But seriously, the estate/death tax is the biggest threat to the family farm.
For later
I don’t know about farmer suicides but I would think that they would be the most highly stressed people in this country.......
What would farmer and military related suicides have in common?
I am sure this has been going on for a long time. When my dad was a boy growing up in Iowa he mentioned a lot of times they were found hanging in the barn.
In fact he found a relative that same way when he was just a kid.
I guess its the hard lifestyle that does it...
This is something that should be encouraged. If all of the farmers kill themselves then they won’t be around to pollute all of the water with fertilizer and pesticides and all of the forests they cut down can regrow on the old farm land. And all will be good again (SARCASM, but probably the radical city bred envrionmentalist true thought, because they think food comes from the grocery store and have no idea the it begins with farmers.)
With all the write offs and subsides and burning corn for fuel you’d think they’d be on easy street.
Plan B worked out fine though as he turned the apple orchid into a housing development and retired wealthy.
Bookmark
Q: How do you make a million dollars in farming?
A: Start with $10 million.
EPA sacrifices might help.
Well duh. Simply turn over all family owned farms to the government. I said turn over, not buy out or sell to.
Any time you have large economic dislocations you run the risk of suicides related to the personal economic devastation that such dislocations can cause.
That’s one reason why I’m in favor of safety nets and retraining programs.
And those future economic dislocations could get severe as robotics become general purpose.
Farming has to be one of the toughest jobs out there.
I lived through that period and remember all the attention given to and funds raised to "Save the Farmers!"
Well, I had a small business that failed, and it was every bit as disastrous for me and my family as if I'd lost the farm.
Nobody raised money for me or cared in the slightest.
Nor was there any particular reason they should have.
But seriously, the estate/death tax is the biggest threat to the family farm.
End the 50% death tax for starters! Thanks Obama
Would it be stupid to insist that farmers not be taxed in lieu of gov’t subsidies?
So Lisa Douglas was just trying to save Oliver from suicide by not moving to Hooterville.
Farmers Blues
FMCDH(BITS)
Dairy is 10% of total GDP in Wisconsin, over 85% family owned. Total income is about 2.5 billion of 25 billion GDP.
Debt is 11 cents on the dollar, half as much as the 80s.
520 billion bushels of corn.