Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "Heresy Financial"
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A rare voice of reason, the rich (owners of fortunes denominated in a currency - think bonds, life insurance, savings accounts) hate, hate, hate inflation. There is a good kind of inflation - it is the side effect of a booming economy - see inflation rates after WW2 in the Golden Era. Inflation must not be harmful for workers and recipients of benefits (SS, disability pensions etc) when adjusted for inflation.
Businesses that were invested in production (raw material, machines, expenditures for R & D, patents) had no problem either. On the contrary. Good mood but it makes sense to buy early it only gets higher in price - that boosted their sales.
The wealth of the Americna middle class is in the home that they own. paying that down was not negatively impacted by somewhat higher inflation either *
The lion's share of productivity wins (a lot coming from automation) used to go to the workers. and even AFTER adjustment for inflation that was plenty. The hourly average U.S. wages adjusted for inflation rose by 97 % between 1947 and 1970 while productivity rose by 112 %. (so almost, resp. more than double).
That is double purchasing power (just shy of 3 %) for 1 hour that a person worked.
FEDERAL minimum wage went in lockstep with productivity wins as well. They started to increase it only in the late 1940s, but then it was raised often, it peaked in 1968 (regarding purchasing power), the U.S. has severely fallen behind with the federal minimum wage.
In 2018 dollars the 1968 federal minimum wage should have been over 10 USD already. (it was raised to 7.25 in 2009 for the last time). Federal means: For ALL of the U.S. incl. poor states. Better wages in some states of course.
And that level (around 10.25 if I remember correctly, see EPI website) is not even accounting for the ongoing productivity wins since 1968 - the CONTINUED practice of giving most of the productivity wins to workers (strong unions and full employment gave the necessary leverage) that would have paid for much more than simply maintaining 1968 levels of purchasing power.
Computers were just about to take off for instance.
Sure interest rates were also raised to compensate the holder of savings for loss of purchasing power = inflation (that is NOT as normal as it is sold to us). And for a person that makes a living from WORK, having a well paying job, and job security (the current job or it is easy to find something else) is more important than getting full compensation for the losses of purchasing power for their modest savings.
of the interests even exceeding that. Only rich people holding a lot of their money in bonds etc. want that, for companies and regular folks there are ways around that slightly negative effect of inflation. (loss of purchasing power of savings).
People paid down home mortgages (of homes in which they lived not as "investments"), at the beginning of paying down most of the monthly payments went to interest - over time the monthly rate is paying more of the principal and less of interest. And then inflation eats away at the loan. The nominal debt stays the same - let's say 20,000 USD, but with plenty of inflation 20k are not the same 10 or 20 years later.
People complained about the relatively high interest rates - but there was unprecedented growth of first time home owners and ownership. It did not really harm them, after all they also got double purchasing power for their labor within 23 years.
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I find that most people throw around claims about inflation, conflate it with scary hyperinflation, and make historically wrong statements about the Weimar Republic. Germany then had economic problems (that dropped the value for imports), they tried to print their way out of crippling reparations (made worse by export bans, the French saw a chance to keep down German industry and their competition). France insisted on getting reparations and right away (scores to settle from their loss against Germany in the 1870s war), and after the paper money got devalued by mass printing, they demanded payment in gold. Germany does not have gold mines - (demanding goods would have made more sense !) so the French invaded Germany and occupied the steel and coal region. The treaty of Versailles also banned Germany from having an army so they could do that.
They intended to seize the production of coal and steel and transport it with help of railway, and all the railway workers went into strike and were supported by the federal government - with more printed money.
However: it got really bad AFTER hyperinflation stopped, (the French realized that the occupation cost them, pay for soldiers and earned them hatred of the population under martial law), but the German government was forced to impose austerity and then they got DEFLATION - that caused mass unemployment.
The hyperinflation phase was very unsettling for the Germans (already rattled by the loss of WW1 and all the other fast changes), it was highly unpractical, but they could still navigate that. And it made sense to PRODUCE if one had machines, so people still had work, wages were paid out daily then even at noon and end of day.
