Maybe better yet...sentencing time... The guy that drove the school bankrupt should have to teach a grade all day long for $0.00. Kind of like work release, at night he can bunk with bubba.

Why don't they have the School superintendants do the pimp walk like the big wigs from Enron and WorldCom ?
They drove it into the ground...they should take the heat that goes with that.
Nope he just gets to keep his job year after year, until the retirement age when he can cash in, and get paid to do nothing ( oh wait...that is what he was doing the whole time anyways.... )

AA.....but it is a sickness......just like the flu or whopping cough...

More like the black plauge...guess what it worked it's way out of the system, did some good also. Let this do the same. Need to get that genetic material out of the gene pool. It kind of looks like a Baby Ruth candy bar floating in there.

 

PhillipSVT and cpadpl and those of you who think like they do, I have an old saying for you. "Dont cuss farmers with your mouth full." Dont understand what it means? Just think about it a little bit.

Maybe you guys should do a little thing called reading and thinking before you make sweeping generalizations about people whose profession helped build this country and still has a significant impact.

My dad is 51 years old and has worked on the farm since he was 4 years old, and he started managing his own farm when he was 16. We raise corn, soybeans, and wheat. In 1951...the year he was born, the average price for a bushel of corn was $1.66. Just a few years ago we were selling corn at harvest for $1.75. Those prices are not adjusted for inflation...think about how much $1.66 could buy 50+ years ago. And think about how much it can buy now. Then factor in how much production costs have soared. Take a look at this graph of corn prices for example. And keep in mind that they are the high prices for the year and dont display the fluctuations that occur throughout the year...maybe we get lucky and get a high price, sometimes it is much lower because we are forced to sell due to storage concerns or because it is simply impossible to predict exactly how high the markets will get. Oftentimes these peak prices only last a week, a day, sometimes only a few hours.



Our major machinery is as old or older than I am. New machines cost as much as a house. A new combine can cost up to $250,000. Our "new" combine that we got last year is 19 years old with 5500 hours on it and we have $15,000 into it.

My dad busts his a$$ 12-15 hours a day...7 days a week during busy times of the year. The past few years I have been working right beside him. And even if we arent in the field we are moving grain or fixing equipment. And now on top of farming he is selling real estate and starting up a construction management business to help make ends meet. Maybe you can tell me how my dad has made bad business decisions?

The current farm economy is no fault of his. It is greedy corporations like ADM, Cargill, and ConAgra Foods that are run by greedy Republicans and their enormous lobbying power.

Maybe Im coming off kind of strong. But I am a 5th generation farmer in this country. I work the land that my great-great-grandfather, who emigrated from Sweden in the 1880's, homesteaded and cleared with his bare hands. Farming is in my blood, it is a passion and a way of life. I would love to farm all my life. But the reality is that it is too hard to make it. Family farms are a dying breed. And without the subsidies that you dislike so much my dad would have had to quit many years ago.

 

Excellent post MN 4x4

Lots of generalizations being thrown about. I hope for their sakes they never find themselves in the positions they rail against.

 

TTT

PhillipSVT or cpadpl care to respond???

 

While I generally will not comment at all on this topic, let me ask one question.

If grain sells for less then it costs to produce ( all the associated items you have well documented ) and less farmers were around producing the grain..would the price not increase ?
Supply and demand economics is what I am asking.

This is not like gold when it drops below the production prices as it did in 2000, and mines in So Africa shut down.
The price of gold eventually got back up above the production price, and those mines reopened.
If the grain is in such high demand the prices would shoot up ASAP.

Sorry you are correct, the family farm is almost completly gone, but then again where are the family hardware stores ?

If you shop at Home Depot, Menards, or Lowes...you are aiding in doing to the family hardware store what you noted ADM is doing to the family farm; as I read it.

Now should the gov start subs for family hardware stores ?

 

You are correct, I hope I don't.
Then again..what is the saying: give a man a fish and is eats for a day, tech a man to fish and he eats for life ?

I think of myself as the latter.

If something akin to the great depression were to happen, then everyone would be SOL.

Speaking of which; did the goverment, at that time, start giving away money to people, or start projects so people could get jobs ?....hummmm when was the Hover dam started ?
Would that not be a case of teach a man to fish ?

 

I am a firm believer in the "teach a man to fish" as well as "don't judge the book by the cover". I was just leaning towards, we shouldn't get to mighty with our current position, there are many good people for no direct reason of their own find themsleves in the positions that everyone here seems to believe is of their own choice.

 

This is not bashing on people on welfare, it is critising the Liberals for creating it, and for forwarding its progress ( i.e. increasing welfare to extend the duration further, and pay more then currently implemented ).
You seem to have taken the tact of this is time to ***** all over someone on welfare. This is not the case with this thread.
The correct principal here is if the liberals would not want to just give the money away, that more people who are on welfare, would be able to learn how to fish.
The liberals seem to think buying tons of fish is the best thing for the people and the economy.
You, yourself have admited that teaching a man to fish is the best thing.
The don't judge a book by its cover, sorry but liberals can be judged by thier cover.
i.e.:
If a boat had a hole in it, a liberal would hire more people to man the mops, rather then fixing the hole in the boat.
Guess it could be summed up to cause and effect.
The concerative is going to try to fix the cause of the problem, the liberal is trying to make the effect look as appealing as they can, without addressing the cause.
Please keep this to the topic at hand, conceratives and liberals, and leave the individual people out of it.

