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How can we stop farmer suicides?
Grist ^ | 4-16-15 | Madeliene Thomas

Posted on 04/16/2015 1:23:57 PM PDT by smokingfrog

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To: Sherman Logan

You mean Willie Nelson and John Cougar Mellencamp did not come to the rescue?


41 posted on 04/16/2015 2:46:12 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: Hot Tabasco

“I don’t know about farmer suicides but I would think that they would be the most highly stressed people in this country.......”

I don’t know. Being yelled at by Sig Hansen while 30 ft swells are throwing you all over the place and you have to pull up crab pots at a breakneck speed can be pretty stressful.


42 posted on 04/16/2015 2:46:22 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Islam, the Communists enforcers.)
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To: central_va
How Republicans Lost the Farm

"I don't think that we need central planning and government handouts to have a sound agriculture policy," Daren Bakst, an agricultural-policy expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation, told me in an interview from his Washington office. In his view, the Depression-era policy of federal government support for the food sector is badly out of date. .................

..................Today, farmers make up just 2 percent of the work force, and they are better off than many other Americans. More and more farming is done by agribusiness conglomerates, while family farms are bigger and more profitable. According to the Census, farm households' income in 2010 averaged $84,400—25 percent higher than the national household average. Meanwhile, government-subsidized crop insurance minimizes the risks farmers face. In 2012, despite a historic drought across much of the country, farmers recorded record profits. Federally subsidized crop insurance compensated farmers for the crop failures caused by the drought at a rate based on the higher prices created by the shortage. "Farm subsidies," as a pair of scholars at the libertarian Cato Institute argued in a 2012 op-ed, "are welfare for the well-to-do."
43 posted on 04/16/2015 2:50:35 PM PDT by Girlene
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To: smokingfrog

Not mine. Kind of pissed me off.


44 posted on 04/16/2015 2:53:12 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: miss marmelstein

“How sad. How can people not know that Christie has not improve this state one iota? And yet, my conservative friends in North Carolina love him...”

Christie speaks his mind which gets him into trouble. Like most governors, his job is to win reelection by appealing to the most groups he can without crossing the line. That line is very narrow.

Christie did great with the school unions. Then he went full lib. And you never go full lib.


45 posted on 04/16/2015 2:53:24 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Islam, the Communists enforcers.)
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To: mountainlion; smokingfrog

“What would farmer and military related suicides have in common?”

A Government boot on your neck 24/7/365? Just a wild-@ss guess. *SMIRK* (I’m an Army vet.)

I’m engaged to a farmer. He’s not the least bit suicidal. He’s well-diversified with NO government loans, or any loans of any kind. He started with 40 acres (and he actually HAS a Mule, LOL!) and has quadrupled the acreage...over 25 years, while working on and off the farm.

Slow and steady growth wins the race. :)

I’m NOT saying it’s been easy for others, but whatever business you’re in you’re dumb to expand too fast and put yourself into so much debt that you’ll never climb out of it.

I know a family that has milked since 1961. They are nearing their EIGHTIES and finally have their farm paid off - but just because Grandpa died and left them the $500,000.00 they STILL needed. AT NEARLY EIGHTY YEARS OLD! That’s insanity!

A local dairy w/647 acres is for sale for $2.5 MILLION dollars. Also nuts. That includes no cows, either! Milk cows are $1,500.00 and UP, each.


46 posted on 04/16/2015 2:54:44 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set...)
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To: smokingfrog

End the 50% death tax for starters! Thanks Obama


47 posted on 04/16/2015 2:55:23 PM PDT by MaxMax (Call the local GOP and ask how you can support CRUZ for POTUS, Make them talk!)
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To: smokingfrog

Would it be stupid to insist that farmers not be taxed in lieu of gov’t subsidies?


48 posted on 04/16/2015 2:58:42 PM PDT by Thorliveshere (Minnesota Survivor)
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To: EQAndyBuzz
Being yelled at by Sig Hansen while 30 ft swells are throwing you all over the place and you have to pull up crab pots at a breakneck speed can be pretty stressful.

Can't disagree........fortunately for those guys who decided to work for him, their job only lasts for about a month........