Blue collars did not lose money (they had no savings) and rent was adjusted in lockstep with wages. The rich had real estate and likely some other currencies and valuables in other countries. Even if they lost savings they usually had homes, could rent that out, etc. But the lower middle class with small savings but not a home or only a small one were in trouble, they lost everything.
Housewives or relatives picked up the money and ran to the store to buy goods with it. and after the end of the workday the same exercise.
Farmers did not really get rich of it. I also assume that there were some price caps for basic food.
Some extortion may have happened but not enough to build fortunes. BUT: there are many small to medium sized farms, also in Germany. People knew each other and they had relatives that did not have land. If they were close they had to help them out resp. sell at decent prices. A farmer demanding extortion prices form the locals, friends and family could not have shown his face in church or the local pub. The bad rep would have haunted them beyond their death.
So social pressure prevented extortion excesses. I know for a fact that regular farmers did not get rich during that time. That was not even the case after WW2 when the situation was way worse. Maybe some snatched up some (small) valuables. Things one could hide - because they certainly could not store a lot of furniture, or large equipment (or art). And they could not show off the ill gotten gains, that would have made them the talk of the village.
Now in Prussia (East of Germany) they had land gentry and large estates, so they might have implemented some aquisitions, but they had locals as farm and domestic helpers who knew what was going on.Usually they had a Prussian code of honor to go with the status - so I think that prevented excesses as well.
some taking advantage of the situation of desperate people may have happened, but not at a large scale.
Of course everyone even with a small homestead was better off, but these folks had grown food before that, and those that were poor before, stayed poor. They still had problems to pay for shoes, garments, ....
The Prussian land owners were in trouble in 1932 (that was way past the hyperinflation time), they got subsidies - that was seen very critical (when it was austerity for regular folks, they just had recovered a little bit - and then the Great Depression hit them. Next phase of austerity). If they had gotten a reputation for extortion prices in former years that would have haunted them even more.
Price extortion did not happen during WW2 (not at relevant levels, that could get you executed or into concentration camp, for instance secret meat production, they had to declare what they produced and it was divided up, people had food cards and every person was entitled to buy only a certain amount of bread, milk. Of course there were black markets - but that was dangerous, and no one could dare to draw attention. Or expose themselves to retaliation)
and not even after WW2 - then it was dire for 2 years, but again social pressure kept them in check. and the land gentry of Prussia (which had larger estates) was not in need of their code of honor, the land was occupied by the Soviet army, Poland
They had a slight advantage over people that could not produce food and it was common to burn wood, so they got that covered.
But they still had to buy some things, like tools, clothes, shoes.
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@ruthieohair4743 You are envious about the people that - unlike white farmers ! - have never gotten a handout, were screwed as slaves, and are a slim minority anyway. There are not many black farmers left, and you can ask yourself why that is. (btw I saw a video of a black farmer that sends his white father in law to sell the soy beans because they will pay him lower prices, claim reduced quality. His FIL gets the standard price just fine.
You can complain about the white farmers that got native land for free in the late 1900 century (1870s, also see Homestead Act - that was not intended to benefit anyone but white people).
Have you read the book series of Laura Ingalls-Wilder ? They were not satisifed in Wisconsin (or Charles Ingalls could not make a living with the homestead in the forest and as trapper/ hunter). So they moved on to Kansas, there were rumours the Osage land there would be handed over to white settlers. Laura also describes how furious her father was when the government eventually would not back up the claims of farmers that had just settled on treaty land (I do not think he paid for the property they just took it - Little House in the prairie.
Little House at the plum creek (Minnesota) was the next station, they left before the U.S. army made them. I think he traded in horses for the property, did not have to pay a lot, and the former owner went to the West (in search of better free land, he already knew what was not working with the land, at least with European farming methods, and malaria).
All that moving around of wanna be farmers without money was not going on in Europe - because no one handed out free land to some people (whites !) and set the wanderers in motion.
Not one of the FARMERS or people with a biz she describes is a non-white person. (One black doctor (in the prairie book, the second), and she was surprised to see him, likely that doctor could not make a living in the areas with better income opportunities, black and colored folks had little money to pay a doctor and white folks likely did not accept him in the cities and went to other docttos - so he was available for the prairie communities).
