More guns also won’t stop more farms from going bankrupt:
Eighty-four farms filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana in the 12 months that ended in June, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. That’s more than double the number over the same period in 2013 and 2014, and the number of bankruptcies in Minnesota doubled over the past four years from eight to 20.
…The increase in Chapter 12 filings reflects low prices for corn, soybeans, milk and even beef. The situation for most farmers has worsened since June under retaliatory tariffs that have closed the Chinese market for soybeans and damaged exports of milk and pork [Adam Belz, “Farm Bankruptcies Are on the Rise, and Bankers Worry That Far More Are on the Way,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2018.11.26].
South Dakota is seeing more bankruptcies than North Dakota and Montana. All three of those states are seeing a spike in bad farm loans at their lower-performing banks:
It helps to measure the so-called tail of the distribution—the performance of the bottom 25th percentile of banks. These banks have comparatively poor asset quality to begin with (lower than 75 percent of all banks) and, as such, the path of their asset quality often acts as a canary in the financial coal mine.
For example, asset quality of ag loans at these banks in the bottom quarter of the performance distribution worsened significantly after the recession. They improved markedly by 2012 and saw a couple of years of very healthy rates (Chart 3). But by 2014, asset quality in this cohort of banks was worsening again. By the second quarter of this year, asset quality would fall below levels seen in the aftermath of the recession—a trend not seen in any other standard loan category, like residential and commercial real estate, or construction and industrial, or even consumer loans.
Maybe surprisingly, asset quality at these lower-performing banks has been declining faster in states—like Montana and the Dakotas—that are not yet seeing dramatically higher chapter 12 bankruptcies. This likely reflects the fact that banks in these states tend to have more ag loans as a share of their total portfolio, and a faltering ag economy is having an outsized effect [Ronald A. Wirtz, “Chapter 12 Bankruptcies on the Rise in the Ninth District,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: FedGazette, 2018.11.14.].
Congresswoman Kristi Noem will tell you that our national security depends keeping our farmers financially viable. These increasing bad loans and bankruptcies tell us that now is a particularly bad time to ask farmers to sacrifice what little profit margin they may have left for some other policy project, especially a policy as reckless and counterproductive and Trump’s tariffs. If Rep. Noem can’t get a message to Il Duce before she comes home for her inaugural, let’s hope our new man Dusty can work with the new Democratic Congress to end the tariffs that are hurting our already suffering farmers.
So by your own data it’s not the Ag Tariffs but you put that in your title because that’s the one thing you can go after Trump on. Another example of selective, biased journalism.
AND you’re still not a legislator.
Yesterday you wrote an article about “farm welfare”, a cruel way of referring to payments intended to soften the economic blow of the tariffs. I am not a Kristi fan, but she is right when she says our ag economy is vital to national security. The tariffs are a huge mistake- another blow to an already difficult set of circumstances. When you write about USDA farm programs you might consider looking for a term more appropriate than “welfare.”
I wonder if referring to programs giving tax dollars to corporations as welfare is cruel too – what a strange world we live in — I imagine that only when tax dollars go to help poor people is welfare an appropriate term.
https://www.agweb.com/article/ag-industry-thrilled-disheartened-by-tariff-aid-details/
The Chinese soybean market will not be coming back to the US even if the trade war is ended, the US has proven to be an unreliable trading partner. South America and Russia are picking up the slack and once previously unfarmed land is put to the plow it will remain farm land, in competition with the US for generations. Because of shipping costs and direct railroad lines to grain loading facilities in the Pacific Northwest the Chinese soybean market was the best, lowest shipping cost market, for Northern Great Plains soybeans. Expect soybeans to occupy many fewer acres of South Dakota farmland in the ccoming years. They went from a decent crop to a last choice afterthought.
Steve Pearson, Caroline, tom schmitz, here is Mr. Webster’s definition of Welfare. See how it applies to ag producers who are going bankrupt and then tell me that these payments are not welfare.
“Social Welfare noun
Definition of social welfare
: organized public or private social services for the assistance of disadvantaged groups”
The ag producers are one of the most disadvantaged groups that have existed in recent months. Through no fault of their own, they have been singled out because a regime did not have the foresight to understand how war works.
