# British Exodus?



## Vol

Seems that the some of the British have had enough of their version of the EPA.....the EU and their associated money teat.

Regards, Mike

http://www.agweb.com/article/british-farmers-crave-independence-but-fear-cost-of-eu-exit-naa-associated-press/


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## somedevildawg

Good for them.....someone realizes that the suckling has to stop now or forever hold your peace.....we should adopt like measures here in the states.


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## Vol

somedevildawg said:


> Good for them.....someone realizes that the suckling has to stop now or forever hold your peace.....we should adopt like measures here in the states.


Many folks do just that here in the US. Just say no.

Regards, Mike


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## RuttedField

When I was over in Ireland and staying at a farm, it was unbelievable at what they got for subsidies. The Husband was incensed at his wife because she forgot to send in the wean times on their calves and missed out on a boatload of money...for just weaning their calves! There were other subsidies too and for everything. We are subsidized here, no question about it, but nothing like they are over there!!

One issue not mentioned in the article was that while British, Scotland and Ireland farmers get a lot of subsidies, it has drastically been reduced from what it was. As the EU expanded, they gave subsidies to areas struggling more, and who could produce more food for the EU due to better soil. Romania was one such country. When I was in Ireland, the fact that they were getting less money utterly made the Irish farmers IRATE!! So keep that in mind after reading the article...yeah they are down right mad because they are getting far less then they were anyway!

As for environmental regulations; I was told that his neighbor spread cow manure 3 days before they were allowed too and satellites operating overhead saw the manure spreads and sent him a fine in the mail. He claimed the wraps that came off from baleage also caused fines to be sent out from people who were watching via satellite. Is it true? I have no idea, but since Ireland is the exact same size as the state of Maine, it is possible with such a small country.

(Interestingly enough, my daughter flew to Ireland today and is staying at that same farm that i stayed at a few years ago).


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## JD3430

The Euro never worked. The immigration will be the next big problem. The British have almost no identity anymore. I couldn't believe how many immigrants there were when I was there.


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## somedevildawg

Vol said:


> Many folks do just that here in the US. Just say no.
> Regards, Mike


You're right, but not many.....they tried to "give" me money 3 years straight to not plant cotton on my hayfield......never had any intention of planting cotton on this cotton base, but......they wuz itching to give me that money.....amounted to about $1500 the first year. I asked her to explain it to me and she never could, to my satisfaction, explain why I needed to be paid to not plant cotton on a field I had turned into a hayfield.....it wasn't for lack of tryin, but I never got an acceptable answer and never "signed up" for the freebies, daddy always said "boy, ain't nothin in life free" I kinda took it to heart.....apparently and sadly I'm in the minority. It's kinda like the steroid scandal, new players coming up....learned it from the old players and if you want to "level that playing field" the urge to "fall in line" can be too great. I'm not a big fan of subsidies, but I believe a man should be paid a fair market price and if that were the case the need for subsidies would decrease .....IMO


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## swmnhay

The latest subsidy is cover crops.They are basically free after the subsidy if you follow all the rules.What I've seen flown on into standing crops is like money down the drain,very poor stands.Some are drilling after silage and getting a lot of feed,Triticale or winter rye.

Gubberment wants cover crops so subsidies them.

gubberment wants cattle under roof and manure contained,so subsidies it.


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## somedevildawg

Vol said:


> I think we probably have as many farmers refusing subsidies here as we do accepting them.
> 
> Regards, Mike


I wish I was so optimistic, but I'm not.....however I do think the amount of acres farmed has correlation with the decision as to whether or not to get "paid". So if you took into account ALL farmers....perhaps
But if you considered all farmers who farm over....say 500 acres, the proportion would be much, much greater. My hats off to those who resist.....but everyone has different situations and different needs, it all goes back to the price of the crop when it's ready for market, we can't expect a man to lose money, but I don't want to fund the latest greatest trucks and equipment for the guy that made poor business decisions based off of "free money" they were counting on......


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## RuttedField

I like the fact that they are going to "crop indemnity payments" instead now. To me that just makes more sense. If the price drops below what is determined to be a profitable threshold, monies are kicked in and the farmer does not end up losing his shirt. In the end I think that is better because the world gets their food, but not at the expense of the farmer. Yet if the price is over that threshold, the government does not pay at all; the farmer is making profit.

