TBTF: any buyer's remorse?

[kraft-t]

The fact is the republicans think they are giving the president some gift when they raise the debt limit. A Gift that they can negotiate with terms to their advantage.

They are giving the president nothing. It is not his personal debt  and it is not sonny going to daddy for a bailout. It's congress people agreeing to enable the borrowing to pay obligations the congress has already accumulated. 

It's like voting for anew aircraft carrier and then refusing to borrow the money to pay for it. It is one more example of congress trying to extort concessions from the president.

If congress wants stop the borrowing then they should vote against the spending and the time to do that is before the spending not after.

You keep coming with that hackneyed phrase about spending other peoples money. You congress and your party has initiate a ton of military spending and sent the government to exact payment from my pocket to support your political lunacy. Don't act like you are an innocent victim. You are spending other peoples money at a excessive rate and you feign innocence. The truth is I am more than a little weary of subsidizing your  religious dogma.

BTW those tax revenues that you oppose are directly passing your financial obligations on to your children and grandchildren.

[r3020]

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@kraft-t wrote:

The fact is the republicans think they are giving the president some gift when they raise the debt limit. A Gift that they can negotiate with terms to their advantage.

They are giving the president nothing. It is not his personal debt  and it is not sonny going to daddy for a bailout. It's congress people agreeing to enable the borrowing to pay obligations the congress has already accumulated. 

It's like voting for anew aircraft carrier and then refusing to borrow the money to pay for it. It is one more example of congress trying to extort concessions from the president.

If congress wants stop the borrowing then they should vote against the spending and the time to do that is before the spending not after.

You keep coming with that hackneyed phrase about spending other peoples money. You congress and your party has initiate a ton of military spending and sent the government to exact payment from my pocket to support your political lunacy. Don't act like you are an innocent victim. You are spending other peoples money at a excessive rate and you feign innocence. The truth is I am more than a little weary of subsidizing your  religious dogma.

BTW those tax revenues that you oppose are directly passing your financial obligations on to your children and grandchildren.

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As long as other people's money doesn't run out we got er made. Pass another bill, create another program and raise the debt ceiling. Progress for the progressive. There are votes to be purchased.

[BA Deere]

Senator Chuck Grassley, the only farmer in the senate voted against it.  His payment limitations had bi-partison support, but it died in committee ...the things that make you go hmmmmmm

http://whotv.com/2014/02/07/agribusiness-grassleys-farm-bill-provisions-nullified/  

Congressman Bruce Braley voted for it because even though he supports payment limits, "competeing interests" didn`t think it was that important....hmmmmmmmmmmmm you don`t say, competeing interests? Hmmmmmmmm

But here`s the way I see it Nox, if there was no farm bill it wouldn`t make a dent in the national deficit.  I don`t think that no farm bill or insurance would stop BTO`s either.  Just the simple truth, they have 36 and 48 row planters that are driverless, they farm 10,000 acres and if a old 400 acre farmer retires, a young small guy won`t get to rent it, the 10,000 acre bigshot will become a 10,400 acre bigshot. 

If we were going to tap the brakes on bigshots through eliminating subsidies, we`re about 20 yrs too late. This is why the farm bill is more of a cheap food policy than anything. In the late 90`s and early 2000`s we sold corn below C.O.P. and big hog setups bought it, expanded and laughed all the way to the bank.  If your goal is to slow down bigshots, a "farm crisis" that would make all this whiz-bang technology unaffordable is the only way, even then I wouldn`t be too surprised if there wasn`t a banker bailout....ooops I meant "farmer debt write-off"   🙂

[hardnox]

The only way that can be about food policy is if you assume that the guy with the 48 row gets more yield per acre than if 4 guys with 12's were farming it. Which I think is a vrey tough case to make. Diffference is that if the 48 row guy does really buy inputs a tad cheaper, has some small per acre scale advantage and can borrow money (one stop shop for the banker).

Then the $25 bucks goes to the landlord. Pretty well proven academically, it all flows to the land. The hard part for the farmers is adjusting back as rents tend to be sticky.

I'm not saying you should or even can stop it, I'm saying you shouldn't subsidize it.

As far as how it affects the deficit, true, although I think that decent weather and some world economic problems it can end up costing a heck of a lot more than the lobbyists told the people who voted for it. It is a complete, 100% open checkbook deal.