No Asians (you bet Chinese kulis would have jumped at the chance) and no Black people or Latinos either even got a chance to get their own farm (not only a homestead, these were farms).
They paid for that farm in Kansas, but the locusts and disease devastated them.
Laura told her daughter (but did not write about it) that the family once left overnight and left unpaid bills behind. I guess that may have been unpaid medical bills when the whole family got scarlatina (Mary went blind over it). Charles got a job offer with the railway (with help of a relative) and he moved with the cart right away - and the family (mother and the girls) followed later (after selling the farm), their first railway trip.
After the railway trip (where they also settled for free) they moved on to get land in the area for free in South Dakota. For little money and only condition was that they had to be more than half of the year on the property and work it.
The "Mule and and a few acres" promise of the reconstruction era were not followed through either.
Mind you the former slaves had been exploited for FREE labor - and generations before them. Sure it benefitted the top 30 % of society, but those 30 % were not made to pay for compensations, and the rest of white folks let them do it. (to be fair the slave holders had become paranoid even before the Civil War started and they had a police state going on, also cracking down on white trash. And they drafted the young men of poor families as cannon fodder to protect chattel slavery.
Freeing slaves was the largest redistribution of wealth ever done. Slaves were the largest ASSET CLASS in the U.S. - more than industrial ivnestment, railway and what not. But once the white hit back (stripping them of the right to vote and the elected politicians that were people of color) - the former slaves were underpaid farm workers, and they were terrorized by the Klan, so not much improvement.
The lower classes feared wage competition, the rich promoted massive immigration of poor Europeans to keep wages down, so the slaves of the South could only in theory move to the North. They did not get jobs, housing, and the mood was hostile.
In the U.K. the slave holders ! were paid for the financial losses when slavery was ended (the former slaves got nothing). The same policy was considered by Lincoln but because of the Civil War they did not bother.
Major handouts in the 1930s - Dust Bowl (and many were able to pass on the farms to their kids because of that help). Or from the 1960s on when politicians were elected that promoted the growth of LARGE farms. Which happened to undermine black farmers more because they traditionally had smaller farms, because they were legally and informally hindered to grow in the decades before.
To round if off, the banks discriminated against black farmers (meaning a white person with the SAME fundamentals got a loan or got it cheaper). That can make all the difference - a loan helping you over bad times, or you have to give up and sell for cheap. And it makes a difference if there are courses for (small) farmers, that was before the interenet, now a homesteader / small farmer can have a steep learning curve and benefit from the mistakes someone else made before him.
The only way to make it in the system (at least it looked like that) was to grow and aquire more land, and to invest in large machines for industrial agriculture. That was promoted by politicians that were voted in with help of white "conservative" folks (farmers ! too) was often to leverage capital - and that needed loans. Getting them at all, or getting them at comparable conditions of the competitors.
The "Farm Bill" was an issue discussed in the debates between Nixon and JFK in 1960 (both were for it, and you bet that was not helpful for small farmers, it may have been well intentioned to push for "modern" farming, but it hurt especially black farmers). I guess the Farm Bill dates back to the Eisenhower era though.
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6:00 he confidently makes ridiculous comments about Weimar. It is true that hyperinflation was a troubling time, (deflation and austerity after that was worse !) BUT no one starved, and if they would have "been priced out of necessities" there would have been hunger revolts. The government would have prevented priced gouging. At that time many countries had import quotas for agricultural products to protect their own farmers, so the German farmers could not simply export what they could not sell at home.
and in hunger times responsible governments could always put an export ban on food (the British did not do that during the Irish potatoe famines, they exported to England while people starved to death). But the Weimar Republic would have used that tool, so farmers could ONLY sell in Germany, and while prices were going up with high inflation - like coal, paper, books, garments, tools - they did not go up beyond that. And wages were constantly adjusted.
Affluent people can only eat so much meat, butter, eggs - the farmers also had to produce for the little people that were hanging on - and they had to offer at prices that were not completely out of line with what happened in the economy.
It was a hassle, many just scraped by - pretty much like the Great Depression in the U.S. - then farmers also did not get rich, did they ? Not regular farms, some large estates may have done well - like always.