I will give you another example that was just announced today. General Motors has pulled the rug out from under 15,000 of their workers and shuttered 5 plants that make vehicles. These disadvantaged groups will now be eligible for welfare as well. This will keep up until it has been decided that we have had enough.
Momma Mia, here is what Mia Love had to say about trump and the republicans. Place
ag producers in place of minorities and you can see how ag folks are viewed. Ag folks are only bought out into the spotlight to elect the same losers they always seem to go for. Here is a hint to help the bottom line, stop voting republican and start putting your interests and that of your family farm first. Instead of America first, try my homestead first. Work with other producers to make your bottom line black and thank Democrats for having your back. Now for your lesson, remove minorities and ad ag producers and then you will see how we all need to work together to get the blood sucking crooked elitist out of our farm yards.
“This election experience and these comments shines a spotlight on the problems Washington politicians have with minorities and black Americans — it’s transactional. It’s not personal,” she said. “We feel like politicians claim they know what’s best for us from a safe distance yet they’re never willing to take us home.”
“Because Republicans never take minority communities into their home and citizens into their homes and into their hearts, they stay with Democrats and bureaucrats in Washington because they do take them home, or at least make them feel like they have a home,” she added.” Thank you Mia Love, former Utah congresswoman. New York Times 11/26/2018
Jerry makes a valid point.
As I said in a past comment on a different thread, the term welfare carries a negative connotation after Reagan’s “welfare queen” slur against people receiving assistance needed for their very survival. If we are going to use the term to describe payments to those folks in need as indicated in Jerry’s comment, however, then it seems quite accurate to apply the term to payments made to farmers hurt by Trump’s tariffs.
Perhaps instead of questioning whether to use the term “welfare” to describe transfer payments we just need to get the term “welfare” back to its original intended meaning as something good – a use of public money to help those in need, rather than a derogatory term. Then the argument can focus on what is important, namely, how do we determine who is in need, whether an indigent, a family farmer, a corporation, a real estate developer, or a defense military contractor.
1) The unfair trade that has occurred against the United States hurts EVERY American, not just Farmers.
2) Trump has only asked for “fair” trade.
3) If you do not support Trumps efforts to save our economy, defend our jobs and promote the marketing of American products and produce then you should leave our home.
i long ago have no confidence of the natl.banking system.my experience is that when the farm&ranch economy is going good the natl.banking boys encourage young ranchers & farmers to go for it,but when things start going down hill they cease being partners & make things more shaky by asking for more assets to be attached if you have any & raising interest rates.it is a tricky situation that brings on more stress & frustration, sometimes it means selling out or werse,suicide.the govenors if they had any real guts when ag economy goes sour should immediately go after those who corrupt the process.remmeber the lack of support we got from our congressional crowd & total lack of support we got from our gov.deaugard & the state gop.lackies on the “country of origin labeling.”these people are like blowflies on the carcass 0f agriculture, enough to gag you.
Oh, so this is how Orange Imbecile is going to help farmers — https://goo.gl/ig7y21
He’s going to increase tariffs on China. Hmmm. 🤔🤔🤔 Wonder what they’ll do in response?
South Dakotans, if you want your lives to be worse, you’ve got your man in the White House.
We already left Saint Petersburg you troll. As well as the rest of Europe/world, thinking we would come here to rid ourselves of the likes of you. The internets tubes now allow the continuation of your Russian words to enter our screens.
old sarge and those like him have no right to tell any American to “leave our home”.
As a Native American, Old Sarge should leave my “home”.
I do not support this president’s economic and trade policies and anybody that does is bonkers.
Today on one of the news programs I heard a farmer that had gone bankrupt still supporting Trump, Sad.
Ms. Debbo, we’ve got our men in Washington from South Dakota as well. The steady gusher losses of jobs jobs jobs and bankruptcy after bankruptcy will continue to show how smart we were with our votes. 15,000 jobs lost today with 5 plant closing’s for General Motors, wow. Construction is the next one to feel the pain of the steel tariffs.