I've got some farm subsidies over the last few years...and my farm is certainly better off for it because it was under the EQUIP Cost Share Program and they were environmental improvements I would have never made...never been able to afford on my own. You guys can beat me up for that I guess, but I know another farmer who does not get in the EQUIP Program and dumps his manure right on the ground, has no bunker for his corn silage, and just has a farm that is a mess. All that leaches downhill to the lake. Its all legal because he is grandfathered, but I am not sure ethically if that is better. Just two different approaches to farming.

For me, I think subsidies are okay as long as it fits the general farm plan. When farms are always changing to try and get the latest round of funding, then it is just plain wrong.


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## JD3430

Man I could use a subsidy right now....or a "bailout" lol


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## luke strawwalker

I remember when I was in high school and some of the discussions I had with friends. They knew I was running the farms for my Grandmother after my Grandpa died, and we got to discussing subsidies. This was back in the 80's when we were getting paid for "set-aside" acres, essentially, getting paid "not to plant" part of the crop. The field had to be kept relatively weed-free during the growing season, but at a certain point (think it was early September) we could plant something on it-- so we planted hay grazer and would take a single cut in late October or early November, right before frost. Anyway, I had some city kid friends who were just irate that we "rich farmers" were getting paid NOT to plant land... course the gubmint was getting something out of it as well-- less cotton stuck in loan that they ended up with as "surplus" and having to dump at a loss on the world market, smaller surpluses, and thus a higher 'market price'. And I also pointed out to my town kid friends that us "rich farmers" were hardly rich-- I only farmed cotton on part of the home place here, 62 acres, and later rotated other crops in that too at about 50-50 usually, as well as 14 acres of hay, and the 160 acres of pasture and cattle at Shiner...

Of course "rich farmers getting paid to leave land idle" ended up on 60 Minutes and other empty suits and talking heads made hay with that story, inflaming the city slickers, so that program went away not long after. I was really left scratching my head by some of the things that took it's place, like "market incentives" to big cotton buyers... trickle down economics at its finest-- pay big cotton buyers a few cents a pound on every pound of cotton they buy, and it'll create "incentive" in the market to buy more pounds, and thus increase the incentive payments... and of course the "competition" will then drive prices up, as they try to "outbid" one another to buy all the extra cotton. Sure... RIIIIiiiiggghhtt... No, buyers bought what they could move profitably and stuck the money in their pocket, and prices remained in the toilet, by and in large.

Then we got "the 1996 Farm Bill" supposedly the "last farm bill ever" as it would last 7 years and by the end of it, the gubmint was "getting out of the ag business" and everything was going to be left "to the markets to decide in the private sector". "Freedom to Farm" allowed us to realign our base acres with what we were really doing-- at least you could elect to do that-- the previous farm bills kept the base acres "locked down" and it would take SEVEN YEARS of continuously doing something different to align the base acres with the new practice... for instance, if you'd only had 30 acres of cotton base and say 30 acres of sorghum base, and did like we did after the grain markets crashed in the late 70's and we just grew cotton alone, it would take growing all cotton for seven years before you'd have the 30 acre sorghum base converted to cotton. 1/7 of the base change would be added every year you farmed that 30 acres of extra cotton, but you were basically paid off the existing base acres. So you're trying to make a change that makes better economic sense for your farm, say planting all cotton rather than cheap grain, but you're "locked in" because if you didn't plant that 30 acres of base on sorghum, you weren't getting paid for it. Plus, the extra 30 acres of cotton wasn't getting paid subsidies on either, not eligible for loan, etc, because you didn't have base for it... so you were either stuck planting cotton for seven years, only getting 1/7 after the first year, 2/7 after the second year, and so on for seven years before you finally converted all your base acres, or you were stuck planting what your bases were to get paid for all your acres. That kind of worked to our advantage-- we'd kept the home place base acres in cotton and the rented ground in sorghum when Dad was renting ground in the 70's (before he sold his stuff, quit farming, and figured out he could make 10X the money for 1/10 the work driving a truck as a Teamster at the nuclear plant, and left all the farming pretty much to Grandpa and me). Cotton was one of the best-paying crops gubmint money-wise, (second only to rice) and paid WAY better than corn, sorghum, or soybeans (don't remember exactly even when they became a program crop). Anyway, one GOOD thing about Freedom to Farm-- you could plant whatever you wanted on your base acres, and they DIDN'T change-- I remember we had to elect one of two different ways to figure it out and assign our base acres, and once that was chosen, you were locked in. We locked it in all cotton and stayed that way.