The high unemployment numbers were NOT during hyper inflation - then it makes sense to put the machines etc. to use and consumers bought as fast as possible, so they needed the workforce. They solved the payments for reparations after the French invasion had ended with AUSTERITY and then it got really bad.
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@Swansue No till gardens and cover it with mulch (less watering / irrigation, less weeding - much less ! if you set up your beds in the right way). The cover layer protects and attracts soil life that creates good soil. I think you can boost that with some compost teas, or adding fungi to give the good microorganisms a head start. - Soil is an organism and it harvests solar energy and carbon and even nitrogen from the air - over time but you must know what you are dong. And even if a no till garden can be run with little work - you must be nearby. to see if your plants are doing well, if there are pests, weeds coming up, it is easy to pull them out, but you better do it before they bloom and seed.
Land will recover over decades, as long as there is enough rain (else human input is needed to stop and reverse a downward spiral) but if you want to put it to good use and speed up the process considerably you need to be nearby.
You may come across "Back to Eden gardening", and they like to work with wood chips as mulch. There are some things you can get wrong (to the point where it becomes a failure, so do your research first.
You must understand the function of ground cover (you do NOT even want that to decompose, you want it intact and stable as wood chip, it is shoved aside for planting and harvesting and then put in place again) versus
raw material for compost. On a heap, or directly in the soil.
Wood chips and even logs (some bury it into the ground - a little deeper ! you can do that IF you know what you are doing) will become good soil - over a few years in hot and humid area (think 2 years for chips as top cover in Florida, they must replace them then) - but in arid or wet but cooler regions that could take 5 years or more.
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@Swansue Some enthusiasts saw a documentary about Back to Eden Gardening (2 young females likely with no garden made it, ABOUT the method, and Paul Gautchi did not really have a structured way to explain what was essential and how to tweak the rules, he is in the state of Washington, maybe important hints were edited out as well) - so some wanna be gardeners worked wood chips into the existing soil.
That is a major mistake and there is no good reason to ever do that.
Maybe those inexperienced users did not even start with good soil and a thick compost layer. One can work with poor soil, or on former lawn and little compost, but then you certainly need to know what you are doing and how to compensate for these challenges (adding nitrogen rich fertilizer and using crops that have roots that do not go too deep).
It gets better over years, the soil improves top down and soil life softens the (poor) layers under it and make it more permeable for water, air, earth worms, nutrients - and roots of plants with higher demands regarding space / depth of their root system.
Over the course of 2 - 3 years you also should have your compost and worm bin, and compost teas, nettle manure and nettle tea * game in place (one can buy compost, but not everyone wants to spend the money, or can afford to).
* stingy nettle tea: leaves fermented with sugur, no water added and it does not stink, so you can work around the nettle manure. Which is easy to set up, but the neighbours might not like it if you are too close. Plastic ton, water, and the plants thrown in.
The chips in the soil rot faster (dark, moisture, the fungi are present). So that means (temporarily) binding nitrogen. Which the plants would need to grow (only legumes like peas can deal with it, they have a cooperation with air nitrogen fixing bacteria going on in their root system).
Maybe the job of reducing evaporation and preventing weeds is done insufficiently - the wood chips are not the top layer but are in the higher levels of the soil. So avoidable work with watering and weeding - for measly plants.
Of course: the chips that were worked into the soil draw nitrogen, so the plants will not grow well. Some people got away with that mistake, not too many wood chips worked into the soil, working with already good soil (so their reason for no till gardening with mulching, is to save hours, not so much the soil building), they happen to have nitrogen rich compost or manure and / or happen to start with plants that do not have such high demands.
The chips are supposed to stay on top, if you want wood turning into compost you let fungi (or chickens poo if the chipsa are used as bedding) do some pre processing, you avoid composting it directly in your bed - at least in the top and middle layers where the roots of your crops are. (there are people that bury logs and thick branches at the bottom of their soil. It does draw nitrogen - from surounding soil. That can be set up so the the crops on top get their nitrogen form the soil above and that can coexist well. (Marine Gardener: you have all the soil you need).
Compost heap can do the job of breaking down wood. it need lots of green (nitrogen rich) waste, mixed with carbon rich (brown) waste - like wood. If one has only green (grass clippings) or only brown waste the composting does not work well.