Welfare is welfare. Its the help you need to get back to the place where you don’t need it. It’s what a compassionate, decent nation does.
Indeed Ms. Debbo, but welfare needs to be called what it is, welfare that belongs fully in a Socialistic manner for all who need it. Why do people who need welfare get up in arms about accepting it? This should not be shameful, this is what we all pay our taxes for, to take care of our people’s needs. Social justice for all.
“welfare needs to be called what it is,”
That’s what I’m saying Jerry.
Maybe the frustration with the term “welfare” comes from so long using it as a pejorative, so long thinking welfare recipients were people whom we should hold in contempt, now being on the receiving end of assistance and realizing that previous thinking was wrong. Maybe there is a new understanding that one’s economic situation is not entirely within one’s control (although I would argue many suffering most from Trump’s simplistic actions voted to put Trump in the position to do those things).
Caroline, when these tariffs drive business under and their employees who have lost their jobs go on unemployment or other government assistance, will you ask that not be called “welfare” either?
Now I just need a pejorative term for the billionaires and corporations who extort tax dollars to perpetuate their own excess.
Factory workers will leave the Trumplican Party before the farmers and ranchers – because they are smarter and less narsacistic (making shop rats more able to understand where their jobs went and why).
Once this fully happens, Republicans will officially be reduced down to the Gullible Rural Idiot Party (just exactly where they belong)… and THAT will make America a better country in the long haul.
Axios quotes a Wall Street Journal interview of Orange Imbecile:
“Trump believes to his core that tariffs work, both to create negotiating leverage and as instruments to improve the U.S. economy, though it’s hard to locate many economists who agree with Trump on the latter point.”
He’s not going to let up and more farmers will go down. What will happen to the neighbors when those huge CAFOs go bankrupt and walk away, leaving gigantic piles of scheit and soon to leak unattended lagoons of floating crapola, plus acres and acres of destroyed soil? (Maybe they’ll celebrate?)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t one of those hallowed parchments this nation was founded on say something about supporting the general WELFARE?
You made me break my self imposed hiatus on commenting. I hope some of you are happy.
You always make me happy. 😄
Orange Imbecile and the Pootiepublicans have no interest in any welfare other than their own.
OldSarg, come on man. Do you really mean that if somebody disagrees with an elected official they need to leave the country? That’s a pretty silly thing to suggest, don’t you think?
Do you agree with everything Trump does? I am asking honestly. Because if you disagree with anything, you seem like a hypocrite telling others to leave for their disagreement. If you agree with everything he does, I’m afraid you are in need of a legally-appointed guardian.
Thanks for coming out of retirement mfi. Yes indeed that “just a piece of paper” that Heartless Dick Cheney described about the Constitution, indeed says that as follows:
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” So then, there it is.
Trump Says He’s ‘Far Greater’ Than Reagan
November 27, 2018 at 1:13 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 222 Comments
President Trump claims in a new book that he is “far greater than Ronald Reagan” and says conservatives don’t give him enough credit for his accomplishments, the Washington Examiner reports.
Said Trump: “The amazing thing is that you have certain people who are conservative Republicans that if my name weren’t Trump, if it were John Smith, they would say I’m the greatest president in history and I blow Ronald Reagan away.”
The defense rests.
Quote above is from Lewandowski and Bossie’s new pile of fiction about Drumpf the Sandbagger.
I’m out and not happy about it. I was just coming to terms with not needing to read so much hogwash from right wing nut jobs posing as human beings- irrespective of Grudzilla’s whining about name calling from out of staters.
It is probably time (long overdue perhaps) to move back toward crop share contracts between landlord and tenant. I’ve heard farmers averaged $150 per acre of profit last year for land they own, but high rents lingered toward $300 in some areas meaning they were losing $150 per acre of rented land. Rents are moving down now but still way above break even, lets say over $200 easily. Because some farmers made the move to get so large in recent years (8 to 10 thousand acres farms) they desperately need economies of scale and are afraid to lose rented land they assume they’ll never get back, so rents remain artificially high though bankers are balking. Farmers are basically willing to maintain losses gambling that commodity prices go back up soon. If contracts were crop share there would be much less pressure on the farmer, both owner and tenant could ride the ups and downs more fairly, but there are reasons why contracts moved to cash rent away from traditional 40/60 cropshare, like skimming, you have to trust your farmer not all could be, and markets were less volatile, but there is a push to hybrid contracts, a mix of a low base rate with an incentive. In my opinion this will be a healthy change and give the farmer some breathing room during times of low commodity prices but the high cost of other inputs need to come down as well, seed and fertilizer costs are too high. Don’t completely let all farmers off the hook some used very poor judgment loose with money during the run-up years when the landlord should have been getting a larger share.