 

you've ever listened to Hillery Rodom Clinton

 

MN4x4

Sorry for not responding earlier, I have been out of town for awhile. Maybe you should actually understand the discussion topic before you make a suggestion that I should do some reading. Macroeconomics consists of SWEEPING generalizations. Your micro-situation doesn't change that. I can understand that you and your father work very hard for very little, but that is utterly irrelevent for discussion purposes here. The fact of the matter remains that farmers in general made some very poor decisions during times of profit. Farming is no diferent than any other type of business in a capitalist system. You must change and innovate to meet new challenges or be swallowed up by the competition or go bankrupt.

A very recent example of that would be the "burger wars". Both McDonalds and Burger King are suffering right now (but Wendy's isn't). This is really due to an over-building and over-estimation of demand made during more profitable times. The "industry" made very poor decisions (a sweeping generalization). But why isn't Wendy's suffering (with their stock being up 17% this year)? Wendy's properly estimated future demand and build-out need. You may as well being saying that your daddy started a McDonalds 50 years ago and works 7 days a week and now can't make ends meet, and the current slump is no fault of his. So what? You may as well add that he is starting up a pizza delivery business and a day care center, all to make ends meet. So what?

Just because an individual in a business has to deal with something out of his control or some issue he didn't create, we are supposed to feel sorry for him? Newsflash buddy: ALL business must prepare for contingencies. That's what living in the real world is all about.

And ust because your father has started multiple other businesses to make ends meet doesn't mean that he's a "good" business man. Apparently he's not, since he can't turn a profit in his primary business (your words, not mine). I don't personally know your father, but I do know a farmer who still runs an independent farm at a profit, and also went into trading futures on the CBOE about 10 years ago (first as a hedge, now as his main business). He trades soybean complex (bean, oil, and meal) as well as feeder cattle, and often clears $1,000,000 profit per transaction. What's different about this guy and your father? I don't know, maybe he's smarter than your father, maybe he's more gusty, who knows. The fact of the matter remains this guy is successful, and (according to you) your father isn't.....So it is possible to be successful....

Bottom line is we live in a free society. No one forced you into farming, and no one is keeping you there. If you can't turn a profit, it's your fault because other people can. And even if no one could turn a profit, you get what you deserve. Every single business man that makes the leap into a new market takes the risk that it will be a big flop, and we don't huggy-huggy-kissy-kissy their "boo-boo" if it doesn't work out....Why should farming be any different...

INSERT EDIT - MN4X4, I'm adding this edit, as I don't want embellishment from my friendly Canadian neighbor, Sam N. , to incite some kind of riot that I'm father-bashing.

I have had a similar situation to yours, of course Sam would say it's inapplicable, since it doesn't pertain to farming, but I could say the same to you guys, because it pertains to manufacturing (defense contract manufacturing, which has subsidies and special favors all its own, so as much as I don't know about farming, you guys don't know about defense contracting).

My grandfather took over a manufacturing company bought by my great-grandfather and turned it into a multi-million dollar business back in the 30s in 40s. During the war, the company began defense contracting for the war effort, and produced everything from tugboats to tank parts. Anyway, after returning from the war, my grandfather further increased business approximately 10-fold, and produced items for the Korean Conflict. After that, business still boomed into the 60s with the space race and cold war. However, coming up into the Vietnam era my grandfather began running into serious competition problems with big boys, like Lockheed.

As great a business builder my grandfather was for a particular time and place, he was just ill-equipped to deal with certain aspects of progress, namely technological advances. My grandfather had stayed away from certain advances, choosing to invest his money in plant expansion and raw material access (constructing railroad tracks for transportation, etc). When it came down to producing fighter jets and other military equipment, and ever increasingly complex parts for NASA in the 70s that had to have computer integration, business really went downhill. Needless to say, that plant sits empty and run down today. My grandfather died modestly wealthy, perhaps even just averagely wealthy. At its hey-dey, that plant even had its own post-office and grocery store (imagine, a plant that was so big it commanded a Federal post-office).

Anyway, the moral of my story is: as sad as it is, my grandfather wasn't the businessman that the business needed, and his business suffered the consequences, and those were the adequate consequences in a capitalist system. The weak must die, it's just that simple....And don't think that my grandfather didn't work 7 days a week, or sometimes skip his own pay so he could make payroll for people that had worked for him for 50 years.....

 

WOW You kicked his dads a$$ pretty good. Never seen anyone bash another members family here before.


But, just a note, you say that farming is no different than any other business in a capitalist system, and really nothing can be further than the truth.

MASSIVE subsidies that do litttle to help the guy at the bottom of the totem pole as they should ,but instead line the pockets and further the agendas of the powerful boards involved.
This is a problem in almost every indutrailized country not just the US. You really do not have a clue about farming as it has been in the past few decades.
Get your facts straight, then, maybe, you'd have the right to jump on someone else.


Until then ZIP IT, till you know what you're talking about, because on this issue you are out to lunch.

 

Sam N

I wasn't bashing anyone's father. I was asked a question, how his father is a bad business man. Well, I don't know, but if you are in a business (one that has people that are profitable), and you aren't making it, maybe you are a bad business man. I was just replying to a question that implied that working hard 7 days a week means you are a good business man. Results means that you are a good business man.

And I am aware of the subsidies involved in the farming industry. But your bifurcation between how this affects the "powerful" members and the low-man on the pole exactly proves my point. The fact of the matter is that there ARE successful parties in the farming industry (the powerful boards you refer to). Therefore, if you aren't turning a profit, and someone else is, the failure is on you. This is nothing more than the woe-is-me attitude.

And I do draw a line of similarity across all lines of business (as did Adam Smith). That's the whole principle behind macroeconmics (which is what the Wealth of Nations is about). I would agree with you that subsidies absolutely skew the fairness of an industry. But the fact remains, if there is ONE successful party in an industry, then it is possible to be successful in that industry, and somehow they (the other party) beat you to it....