Or adding things like nettle teas, nettles, urin, blood meal, leaves, .... lawn and grass. That also improves the nitrogen content.
Or you grow mushrooms in the wooden particles to break them up.
Or the plastic bag method - happy accident. An user did not get around to use all wood chips that she had ordered, the clear bags let soak in rain water and trapped sun (in sunny Iowa summer with lots of rain). She said the wood chips were fairly large, likely it was pine - and they broke down beautifully within 2 months.
But then it is compost and not mulch (ground cover) anymore. No idea where the nitrogen comes from or if in that case other organisms do the job. I assume if the chips are in soil the fungi that take nitrogen out of the soil win the race - getting it out of the air costs them more energy / effort - so they will prevail under these conditions. Maybe in the bag in the absence of anything but water and solar energey the fungi prevailed (fungi are responsible for breaking down wood) that can get nitrogen gas out of the air. That would be fabulous because that is a net gain for the system. Or in the plastic bag the microorganisms do not use nitrogen for the process.
One could do that with excess material, so build soil fast, even better if one intends to produce some edible mushrooms along the way.
One can overcome less than ideal start conditions. Little compost, poor soil. only a mat of grass roots from the former lawn under it. Back to Eden gardeners put newspapers on lawn or weeds that they want to turn into a field or garden (if wet newspapers cling to the surface and kill the grass under it). Cardboard is not quite as effective, it leaves some airbubbules and the roots might survive. If there is no compost and soil to work with - lots of newspapers and cartons on top can be the first raw material. Only - they are carbon rich, so there will be need to give nitrogen in the first year(s).
then put on whatever compost old soil there is, then wood chips on top. Then watering it and letting it sit. Ideally from fall to spring - but if you plant after a few weeks it should be robust plants and / or having a plan to help them a long with fertilizing methods. Compost teas, liquid nettle manure, blood or fish meal solved into water.
Wood chips (everthing that is carbon rich biomass) draws nitrogen for the time they are broken down in soil or in a compost heap (the nitrogen is eventually released) but that does not help you if you want to have one or several harvests in this bed this season. So use mulch as COVER, especially wood chips (the more carbon rich the more you could run into nitrogen problems for the crops of the first years).
Wood chips are supposed to be from smaller branches. If they are from thicker branches or the stem extra nitrogen is needed. Not sure about bark as cover. That might work in regions where the top cover does not break down fast (so not in the South of the U.S. or the Philippines, etc.). Else whatever could be harmful in the bark (for a while) is getting into the layers under it too fast, and the system cannot buffer it.
Bark might be good for the paths between beds. No weeds coming up, keeping things dry. I think slugs do not like it much either.
Saw dust could work as cover, I would test it if it works in your neck of the woods, but it would be especially bad to work that into soil.
you can use mushrooms to break up wood chips, sawdust and even logs. They can even deal with saw dust. or you pre-rot chips in a plastic bag in the sun with moisture. or have it as bedding for animals (Opinions are divided, little chicks might eat wood chips and it can harm them and saw dust may be bed for their respiratory system). Nitrogen rich manure helps with starting the composting process of carbon rich biomass. Like wood or straw.
Green things are rich in nitrogen (or blood / fish meal. Or urine, manure, compost teas, ...)
There is the art and craft of composting, just throwing things on a pile can work, but not always. And it might take longer than if you create ideal conditions.
A garden needs animals, they help with manure that speeds up composting. Either you can import manure into your system - horse, cow manure is good. Chickens or rabbits are good for a small operation - but if that is not possible your manure producing animals can be the worms in a compost bin. They require little work, once they are set up.
Or black soldier larvae, that is a larger operation, more hassle and more visible (for nosy neighbours).
Certainly the earth worms that you invite by creating good conditions for them (by mulching) also count as your "animals".
Their "guts" are bioreactors that produce for you - for free.
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@22fordfx49 Opening the economy in late March / April 2021 - despite the massive rollout of vaccines the U.S. saw a surge (luckily that has subsided now). More cases = more chances for mutations and some of them might undermine the vaccines. Which the pharma companies love *. The idiots of the Trump admin or the EU did not prepare last summer how to roll out the vaccines GLOBALLY. Bill Gates meddled with the WHO (how is a private sponsor even allowed to have so much influence on a global institution ! And the Biden admin continues to drag their feet.