Now we suddenly had the "Freedom" to plant whatever the market was going to pay the most for. About the same time, the stupid Boll Weevil Eradication Program came charging in like one of Hitler's SS battalions and basically doing anything they wanted to do on your land whether you liked it or not, and charging you $20 bucks an acre for every acre of cotton (h3ll, that was the friggin' profit!). When they said you had to have their "letter of permission" to sell your crop, so basically, you pay for everything required to grow it, you plant it, tend to it, grow it, harvest it, haul it, pay to gin it, and then you have to have their PERMISSION to sell it before it's "yours", I told them where they could head in and just quit growing cotton, and went all sorghum. We'd played around with rotating in soybeans and corn and decided to just do all grain sorghum, it was cheapest and easiest to grow. Then a few years later, Grandma was getting quite elderly, and expenses in the late 90's and early 2000's were absolutely going through the roof (I remember well buying cotton seed when I was in high school for $45 a bag, when I quit growing cotton it was $150 a bag for triple treated non-GMO, and the neighbor across the fence was planting triple treated triple-stack RR/Bt/Bt2 and paying over $250 a bag for seed! Fertilizer that was $60 a ton when I was a kid, and $160 a ton when I was in high school, was nearly $400 a ton around that time... Meanwhile, cotton that had sold for 60 cents a pound when I was a wee little kid standing on the front seat of Dad's 72 Chevy pickup, was STILL selling for 60 cents a pound over 20 years later (and STILL IS!) it just didn't make any sense to me...

Well, as it turned out, the "last farm bill ever" wasn't the last farm bill ever... Someone in the gubmint figured out that if they wanted to keep their hands on the reins and control farmers, they had to keep offering them "carrots" in the form of some sort of gubmint farm program. SO, in 2002/2003, the next farm bill came out with another new hash of methods to figure out how you wanted to be paid, three different formulas this time IIRC, that you'd be stuck with for the next 5 years. I did some serious looking at it, and after looking at crop prices and production costs and the fact that Grandma was getting up in age, I told her, "Look, Uncle Sam's willing to give you $14,000 in subsidies over the next five years-- whether we plant the first seed of cotton or not (you were paid strictly on your base acres, totally independently of what you planted or if you planted anything at all). You can either spend that money and a boatload beside continuing to buy expensive seed, chemical, and fertilizer and repairing farm machinery to grow cheap cotton or sorghum, or we could just fence this place and put the whole thing in cattle. Let Uncle Sam pay for the fencing (which wouldn't cost any more than what we'd spend to put in a cotton crop anyway). It'll take us a couple years or so to get everything fenced and into grass and get a second herd started and build it up, but if you ask me, there's never gonna be a better time to make the transition." She was tired of the expenses row cropping and so was I, and basically we were making as much if not more on the cattle at Shiner than off the crops anyway, and the cattle were less than half the work and maybe 1/10 the expense of the crops anyway, so it was a no-brainer.

So, we got our payments on that farm program, and for a couple years on the one that followed that one, though by that time they were doing the "market transition payments" and it had become a little dibble of money and hardly worth the effort to sign up for... but since Grandma always had paid my Dad, brother, and I a "share" of the subsidies, I kept signing up and doing all the paperwork to keep it. When Grandma passed away, my parents decided to keep all the money, so I dumped the paperwork on them and told them if they wanted it, do it themselves. After a year or two, they'd had enough and quit... by that time it was pretty much a joke anyway.