I'd actually be willing (not that my opnion matters) to spend more on a farm bill if there was something that would keep families on working farms. I just don't know what it is.

Soooo..... going to crop insurance is a good thing if it ACTUALLY did 100% stop ad hoc disaster payments. And I see nothing unfair about a cap of say $40K on crop insurance subsidies. If operations bigger than that decide that they won't pay the freight without the subsidy, fine. And maybe there's "never been a bad crop on Racehorse Flats" or "I've never collected a dime" well OK. But remember, no ad hoc disaster payouts either and a once every two century, several hundred $/Acre loss times 10,000 gets to be real money.

Repeating myself many times over but it reminds me of a FB policy session I sat in on once where the discussion, mostly by older farmers, turned to the need for programs to get younger farmers started. When I suggested that maybe the most efficient manner for doing that would be to just quit subsidizing older farmers, it was kinda quiet.

Old fashioned conservatism. First do no harm.

[James22]

Not a fan of SNAP by any means, but would agree this farm bill is custom made for the BTO's and those trying to achieve this status.  I will continue to vote but really have just about given up ever stemming the downward plunge into more government intervention/socialism.   Reasonably confident I have enough resources to thrive in our own world but not enough to be a target, so can just ignore the surrounding chaos. 

[BA Deere]

I hope no one that gets offended reads this, but yes I will admit that as a rule the larger the farm is, the more efficient it is.  I know land grant universities have did studies that efficiencies topout at 4,000 acres.  However, I know guys that farm in a 200 mile radius + land in Brazil, the one i believe farms 20,000 acres here, IDK about how much in Brazil, but he`s in the expansion phase and will consistantly outbid farmers in his path.  A few years ago when corn was "LDP cheap", David Kruse of all people was giving some gem of advice on a young guy looking to rent a 80, he said `you can only pencil in a $20/acre profit and on a 80 if you ruin a rear tire on a old fence post in that field there goes your profit`.  A Bigshot could basically farm a extra 80 for "free", he could Jew a little more on his entire fertilizer bill, he could tell the Funk seed dealer that`s been pestering him to "give me free seed for the 80 and I`ll see how I like it", he already has machinery on lease, time for hired help is pecil dust on a extra 80.  Basically that extra 80 would cost a Bigshot, the rent and a minimal fertilizer expense.  A little guy would have a tough time hauling grain over 10 miles, the Bigshot once it`s on wheels a extra 20 miles isn`t a big deal.

But with farm subsidies, 80% is food stamps and alot that goes to the farmer is really a "carrot" for putting up with conservation and EPA rules.  It also has to give the banker restfull nights knowing that his farm customers have a $700/acre or whatever crop insurance guarantee.  But farmers are still fat dumb and happy, they couldn`t have cared less about this farm bill....they may be glad they have though in the next year or so, whatever it will be worth.

Now I got a elevator newsletter and I`l paraphrase it: `if new crop corn insurance at the end of Feb is $4.50, that speeds up the likelihood that cash corn will be below $3.50 this fall because of the extra acres that will be drawn into planting corn`...there, you see?   Right there, this insurance lures all the rubes into planting as much as they can and that drives the price that they receive downward ergo, cheap food.

[hardnox]

First, food stamps have 0 to do with it. You're sort of disqualified in a Godwin way on that.

As we discussed, this isn't about fiscal matters (what're ya talkin, 10 F35 fighters?) it's about social engineering.

I'm saying I don't know how to and don't particularly want to socially engineer things back into the 1950s. I just don't want to spend money to socially engineer them into the 2030s.

[kraft-t]

Go to hell. We aren't buying yourvote. reneg on the debt and pay for the consequences!

[sw363535]

No. ---------------------

Growth of some sort has been an economic reality for over ????? years.  As mechanical and technology abilities have advanced.  I remember my grandfather condemning the big farmers for replacing their horses with a tractor.  He had failed at farming several times before deciding on a steady paycheck, but everyone who succeeded at farming was cheating or paying off someone.

Fortunate for me, my dad's response was to tell me every chance he got --- "When you look at your neighbors you see what works and what doesn't work ---------- nothing else".

Seems like the "neighbor envy / condemnation" argument will always be with us.

[hardnox]

I don't see any broad utility served by having the taxpayer backstop risk on unlimited scale.