Many farmers have told me they think the tariffs have a minimal effect if none at all because of global markets with the low commodity prices simply a result of bumper crops and too much supply.
I appreciate the comments on the term “welfare”. Several of you have given me food for thought. About cash versus share rents: I rent land to a young farmer. When commodity prices were high, he raised his rent on his own, several times!! Every year there have been low prices I tell him he needs to let me know if he can’t handle the rent price and I would talk with him about lowering it. So far, he has not asked for a decrease, but he knows I value the way he has treated me in the past and I would do what I can to help him out. Trust is so important as I had a previous renter on shares. I am pretty sure I was screwed badly, but as I was not there to count the trucks leaving the field I will never know for sure. Trust is a valuable commodity!!
Welcome back, Mike, who is still from Iowa. As landlords to sharecroppers, I wheat and you corn, we should give this some serious consideration.
“welfare”—government payments to people in difficult circumstances—what’s wrong with that term? I hear nothing cruel in that.
Caroline your young farmer raised the rent cause he knew it was so low another farmer could approach you and it would be gone. The history of cropshare the owner loaded 4 rows in his own wagons, then the tenant loaded the next 6 so everything was obviously above board so even going way back trust was in short supply, later as you say some farmers didn’t take every truck to the elevator, trust deteriorated, and cash rent became popular. If you trust your good farmer you should do better cropsharing and you’re not at odds with one another, more on the same team, although next year if things continue you won’t make much you’ll have to embrace the whole cycle as they do. I have had many good conversations with farmers and ag types over the last couple of months. Sophisticated farmers now do many things (futures contracts, hedging, options, etc) to even out or beat the market over a roughly three year period obviously if the posted price stays down for too long something has to give as it is now, but there are many factors besides the tariffs. Experienced people have told me they are minimal but it is being politicized on all ends of the spectrum.
The real harm here is not word choice. The real harm is a White House run by a man with no regard for farmers, free markets, or sensible economic policy grounded in evidence and experience.
We rented on shares in the 50s-70s from dad’s relatives. I usually drove the truck to the elevator and knew whether the load was ours, dad’s uncle Cliff, or his goofy uncle Ross.
It was fair and we were all in it together. Of course the 50s and 60s were pretty good for farming. In 1957 grampa took a load of wheat to the elevator, sold it, drove over to the implement dealer and paid cash for a brand new Case combine which he towed carefully home behind the truck. Sweeeeeet.
Y’all just wait till the ‘shop rats’ ALL jump ship together. It’ll be the demise of the GOP, and it’s inevitable.
Factory workers have a much closer sense of community and interdependence then middle of nowhere isolationists (Agriculture folks). When factory workers see factories close after they were promised otherwise, they will KNOW FOR CERTAIN that the radical ideas they’d been flirting with have conclusively failed, and blue voters they will once again become.
Farmers and ranchers ain’t never gonna get it. They’d rather live in the doomsday bunker than a VERY-ULTRA AMERICAN suburban neighborhood. And when I see farmers and ranchers gambling in Deadwood, it just makes me feel like my taxpayer dollars are padding the already bloated pockets of agriculture.
Factory workers are where my hope lays.
Rural isolationists in doomsday bunkers—Adam, you get me thinking about the South Dakota bunker mentality…. Is it possible that Earl Butz consolidation has drained us of the communitarian-minded McGovernite/NFO-type farmers and left us only with literal holdouts, operators so embittered by the decimation of their ranks and looming specter of corporate domination that they have adopted a bunker mentality that affects their entire political outlook? In their inclination to cling to the way things used to be, have they been conditioned to become the perfect Trump voters?