Went with the BIL in Indiana to the "FSA" (remember when it was the ASCS-- Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service back in the 80's) office when he was looking at his 'program choices" last year... From what I understand, cotton isn't even a program crop anymore-- 3 years of tapering-off "market transition payments" and cotton is officially off the list (probably is by now or soon) and cotton farmers will get zilch. I know years ago the rice payments went to crap and overheard a LOT of guys saying they'd make more money not planting anything than they would planting rice-- and a lot of those guys put their good land into other crops. Rice, down here, is usually grown on poor soil anyway (since you have to leave it fallow every other year anyway-- land costs too much to leave fallow a year, so poor rice ground is "cheap enough" to lay fallow every other year). A lot of landowners figured out that under the program rules, they could bush-hog it twice a year and keep the rice payments for themselves, and sent a lot of farmer's packing and kicked them off their farms. The gubmint had a field-day with that one, but ultimately there wasn't a lot they could do... I remember when all that came down, there was a BIG contraction of the rice acres over a few years, and the rice seed plants and rice hulling plants and rice dryer operators all started hollering that "you farmers better keep planting rice, because once the seed plants and millers and elevators are gone, they're never coming back-- yall will be out of the rice business for good..." I see a LOT of rice fields that have turned into cow pastures over the last 10-15 years... I see about 1/3 the amount of cotton that used to grown around here as well... 15 years ago, it was just us and maybe 1-2 other "nuts" around here that even tinkered with soybeans-- now bean fields are fairly common around here. A lot of guys grew corn in a 50/50 rotation with cotton-- now a lot of those guys are all corn, or some mix of corn, beans, and a little cotton... and for most of the 80's sorghum had all but disappeared from this area, except for a few guys that rotated cotton with it instead of corn... Now sorghum and corn seem to be the two main crops, with a few fields of cotton and soybeans here and there. Course, cotton and rice are the two most expensive crops to grow, and corn, sorghum, and soybeans are among the cheapest crops to grow, so I guess that's no big surprise... We're down to 2 operating gins within a 20 mile radius-- growing up there were 2 in this town alone, and at least 8 more I can think of off the top of my head within 20 miles... Most of which we did business with at one point or another...

Anyway, I'm glad to not have to bother with the gubmint anymore. The farm program has become a joke, but it's the 'safety net' that keeps the farmers that have to borrow to put in a crop every year (about 95% of farmers, that is) in business... We never borrowed money, so that made the economics a little different for us. Grandpa borrowed-- he HAD to back in the 50's, 60's, and 70's... sometimes borrowing from one bank to pay off the other bank's loan from last year-- I remember sitting in a lot of bank office lobbies as a wee little kid... When he finally paid the last loans off a year before he died, in 81, Grandma said, "If we ever have to borrow money to farm again, that's the day we quit!" She was right...  We poor-boy it, but what we have is OURS, not mortgaged with some [email protected] banker... and we don't need no stinkin' gubmint money, or interference...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker

Seems like many of the issues they're facing, we're facing right here in the States...

I know I've been just amazed at the changes over the last 20 years, and virtually NONE of them make any sense...

Back in the late 90's/early 00's when my sister was in college at Texas Tech, we went to Lubbock quite a bit. I LOVE that area-- SO pretty, and the climate is SO nice compared to the Houston/upper coastal bend area of Texas I was born and raised in. I learned a lot about the area. Used to go to the big farm show they used to have in Lubbock every year for many years (before they finally managed to kill it, but that's another story). I remember hearing a lot about the issues of draw-down of the Ogalala Aquifer, and cotton production issues, etc. Being a cotton farmer, I found it rather interesting.

Back then, you'd drive for miles and miles and miles, looking across almost endless fields of skip-row cotton... 2 40 inch rows with a 40 inch (or so) "skip row" between them left unplanted. This was so that the two cotton rows could send roots out across the middle into the "blank row" to draw moisture from the parched ground (Lubbock only gets about 17 inches of rain a year, IIRC, and desert is considered anything that gets less than 14 inches a year, or something like that). Even skip-row grain sorghum (another drought-tolerant plant, like cotton) could be seen growing here and there, always (to my eyes used to five foot high coastal bend maize) ridiculously short...

It wasn't until you got between Slaton and Lubbock that you started seeing center pivot irrigation rigs, usually a half-mile long (with a mile wide circle under irrigation). Of course the cotton growing under pivots was always twice the size and probably four times the yield of dryland cotton... I remember about that time natural gas prices going through the roof, and suddenly all those irrigation pump engines running off natural gas tapped off the network of pipelines criss-crossing the country up there (the Edward's Plateau is just north of the Permian Basin, which is big oil and gas field territory) burning cheap metered natural gas straight out of the pipeline, when suddenly it wasn't so cheap anymore... I remember talking to one guy who's irrigation gas bill went from $3000 a month to $13,000 a month from one year to the next! There was a rush to buy diesel engines to replace the old Buda methane-burners, and even some guys putting in 3 phase power and going all-electric in places! (This was about the time the huge "gas shortage" drove fertilizer prices sky-high). Then I remember reading panic-filled articles and hearing programs about how all this irrigation was going to pump the Ogallala Aquifer dry in 10 years... and it'd take 100 years for it to recharge... at the same time I remember reading some article by a big cotton guru from Texas Tech (can't recall his name at the moment) saying there was NO REASON (genetically) why cotton on the high plains couldn't yield FIVE BALES AN ACRE with proper watering and fertilization and pampering... Then there was the fact that 30 years ago (now), there was only 10% of the land irrigated up there, and 90% was dryland production-- at the time I was reading these articles 15-ish years ago, it was 90% irrigated and only 10% dryland-- probably even more irrigated now...