Patents need to be lifted, but there is also the bottleneck of producers. New factories open in the U.K. (for Astra zeneca most likely). The university of Oxford wanted to make it open source but Bill Gates came in and persuaded them otherwise.
In India the virus is now given plenty of chances to mutate further. And in India they can produce vaccines, they produce a lot of others just fine.
* Biontec got plenty of subsidies to create the corona vaccine - you bet they and the other pharma companies would like to repeat that and if the damn virus mutates enough (because it is given the chance) then we will have no choice but pay them for more vaccination campaigns. Even if the yeast produced people's vaccine is released it might be too late to prevent the mutations and ALL producers might have to start over. It will be shorter most likely, but it takes a few months nontheless and there are the costs and the logistics.
A people's vaccine is developed by a Texan doctor and his team:
check out Peter Hotez, they got the genome in January 2020, like all the other researchers BUT he had to fundraise privately, and that cost them 2 months until he had the necessary 4 - 5 million USD, which is not even small change in that area.
BionTec got 450 million USD (from the German government) and then was snatched up by Pfizer.
Dr. Hotez finds the mRNA technology interesting and promising BUT it might not be the choice of mass vaccine to beat a pandemic. Which makes FAST GLOBAL rollout necessary.
If their vaccine works (they are still doing the necessary tests and trials, looking good so far), it can be mass produced FAST, because it is produced by yeast cultures. So it can be scaled up big time, I guess they do not depend on special materials either.
Such a vaccine also does not need special temperatures (extremely deep) so another advantage for distribution in poor countries.
The technology is not the new mRNA and also not the technology where adenovirus are the vehicle.
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Tell me what taxes are high ?? that is nonsense, the only tax relevant for a farming business would be tax on the farmland OR tax after they made good revenue. Now if he holds a day job (part time) and his wife does a lot of the work, they are taxed as couple for ALL their income. Like any biz or employee. but if he complains about the income tax AFTER the excessive Trump tax cuts you bet that is a good problems to have.
IF there is even land tax (like home owners have to pay) it is certainly modest. With all the help farmers get in politics do you think any farmer is taxed high for their land ?
Hell, no.
It is the input (often very expensive machines, bought with LOANS), the need for more and more fertilizer, herbicides to compenssate for degrading soil - versus the revenue. which is too low, because the "market" = the system as it is set up has conditioned consumers to expect CHEAP grocieris, meat, milk,.....
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Back in the day meat, cheesee, butter, fruits and vegetables was sold at REALISTIC prices. It was treated as valuable food (except for the staples like potatoes, cabbage, ...) because it is. Now they offload a lot of the costs (damage to environement, fossil fuel use, massive water use, degradation of soil, pumping the aquifers dry ) to future generations. Cattle ranchers overgraze public land, and then the tax payers have to deal with the fire hazard, lower water retention capacity, or they have to pay for goat herders that can reverse the process. Plus the loss of biodiversity.
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NAFTA allowed large U.S. farmers to dump their surplus resulting from big ag style production methods onto the Mexican market. That ruined small Mexican farmers - either they join the cartells, grow drugs. Or they try to get a job in the cities (but not that many new manufacturing jobs were created to compensate for the assault on small farmers, and the goal of outsourcing is to not pay them welll, so that does not build the middle class like the good wages did in the U.S. after WW2.
Or they try to get into the U.S.
The price for opening the Mexican (and later the Chinese) markets for big farmers : Outsourcing of well paying manufacturing jobs. It would be cheaper, fairer to let the big guys pay for the realistic costs (water, fossil fuel, damage to the soil, water, highly concentrated excrements in some places). Levelling the playing field for the small farmers and homesteaders that seem to produce at higher costs, because they do not externalize costs.
No they are not less efficient or producing at higher costs - they are just not burdening others or future generations with their costs so they can produce "cheap" now.
