I think the ideas of anti-taxation is often hypocritical, too often you see people critize tax cuts that do not serve their other beliefs. Mind you, this is not an argument against tax cuts, I just think anti taxation is an pipedream.

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

#364

Post by NLips »

outsideoflife wrote: post #328
ethbro wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of this is that a lot of states have agricultural exemptions or lower rates for farmland. Even if it's not effectively farmed. Or McMansions in the countryside exploiting the same law via what my dad called "Noah's Ark farms" (just two of every animal). So yes, if you want to game the system and sit on land, there's little tax incentive to sell it.

In the UK this is doubly true, because you also receive your subsidy from the EU for owning that land. In fact in many ways farming it less efficiently gets you more as you can qualify for environmental uplifts for using less fertilizer and keeping bigger headlands and hedges.

It's worth metioning that this distribution system is decided by the UK government (or possibly Eng/Scot etc governements). The EU allocates subsidy to the member nations according to one system (not accounting for e.g. bigger hedges), which allocate subsidy to farmer/business according to their own system. It is entirely possible for the UK government, within the EU, to allocate money to farms as an insurance system against bad years, or to encourage profitability at all costs, or in another way.

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

#365

Post by luckydata »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #129
bluGill wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your own semi is very important during harvest: your combine will fill up in 15 minutes. That means every 15 minutes you need to unload it. 2 combines worth of grain is as much as your can haul in a semi (because of road weight restrictions). When the farmer is harvesting they don't want to stop: every delay is a chance that a storm latter will destroy the rest of the crop. Farmers often hard hauling to a elev…

Tesla Semis owned by a coop would be killer for this use case, with charging facilities at the elevator. Very similar to the runs Tesla is going to use them for from their lithium evap pond partner in NV and the Gigafactory.

Funny fact, Tesla wanted to use a grain trailer at the presentation but couldn't find a pristine looking one.

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

#366

Post by ataturk »

kbenson wrote: post #167
linkregister wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that a majority of large corporations don't pay income taxes? Is it even 5%?

I think the claim might be something similar , but not quite that extreme. I don't think it strains credulity to think that the majority of large corporations take advantage of loopholes to drastically reduce their taxes.

Right now there are hundreds of billions of corporate "profits" sitting offshore that can't be brought back into the US because of tax avoidance. If Congress does something to soften the blow, corporations will re-patriate those dollars and put them to better use.

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

#367

Post by [deleted] »

froindt wrote: post #181
mistermann wrote: post #169

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.

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…

[deleted]

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

#368

Post by wfo »

linkregister wrote: post #160
cesnja wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean just like everybody else but excluding big corporations and wealthy individuals?

Are you claiming that a majority of large corporations don't pay income taxes? Is it even 5%?

There are ~20 huge companies each year that pay literally zero taxes [1] (that's for this year, you can go back and find a similar article every year). The lucky ones who manage to hit zero shuffle around every year. The rest of them pay various fractions of their tax rate. Corporate tax on large corporations as a proportion of the taxes collected is the smallest it has ever been in US history.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-10/ten-thing...

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

#369

Post by LoonyBalloony »

godshatter wrote: post #286
pc86 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

This myth is probably fed by employers who don't want to give raises as well.

"Well if I give you a raise, you won't get more money! Get back to work!"

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

#370

Post by joeframbach »

SomeAmerican wrote: post #149
gonzoflip wrote: post #9

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…

There is a more pressing reason that has pushed farmers to continually buy new equipment. Farm credit services pressures farmers into this practice. When giving out a loan for operations, a farmer's ability to pay is heavily weighted on farmers having newer equipment. The excuse that I have heard for the bank to do this, is that the bank can't easily tell which farmers take better care of their equipment, thus favori…

What kind of logic is that?? In my mind, those with the oldest equipment must necessarily be taking care of it, because if you don't take care of it then it won't survive long enough to be old.

But on the other hand, I see people driving antique beaters and doubt they have the capability or interest to manage any maintenance.

Post reply on HN