I just shook my head thinking about it... ALL THIS to grow 60 cent cotton! Cotton that was 60 cents a pound when I was a wee tyke standing between mom and Dad on the front seat of his 72 Chevy pickup (carseats?? hadn't been invented back then, and the idea of a law FORCING you to use them?? HERESY!) Course that 72 Chevy pickup only cost $2000 bucks brand new. We'd go out to eat at Ron's Chicken a few times a week, and a plate of fried chicken (2 pieces) with 2 sides was only 35 CENTS... the whole family ate, with cokes, for less than $2.00.... fertilizer was $60 a ton, seed was $15 for a 50 pound bag, etc... Dad's friend growing up from across the road, when I was growing hay in partnership with him on his place, told me about a year or two after he graduated high school-- he rented a field across the creek from our place one year... only about 15 acres, and planted cotton. At the end of the year, he picked his cotton, ginned it, and sold it, paid off his loan and expenses and landlord's rent, and STILL had enough left over to buy a brand spanking new 1968 Ford pickup... FROM ONE FIFTEEN ACRE FIELD! Nowdays it'd take more than 15 acres to buy a new set of tires for your pickup!

So, anyway, pumping 100 years of water for 10 years at enormous expense to grow 2 bale to the acre cotton worth 60 lousy cents a pound... makes perfect sense to me... AND, the cotton guru "geniuses" at the University promoting TRIPLING INPUTS in order to make "5 bales per acre"... That really made me laugh-- we were DROWNING in surplus cotton at average 1.5-1.75 bale/acre national averages back then... IF they got everybody to start "pouring the inputs on it" and make 5 bales per acre, there'd be SO much cotton it'd drop to a nickel a pound! LOL Yep, GREAT idea!

Meanwhile, down on the coast, cotton farming was declining and dying a slow death that's now in its final stages... fighting all the bugs down here on the coast in our wetter climate, spraying weekly (sometimes twice a week!) is SO expensive, that even NOT having to pay to pump water on it and pay for center pivots makes 60 cent cotton a losing proposition down here... Yeah, we don't have the irrigation expense, we get enough rain (usually, unless we burn to a crisp like we sometimes do, or drown, like we did this year (and do often enough). Best we can do here is 2-2.5 bales/acre... up there they can do that ROUTINELY. No contest... we can't compete...

SO, cotton farming is slowly wasting away to nothing down here, on the coast, where we get enough rain to grow SOME kind of crop every year, some good, some bad, but SOMETHING... but we can't compete with sky-high irrigated yields grown, for all intents and purposes, in a DESERT, with precious water that will take 100 years of NO pumping to replace... all to grow the same cheap 60 cent cotton...

Doesn't matter what crop you look at, it's ALL following that same basic pattern, more or less. Look at dairying for instance... remember when Wisconsin was "the cheese state" because of all the dairying and cheese making up there?? Now friggin' CALIFORNIA is the new "dairy empire". A flippin DESERT! Pumping water to grow monster alfalfa yields and corn and silage and whatever else to feed dairy cows to make DIRT CHEAP MILK! Meanwhile, guys in the Midwest are going broke and can't even afford to operate anymore... (like my nephew's uncle that just lost his dairy to bankruptcy). It's nuts...

I saw an interesting program on LinkTV. Yeah, I know, liberal pablum, but still, good to see what the opposition thinks every once in awhile, and ya know, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then... This program was basically talking about these same very things, and the outcome wasn't good... Basically, they were making the argument that the last two centuries of human history have largely been "facilitated" by the mastery of fossil fuels. Think about it, the Industrial Revolution, mechanized transportation (not drawn by animal power or riding an animal's back or walking) ie railroad, shipping, roads and trucking, etc. all started with the ability to mine massive amounts of coal mechanically. Not too long after, it was oil and gas. Then things REALLY took off, including the population explosion... the agriculture "revolution" of hybrids, fertilizers, pesticides, and now GMO's being introduced and improved over time, allowed the vast majority of mankind in "developed" nations to remove themselves from menial farm labor required to grow food for a handful of people; now a handful of people could grow enough to feed hundreds or thousands, even millions. BUT, that "revolution" relies upon the technologies CREATED BY those same fossil fuels... chemical fertilizers and pesticides chief among them, though the scientific advances in hybrid and now GMO seed is supported by this "system" as well, and wouldn't have happened otherwise. What happens when that system "runs out" or "breaks down"??