As for higher food costs - so what: organic / permaculture farming binds CO2 - massively if done right. It improves soil quality, water retention, keeps the old seeds alive. They could get CO2 credits - or even easier the large farmers have to pay tax for their carbon (fossil fuel) intense way of farming. The trust fund farmers will not like that. They could not compete with the small guys who would replace fossil fuel use with diversity and smart methods and human labor (those tractors have to be earned). The consumers get a carbon benefit that compensates for higher food costs. Done.
Small farmers and the large ones produce at realistic ! costs (the big farmers with help of a CO2 tax) and the consumers have the money to pay for it. would also bring new new folks into the rural areas. Help with unemployment. The large farmers would need to be nudged / forced to SELL some of their land or to lease it long term think 15 - 20 years. I would go for for forcing sales, either prohibitive taxes if the property is too large. Could be tricky because you cannot compare orchards, with corn fields with cattle ranches in the Dakotas.
The price for industrially produced food is not calcualted that way anyway.
The joghurt, cereal, sausages, canned corn, frozen peas costs 1.99 or 3.99 or 4.59 or whatever. That is obviously a price that marketing determined, it does not come from a price calculation. The costs of raw material (what the farmers get paid, and tranports and logistic costs) does not play such a role. Marketing eats up a lot of the budgets - I am all for shifting that portion to small ! farmers.
People should eat less processed food anyway. So direct marketers could have a growing niche if they organize in cooperations and sidestep the likes of Walmart. but if you have to sell the produce of hundreds of acres you need buyers like McDonalds or other chains or Walmart. And they will push for low prices and a certain style of farming with establish (industrial farming, Big Ag).
They do not need the huge expensive machines, labor replaces that, and they can use methods that align with permaculture. They go with nature instead of going against it with machines and fertilizer etc.
Think a slope, a meadow with fruit trees on it. A large farmer with a big tractor would refuse to work such a piece of land or to set it up that way. A homesteader / small farmer can put that configuration to excellent use - with no or much smaller (used) machines. They may not make as much money off the land. But since their methods do not work against nature they also build soil, improve yield over time, need the veterinairan not as often (their cows are not driven to extreme milk performance, those cows often get into trouble after giving birth).
Well, they also do not have to pay for the ongoing costs of a big tractor (costs 50,000 ... 80,000 plus fuel, repairs, tires, insurance ....). They do not need to make so much revenue. And if one harvest or crop is not doing well, they are not leveraged with debt, are diversified and likely sell in the U.S. so trade wars to not harm them.
The farmers got a subsidy for that as well. so first the U.S. blue collars paid for their enhanced export chances to Mexico and China with their jobs and the downfall of their towns, and now they had to be compensated that the Trump admin made a half assed attempt to remedy the fallout of the trade deals (almost nothing, it was window dressing). Trump also produces in China, his daughter got excluseive brand rights for garments, his campaign merch came from China, so I wonder how serious he was. Trump always needs a boogeyman (or woman) or a wedge issue to rile up people. HRC was not available in that role after he beat her in the electoral college in 2016 - so he needed another enemy. China, masks, the media, .....
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The large farmers you mention inherited huge land because of the lottery of birth, probably got it tax free (trust !). They aim to grow their fortune, probably even with some government jobs (custodian ? teacher) So when is it enough ? hoarding the land that could be the source of income for many families. - as for your operation. Of course you cannot live of it, you do not try (because you obviously do not need it, it is a hobby / lifestyle).
Your horses are not a hobby, they are a costly hobby - may you be happy with them and never need the veterinarian ;)
2 goats and 12 hens are a homestead of a hobbyist and friend of animals and rural life, but of course that does not equal the income of a 40 hours job.
There is a family in the city with a small garden (what you typically have with a house), 4 people eat off that organic garden (all planted, lots of raised beds) and they sell the surplus at the market, 20,000 USD per year. Give that family a few acres and at least 2 of them make a full time living - but of course they would need to be much more intentional than you, and planning their operation, sales, composting, growing schedule. Plus they would have to put in the hours.
They learned to put that tiny space to good use, and can do so in a sustainable manner.
