Not sure where you were going with that in regards to farm programs and the nature of things at large but having met the principal and his primary associates and been shown around the operation not too long before it augered in I'll weigh in.
Stamp was certainly a man with a vision and that vision was that he was going to grab all he could of that particular unique chunk of the cornbelt fringe where the value of developing irrigation isn't fully and evenly bid into the market. He was further going to push to scale so as to cut out everything where anybody made a psnny off him- 4 mb elevator on primary rail, commercial sized fert offload and storage etc.
After seeing the thing my conclusion was that he was going to be King among the New Princes of the countryside- that would be people who were controlling as much as possible at the point when circumstances and the government doubled and triple the price of the primary commodity. Whether they had some growing pains or not I went away from that meeting doing numbers furiously in my head and on an envelope that indicated he'd surely made (real proit, not paper) $10s of millions by being in the right place at the right time during the boom.
The other impression that I came away with, though, was that the management demands associated with what he was doing were exponentially greater than the normal BTO operation and he was going to require some highly competent lietenants in several areas plus to learn to act as a CEO in directling that team. Just being another greedy guy with go-go-itis wasn't going to cut it.
Alas, I can tell you with probably 95% certainly that the hole in the bucket was on the elevator/marketing side where the tens of $millions of profits turned into the same in losses (Wells Fargo took that much in losses on the deal) and the basis of another good coffee shop yarn is founded. Turn the page, same ol story only bigger.
But anyway, here's my deal on BTOism and farm programs/support. Your run of the mill BTO is going to tell you that he is where he is because of superior management. Good enough, but the larger part of that superior management has been the strategic beiief that you keep the pedal to the metal because the government always backstops the game.
I'll conclude that in a rational world he ought to feel like Wile E. Coyote in that moment after he runs off the cliff. Now that we're down to it being about 20,000 indiviiduals or families that receive the majority of direct benefit from the backstopping (however it m ight manifest iteslf) the day might soon come when suddenly nobody cares. Thatt would be despite the protestations of second and thrid order beneficiaris and regional politics.
PS. Farm balance sheets are in decent shape. There is little broad systemic risk in moving to a free market.