How sustainable is it to rely on 'cheap' oil, gas, or electricity to pump 'scarce' water to grow 'cheap' crops in, for all intents and purposes, deserts? Meanwhile, in areas where those crops once flourished because of "natural" advantages in the soil and/or climate, production is withering away because it cannot compete with the high yields available to irrigate or highly industrialized production in less suitable areas... What does that say about sustainability, for the long term? I'm not an alarmist, but I AM a realist-- one day, the 'cheap' oil and gas is going to be gone, 'cheap' coal will follow, and 'cheap' water will be needed by the billion or more new mouths needing it to survive... what will happen then? The program's presenter basically was making the case that we are, in essence, "eating" cheap oil and gas and water that our industrial processes have allowed us easy access to and exploitation of... allowing things like 'cheap' irrigation and these massive shifts in production. Problem is, it's also allowed a HUGE population explosion to occur that is still building... at the same time, the "low hanging fruit" has all been picked-- the days of "cheap" oil, gas, and water are rapidly drawing to a close... we're already working harder and harder to open new reserves-- fracking is required to tap these resources that were in decades past not worth exploiting, but are now because the "easy" oil and gas has already been produced. Same thing with water, as California has been finding out the past few years.

Sooner or later, time will tell, but reality always wins in the end. Sooner or later, the "cheap" oil, gas, and water will dry up, and with it these new 'ag empires' blooming in the deserts. What will happen then? Production will migrate back to areas more "naturally disposed" to growing those crops, I suppose. Only problem is, a lot of the land that was once productive farmland, at least around here, is now under subdivisions and strip-malls. I guess anything that can be built can be torn down, bulldoze the McMansions to turn it back into farmland again... but the price is going to be high. There's going to be a lot of pain and suffering in the meantime to get to that point as well, I'm afraid. Of course the yuppie/tree hugger answer is always "we grow more than we can use now-- we just have to quit feeding wasteful meat animals with it, and wasting it to make ethanol, and "yadda, yadda, yadda"... The problem hasn't been that we simply cannot grow enough food for the poor, starving masses of the world-- the problem is AND REMAINS that THEY DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY TO BUY IT WITH! I don't know of ANY farmers, myself included just growing crops or livestock to GIVE it away free of charge! You cannot sell anything to people with no money... pretty simple idea. We've been able to grow enough food for a LONG time already, so much so that the biggest problem we had in the 70's, 80's, and 90's (and remains today) is WHAT to do with the SURPLUS? Gubmint programs were created, like putting grain or cotton in "loan" with the gubmint, and then either selling it later for a better "market" price, and paying back storage and interest, or just "keeping the loan" and letting the gubmint have the crop... both were ways to keep the farmers in business and try to deal with the surpluses. When the US government got stuck with billions of bushels of excess grain, they tried GIVING IT AWAY to starving countries as "foreign aide" and subsequently were accused (with some validity) of destroying the economic farming capability of the indigenous farmers in those countries-- "dumping" massive amounts of food in a starving country "free" means the local farmers growing a little pittance of crop cannot sell what little he produces...

I don't know exactly what will happen. I know one thing-- it's gonna be a big mess, and gonna get a lot worse before it ever gets any better. I fully expect at some point we're going to go through one heck of a "meltdown" if not an all-out collapse before it's all over. Eventually, it'll all get sorted out and solve itself-- just as the fall of the Roman Empire didn't mean that all of Italy and most of Europe became a wasteland devoid of human life for millennia, neither will this eventual meltdown or collapse. BUT, it DID mean that there was a LOT more suffering and difficulty and a LOT of instability and contraction that took centuries to finally dig out from under...