I know, I know, generalizations, but I’m asking about the possibility of a trend that would describe a significant portion of a population.
Just working with what Adam said, consider that urban and suburban factory workers would not be inclined toward the same isolationism, because they can see more alternatives from their doorstep.
If only Billie Sutton had warned us that Kristi Noem would be more of the same…..
Oh wait, he did!
Good story Deb. I’m tempted to say trust but verify. Today farmers report yields to their crop insurance agent usually specific to each parcel, these numbers reflect planted acres and yield, something the owner should know every year, but as always there are ways around accountability and a farmer can overreport on his own farms and underreport his rented farms if he is so inclined, but land rent moving in synch with the market should allow both parties to prosper more in the long run. There is a farm culture, it’s about independence, never admit to problems, but it’s also isolating and leads to high rates of depression and suicide. Farming is so fast changing not everyone can adapt. I’ve asked the question, why when some farmers back in the 80s had their farms free and clear ended up going under versus some who bought at the wrong time with high mortgages but survived. The answer I got was some farmers just kept doing it the old way refusing to learn new methods, but do a google, farms are still VERY much family operations: “Family-owned corporations account for 5 percent of all farms and 89 percent of corporate farms in the United States. About 98 percent of US family corporations owning farms are small, with no more than 10 shareholders; average net farm income of family corporate farms was $189,400 in 2012.” I’m not a Trump fan but if you want to understand the real dynamics talk to the farmers and look closer at the facts.
Cory, physical and psychological isolationism is the reason for America’s increasingly radical rural culture. They’ve largely lost sight of their interdependent relationship(s) with their country and world, and they believe they should be at odds with society more than a cooperative partner.
When outdoors, all they see is open space and it’s challenging for them to understand how the world is filling up with people and development. When indoors, Feel Good Fake News keeps them ‘connected’ to society — alleviating loneliness and depression by encouraging them to feel angry, instead of sad, about living out in the middle of nowhere.
Factory workers live and work in the most cooperative, interdependent industrial systems humanity has ever seen. When they go to work every day, they know that they are part of something much larger and more complicated than they, as an individual, will ever fully understand. Conversely, farmers and ranchers ‘understand’ most every square inch of their farm – and they are prone to gross oversimplification in their perspective of MUCH LARGER systems.
Nowadays, these aging Ag producers don’t remember the good old days well enough to wish them back again. If you could go back in time and tell a well-to-do farmer, “these will be your good old days,” and if he actually believed you, he’d prolly blow his own head off and kill his whole family to save them future disgrace – back in those good old days.
Adam, I lived in Newell for 6 years and got more familiar with the vastness of the space of northwestern SD and the people who live on it. It’s one of the few areas of the Great Plains where population density is measured in square miles per person. I miss that space, it’s peace and solitude, every day.
I loved most of the people out there too. However, as you pointed out, there is a certain level of ignorance that comes with that isolation. It can’t be helped, except by deliberate effort. I found that the greater the age, the greater the ignorance, though there were exceptions.
I would agree with you that the isolated rural folks don’t feel themselves to be much of a part of the wider world. Smaller feels safer, more manageable and understandable.
I’ll say again, having lived in the Minneapolis/St.Paul metropolitan area of a few million people for about 10 years, the ignorance extends both ways. People who have lived in urban areas all their lives know very little of rural life, and what they do think they know, they’re usually wrong about.
In SD I’m guessing that ignorance of rural life probably only extends to Sioux Falls, maybe, maybe Rapid City.
Rural ignorance is different than suburban or urban ignorance, and there certainly are ignorant people in all 3 categories. I assert that rural preference for isolation has seeped too far into suburbia, where it is too out of place to last the test of time.
The very dumbest SOBs, I have ever corresponded with, live out in the middle of nowhere.
The one thing urban people are the most ignorant of is the fact that rural people have despised them for a very long time now.
https://www.fb.org/market-intel/the-verdict-is-in-farm-bankruptcies-up-in-2019
Farm bankruptcies up by 20%….. thanks drumpf.