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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

#391

Post by mexicocitinluez »

throwaway-11-1 wrote: post #387
mexicocitinluez wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Democrats couldn't fix a single thing while in power and have now lost to Trump twice, you need to stop enabling these absolute losers. Look at the people they keep running! They have no spine and will crumble at the slightest push back. It's all "Aw shucks the parliamentarian said we couldn't" bullshit. They see politics as a cash generating mechanism for consultants, not a means for improving the country. I'm so ti…

Trash reply.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#392

Post by csours »

spicymaki wrote: post #388
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 think that our political class has been captured by corporate interests and both parties in the US are approaching supporting the executive class by manipulating their constituents. With social media it has become especially toxic. They have linked every possible issue to identity and now you need to perform some form of ego death to think independently in accordance to your best interests. Few people have the capa…

Corporations show up to every election.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#393

Post by bdangubic »

spicymaki wrote: post #388
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 think that our political class has been captured by corporate interests and both parties in the US are approaching supporting the executive class by manipulating their constituents. With social media it has become especially toxic. They have linked every possible issue to identity and now you need to perform some form of ego death to think independently in accordance to your best interests. Few people have the capa…

> That manipulation should be driven by rational discourse informed by scholarly research in addition to respecting the various cultural needs of the society.

I don’t think this is possible any longer in times where everyone is “doing their own research.” Unfortunately there is no more “scholarly research” as each and every such “thing” would be (politically) scrutinized. We have lost a common sense of what is “truth” (not lost, politicians etc have successfully taken it away from “us”) and hence I don’t see a path forward in a sane way you are describing it

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#394

Post by greycol »

bix6 wrote: post #106
keithnz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been in the NZ ag tech industry for the last 25+ years, US subsidies and tarrifs drove a lot of innovation in NZ (also Europe) and then US manufacturers in the spaces I've been in have pretty much collapsed when faced with better tech as farmers switched to using our ( or the European) tech.

Curious what sort of tech? Like better tractors and such?

A lot of meat cutting (and packaging) robotics and dairy automation are the flashy ones. Softer tech like crop, orchard management and cultivar creation as well as stock breeding/selection or logistics all of which came a long way. The development of uses for byproducts i.e. chemical refineries to change milk into something like protein or milk powder and use the secondary products from those processes to produce alcohols or fertilizer.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#395

Post by BizarroLand »

UncleMeat wrote: post #250
jfengel wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe the implication is that in urban settings, access to well paying jobs is increased, so there is less reliance on Medicaid, disability, and snap per capita in dense population areas.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#397

Post by BizarroLand »

9rx wrote: post #352
labcomputer wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite all this farmers will continue to vote republican this year, and in future years. I presume they have reasons, but I confess they are hard to understand. All farmers are rich. You have to understand that "farmer" doesn't mean "someone who works on a farm". It means "someone who owns a farm". If you own a farm today (meaning, you didn't go bankrupt sometime in the last 150 years and move on to something else…

> All farmers are rich. You have to understand that "farmer" doesn't mean "someone who works on a farm". It means "someone who owns a farm". Rich, as in richer than broke? I opened my farm business with a $15,000 (inflation adjusted) investment. That's a good chunk of change, but probably not what anyone is imagining as rich. The average household keeps more than that in their bank account. It is in the realm of some…

Somewhere around 50-60% of Americans do not have $15k in the bank. The average American is more likely to have about $8k available to them, and of course that average is only an average, so likely 33% or more of Americans do not have $8,000 available to them.

This is likely easily skewed because the bar is set so low and the top 5% are so far above that bar that 1 person can outweigh the cash availability of tens or hundreds of thousands.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#398

Post by sellmesoap »

jfengel wrote: post #233
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…

Subsidies for farmers ensure surplus capacity. Lead times are long and you can't risk even a temporary failure. So you spend more money than current supply and demand would justify.

I agree farming is key to our survival, it's likely that failure in surplus has a knock on effect seen more in the export market then in the first world. But aside from that do we need so much HFCS and soy products? I've heard they both get a big subsidy specifically. I'm biased as I have food sensitivities to both, but I know there's a debate over their value as food products, and their health effects, soy protein isolate is for newspapers not burgers!

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#399

Post by 9rx »

BizarroLand wrote: post #397
9rx wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All farmers are rich. You have to understand that "farmer" doesn't mean "someone who works on a farm". It means "someone who owns a farm". Rich, as in richer than broke? I opened my farm business with a $15,000 (inflation adjusted) investment. That's a good chunk of change, but probably not what anyone is imagining as rich. The average household keeps more than that in their bank account. It is in the realm of some…

Somewhere around 50-60% of Americans do not have $15k in the bank. The average American is more likely to have about $8k available to them, and of course that average is only an average, so likely 33% or more of Americans do not have $8,000 available to them. This is likely easily skewed because the bar is set so low and the top 5% are so far above that bar that 1 person can outweigh the cash availability of tens or…

> The average American is more likely to have about $8k available to them, The average American is more likely to have about $8k available to them, and of course that average is only an average

That is the median. The earlier figure was mean. But, still, that just means starting half the farm I did, which is still quite realistic. You don't need 30,000 acres in your first year — or, frankly, ever. It's a good chunk of change, but not what "rich" usually implies.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#400

Post by insane_dreamer »

xienze wrote: post #260
insane_dreamer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose they've successfully instilled the fear that "our way of life" will be destroyed if they don't vote for Trump, despite 1) being a lie, and 2) a vote that will make things worse for them. It's amazing how powerful these relatively minor cultural issues can be. It certainly makes for interesting case studies for future political science and sociology university (if the humanities survive).

> instilled the fear that "our way of life" will be destroyed if they don't vote for Trump, despite 1) being a lie You may find this hard to believe, but there are a lot of people old enough to see how rapidly "our way of life" has gone down the toilet. It's not a myth, it's happening.

in what ways has "our way of life" "gone down the toilet"?

yes, the world as a whole has changed, and society with it, but I'm nearly 60 and don't see a "way of life" being "destroyed"

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