20,000 does not sound like much - but you have to add what they do not have to buy, they may have underreported (if I can watch the youtube video, the IRS or envious neighbours can see it too). I was very impressed with the 20k considering how small the space is. If one of them loses the job they have a financial buffer and with the skills they learned they could even try to rent another piece of land and put that to use as well.
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@freedomforever1962 Have you heard of google earth, satellite photos, and drones ? - I'll suggest strict water protection laws like they do in the "wealthy) European countries. btw: I think it is insanity to push facking, they have not even dealt the the (often unlined) coal ash ponds. What are they going to do with the highly toxic fluids they use to extract the gas and oil from the shale layers. In Europe people are more aware of the value of clean water, and it is much harder to establish fracking. They try in the U.K. (of course leave it to the Tories) but they find considerable resistance.
And the aquifers do not belong to the person sitting on it. Or a well. One can use the water if the spring is on the property but ONLY if it is not negative for the water table and does not impact the neighbours around it. THEY and the regional authorities have a say and a veto.
Now, that can get petty if you need their permissiion to even make a pond.
On the other hand the big guys cannot just dry up a water table, large projects are decided at the state level, and draw a lot of attention. Neighbours, farmers, media, environmentalists.
It may be annoying that everything needs a permit (although normal projects that are good for the water system should not be a problem, you just have to ask, make your case and if it is unusual or large have you arguments ready. So doing your homework.
In central Europe it is hill and mountain area and some of it gets lots of snow and rain, so if you make a pond at the wrong place or harvest water into the soil of a hill - that may trigger mudslides. There is a permaculture pioneer Joseph Holzer in Austria who did remarkable work in his neck of the mountains, (steep slopes and he did that since the early 1970s so lots of experience and a good track record). I know of one project that he did in the U.S. - native prairie land - but when he advised a land owner in Austria in a dryer, warmer, more flat region in another state, she ended up with a mudslide, went bankrupt and they were engaged in a court battle.
if the underground is impermeable (clay, heavy loam) a gliding layer can develop if you get too much water into it. More then the system is used too, or trees were taken out, or there is unusually heavy rain. Likely that happened or an enthusiastic follower did not execute his instructions correctly.
If your pond does not monopolize the water of a creek, if you harvest rain water or want to set up fish lakes - you should be good.
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The Japanese back up their currency with valuable goods and services, they have a hard curency, which btw makes exporting harder and the export a lot anyway (while also having high labor and environmental standards) - they have a solid trade surplus and not only with the U.S. The Japanese trade balance (and the GDP numbers) are not inflated by magicked up numbers of the "contribution by finance"
the numbers crunchers and allies of big finance in the Fed have to make estimates for that "contribution" - mainly speculation - because that contribution is not self evident, like with other goods and services that go into the calculation of GDP - see Dr. Richard Werner.
With Japan it is machines, cars, and technology. Now they are going big with China on hydrogen. (agreements of early 2021 - of course no reporting on that in U.S. media).
I also do not think they created a lot of money "out of order" in the recent 20 years (no one prints it), they took out debt, but those government bonds are held mainly by actors IN the country.
EU, U.K. and the U.S. did QE to the tune of Trillions in the Obama era to helpt the big banks and banksters some more (after the first bailout mind you, 4.5 trn in the U.S., in that range or not much less in the Euro zone, and 700 or 800 bilions by the Bank of England for the U.K.).
I seem to remember that Japan invented the idea of QE (Quantitative Easing) after American finance styles and real estate bubbles got them into major troubles in the 1990s. They too rescued the big shots that had gone crazy with speculation. All hail the "free market".
Not sure though that they did a lot of it in the 2009 crisis, or in 2020, I think the Japanese banks had not joined the craze betwen 2000 and 2006 (like the banks of Australia, Canada, Sweden, ....) the government had learned some lessons from the 1990s and with the damage from tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns, earthquakes - they can't let speculators crash the economy on top of that. Their debt partially stems from events beyond their control. The cost of Fukushima do not really show up (think future health costs), the loss of private propety value is not accounted for either - but the earthquake and tsunami caused considerable damage.
The FED started QE again already in fall 2019 (billions "only") so a correction was imminent.
Along comes SARS-CoV-2.
1.2 trillion in form of QE created in March 2020 for the "markets" (the speculators of finance).
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