Nox, you are stereotyping a lot here. There are really smart and lucky people in farming and if they get along with a brother or another close family member, the sky is the limit....I`m not worthy!
Okay a young man in 1970 is given/inherits a 320 acre farm by his Greatest Generation dad, he marries a gal and her pa gives them a 240 as a wedding present. Well, he farms in a quasi-partnership with his dad and brother, he has a halfwit uncle that loves to milk cows and slop hogs. But heck you could buy $800 land and it cash flowed, the young farmer in the above scenario had his wife teach school and they lived off her teacher salary...Well, heck, that guy went to the banker with his brother and dad, they`d buy a 8820 combine and share in the payments and 16 row planter and 8630 (with a 40 series engine 
) ...the world was their oyster no question about it.
So fast forward to today and they own 4,000 acres free and clear and 5,000 head hog sites for free manure fertilizer and one of the cousins sells Channel seed just for the discounts. I`m the last person to say these folks are "stupid" ..their wives were all probably "prom queens" too 
Us farmers all play the hand that we`re dealt and that means going from "too big for our britches" to being very humbled the next year. Divorces, cancer, car accidents, hail, paying too much for land, hogs getting sick, 20% interest rates, whatever. Catches even the luckiest families sooner or later.