Later! OL J R


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## mlappin

The Brits are a peculiar lot to start with. My mother in law grew up on rabbit, her father would go out several times a week bag several each time and have cheap protein for the week. Whats strikes me as funny, they took everybody's guns away, and now they have to built fences to keep the rabbits out of the fields as they are so abundant now. Farmers are heavily subsidized as enough people are still alive that remember quite vividly going hungry during and after WWII. Countryside was bombed to hell, roads need repair, supplies scarce, etc. Most of the Europe remembers that as well hence the heavy EU subsidies.

Pretty funny as well to hear em talk about all their free stuff. Ain't nothing in life free, well except for those who don't work at all then it's free, kind of. Free healthcare ain't, not when a healthy chunk is taken from your paycheck before you ever get it, depending on who you talk to a third or more is gone before you ever get your check, then of course as of late those that can afford it are buying private insurance so they don't have to deal with the NHS. Half the cost of a pint in the pub is sin tax, half the cost of the $7-9 a gallon gas is road tax, and there is a steep VAT (value added tax) on everything, its high enough that if you save all your receipts you can be reimbursed at Heathrow before you leave.


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## r82230

Latest poll shows about 1 in 4 chance of leaving. Came across this break-down by age bracket on how they would vote. Note: most polls were done before or around time of killing one of the 'stay' politicians (she was like 40 years old).
Larry

View media item 2666


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## Tater Salad

Britain and Germany are the ONLY currencies worth anything alone.....so the 2 are the backing for the euro. It's all about propping up the global economy...........As for the American farm subsidy programs , Our Gov't does a lot of things right and some wrong. If your my age and watched grown men on their knees crying as the banks sold their equipment off and then said "we'll be back for the farm in November" ,the late 70's and 80's were a blood bath ..."RAIN ON THE SCARECROW - BLOOD ON THE PLOW ".......Today we have every opportunity to succeed , How good of a manager/farmer are you ? The ONLY farmers in MY opinion that continually get the shaft are the Dairy Farmers (which I'm not), kill yourself sunrise to sunset , you work on floating ridiculous margins for a ridiculous un-free market price for the finished product. So if your not a dairy farmer keep your hand out of the till and out of the bankers office and just Farm baby !!!!


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## mlappin

r82230 said:


> Latest poll shows about 1 in 4 chance of leaving. Came across this break-down by age bracket on how they would vote. Note: most polls were done before or around time of killing one of the 'stay' politicians (she was like 40 years old).
> Larry


Your graph goes with pretty much what I've seen when visiting there, up until your forty or so you don't have a pot to piss in or any hope of owning your own pot for the most part. By time your forty or older you've been at the same job long enough your finally moving up (a little) in the company and finally making enough to afford things. I can see how the under forty crowd would want to stay. The wife cousin has been with the same company for decades now, he's a master printer at a newspaper, got promoted to facilities manager, still says he'll never be able to afford a new car over there, least not one that ain't a shit box (his words).

I have a guy that buys two round bales a year from me, one in the spring, another in the winter, its for a petting zoo he keeps at the KOA campground he owns. He was a fully certified mechanic for BMW, Mercedes and Saab in Switzerland, him and his wife moved here for the opportunities that are abundant in the states but practically nonexistent there. Said in the fifteen years he worked at the same dealership he'd get a cost of living increase but no real raise or promotion and he didn't see one coming until the guys ahead of him either retired or died.


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## Tater Salad

Take a good look at Europe.....the winds of Socialism are gaining steam here ! Bernie would have been put on trial as a communist 40 years ago......now the "Mellenials " think he's a hero......."what's yours is mine" !


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## r82230

Well it appears the 'pollsters' and 'odds makers' were slightly wrong, with the final vote 51.9% to 48.1% on the exit. They must of hired the ones we had here in Michigan for the primary (they had Hillary winning by a landslide and Bernie won) PS I did not vote for either of these liberals (but I can tell you when they are lying, seems their lips are moving).

These pollsters and odds makers appear to be getting like the weather forecasters with their accuracy. Thank goodness the pollsters, odds makers and weather forecasters, did not decide to become cardiologists (or any other profession in the medical field).

As a side note, this exit could take 3 plus years, I have read. The new PM will have to figure it out, with the present one 'stepping down' in October reportedly.


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## RuttedField

Myself, I can see much of the European Union pulling out once country at a time until only ten are left. By then, the idea of having the upper hand with their currency dominating the world market will be over and the Russian and Asian counterparts who are vying for the world currency to change from the US Dollar to their new envisioned currency, will happen.