49 posted on 04/16/2015 3:00:37 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (November 2016 shall be set aside as rodent removal month.)
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To: central_va

[ With all the write offs and subsides and burning corn for fuel you’d think they’d be on easy street. ]

Many pay taxes, and then get a subsidy, maybe the paperwork is making them want to off themselves, I know it would for me.

Maybe we should end all subsidies AND cut their taxes signifigantly, that way they spend less time in front of paperwork and more time amongst nature in the fields.


50 posted on 04/16/2015 3:02:34 PM PDT by GraceG (Protect the Border from Illegal Aliens, Don't Protect Illegal Alien Boarders...)
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To: kearnyirish2

[ Not comparing their work to farmers, but a lot of people here in NJ seem to be walking in front of trains recently. I believe it is caused by losing good jobs in an economy where they’ve become practically impossible to replace (in the most expensive region in the country). The guy thinks about his mortgage, looks at his potential earnings as a Wal-MArt greeter, and decides the best thing he can do for his family is die so they can maintain their lifestyle a while longer on the insurance proceeds... ]

We are turning Japanese, and not the 80’s Japanese, but the late 90’s economic depression Japanese, just look at the suicide rate in japan.

Except Japan still has it’s culture, our culture is being diluted by wave after wave of third world immigrants that are balkanising our country’s culture. At least when the Japanese economy recovers and their demographics eventually improve and they start having kids again they will still be “Japanese”, but we won’t be America anymore...


51 posted on 04/16/2015 3:06:16 PM PDT by GraceG (Protect the Border from Illegal Aliens, Don't Protect Illegal Alien Boarders...)
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To: TexasCajun

[ But seriously, the estate/death tax is the biggest threat to the family farm. ]

Hell, if I was a Farmer man and my Farmer son wanted to take over, I would allow him to steal my identity in order to avoid all the death taxes and whatnot. Eventually they would figure it out in 60 years when there is this 120 year old farmer who looks like he is 70.


52 posted on 04/16/2015 3:08:49 PM PDT by GraceG (Protect the Border from Illegal Aliens, Don't Protect Illegal Alien Boarders...)
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To: MileHi

Well said.


53 posted on 04/16/2015 3:10:39 PM PDT by nascarnation (Impeach, convict, deport)
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To: Thorliveshere

Would it be stupid to insist that farmers not be taxed in lieu of gov’t subsidies?

Most of the big monies in “subsidies” goes to big corporate companies that only own “farms” as a business venture. Individuals are mostly cut out of government subsidies.


54 posted on 04/16/2015 3:16:29 PM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: nascarnation

Not just the land, water rights.


55 posted on 04/16/2015 3:30:12 PM PDT by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: smokingfrog

So Lisa Douglas was just trying to save Oliver from suicide by not moving to Hooterville.


56 posted on 04/16/2015 4:10:14 PM PDT by Veggie Todd (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. TJ)
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To: miss marmelstein

Christie is definitely the lesser of two evils; he is trying to stop the death spiral, and is slowing it (though I think stopping it is impossible). If we had NJ Dems in the governor’s mansion this would be much worse.

Christie doesn’t even pretend things are OK, or even getting better; he is brutally honest about the problems NJ faces, and doesn’t mind laying the blame where it belongs (public employees, especially teachers).

For a northeast Republican, he is great; he has all the right enemies on the left.


57 posted on 04/16/2015 4:12:10 PM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: GraceG

I wouldn’t say Japan still has its culture; they lost it in WWII (which is a good thing), and have spend the decades since pretending robots can replace natural birthrate. They are a graying, disappearing population; their despondency has some of the same origins as our own (for example, people doing everything right just to have their jobs sent elsewhere). The West need only look as far as Japan to see its own future without some drastic changes in mindset.


58 posted on 04/16/2015 4:14:30 PM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: EQAndyBuzz

I was a commercial fisherman in my teens and some of my twenties and thirties. It is a damned tough way to make a living and many use alcohol or drugs to numb the physical pain. Lost a few friends along the way to different accidents and overboards.
I never worked the Bering Sea. Have seen most of the rest of the oceans between fishing and the Navy. The stress at sea, no matter the job is generally intense. Have seen lots of men crack under it.


59 posted on 04/16/2015 4:55:03 PM PDT by ExpatGator (I hate Illinois Nazis!)
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Comment #60 Removed by Moderator


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