With baby-boomers no longer holding out and fully retiring, there will be a glut for jobs on the market and with a recession going on as long as it has, it will finally return to a robust economy. That will drive up the demand for oil, because lets face it, we are a oil thirsty world and we'll need that oil to power everything. Sorry greenies, this will take place far faster then green power can react to the global demand.

That will cause a power grab, with Russia coming down out of the North, and then China realizing with their billions of people will have a stake. Or is that steak? The Spaniards already own every power company on the East Coast and China is buying up food companies as fast as they can...and since they are owned by China, where do you think the food will go in hard times...China not here! A loaf of bread will shoot up so high in price that we will only wish it quadrupled...sextuplet will be far closer.

Ultimately with the Department of Defense operating on oil for their military might...in every major country, the war will go to where the oil is...the middle east.

When will all this happen? I have no idea. No one does, but everything I just said was paraphrased from the bible; taken from Daniel, Revelations and Mathew. The point of all this is, in Daniel it talks about "10 horns" which bible scholars all believe will be 10 European Countries. I am NOT a prophet, but it is possible that Britain is just the first to bow out of the EU until only 10 remain. Only time will tell, but thankfully my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life along with my family, my hope is that my Hat Talker friends are as well...


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## JD3430

r82230 said:


> Well it appears the 'pollsters' and 'odds makers' were slightly wrong, with the final vote 51.9% to 48.1% on the exit. They must of hired the ones we had here in Michigan for the primary (they had Hillary winning by a landslide and Bernie won) PS I did not vote for either of these liberals (but I can tell you when they are lying, seems their lips are moving).
> 
> These pollsters and odds makers appear to be getting like the weather forecasters with their accuracy. Thank goodness the pollsters, odds makers and weather forecasters, did not decide to become cardiologists (or any other profession in the medical field).
> 
> As a side note, this exit could take 3 plus years, I have read. The new PM will have to figure it out, with the present one 'stepping down' in October reportedly.


Yeah and remember how the pollsters had Netanyahu losing his PM position? 
Then I'm reading more of these "polls" and "surveys" about Hillary v. Trump in a general election. In most polls, Hillary wins, then I read a little further and find out that 70% of the people surveyed were LIBERALS! No wonder the "polls" show Hillary winning! 
I think a lot of these "pollsters" are beginning to sound like they're being run by liberals.


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## Swv.farmer

Media propaganda that's what elicts most politicians up until this year now people are just about as tired of reporter's as they are politicians.
Like the presidental race it's not a vote for trump it a vote against Washington.


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## Vol

Swv.farmer said:


> Like the presidental race it's not a vote for trump it a vote against Washington.


Yep....I think you will see a all-time turnout for the "white folk" in voting for Trump come November....and the media will be saying that "no one' saw it coming.

Regards, Mike


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## mlappin

Now the rumors are up to 8 more countries may be having a vote to leave the EU, looks like socialism might be gasping for breath in europe at least.


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## luke strawwalker

RuttedField said:


> Myself, I can see much of the European Union pulling out once country at a time until only ten are left. By then, the idea of having the upper hand with their currency dominating the world market will be over and the Russian and Asian counterparts who are vying for the world currency to change from the US Dollar to their new envisioned currency, will happen.
> 
> With baby-boomers no longer holding out and fully retiring, there will be a glut for jobs on the market and with a recession going on as long as it has, it will finally return to a robust economy. That will drive up the demand for oil, because lets face it, we are a oil thirsty world and we'll need that oil to power everything. Sorry greenies, this will take place far faster then green power can react to the global demand.
> 
> That will cause a power grab, with Russia coming down out of the North, and then China realizing with their billions of people will have a stake. Or is that steak? The Spaniards already own every power company on the East Coast and China is buying up food companies as fast as they can...and since they are owned by China, where do you think the food will go in hard times...China not here! A loaf of bread will shoot up so high in price that we will only wish it quadrupled...sextuplet will be far closer.
> 
> Ultimately with the Department of Defense operating on oil for their military might...in every major country, the war will go to where the oil is...the middle east.
> 
> When will all this happen? I have no idea. No one does, but everything I just said was paraphrased from the bible; taken from Daniel, Revelations and Mathew. The point of all this is, in Daniel it talks about "10 horns" which bible scholars all believe will be 10 European Countries. I am NOT a prophet, but it is possible that Britain is just the first to bow out of the EU until only 10 remain. Only time will tell, but thankfully my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life along with my family, my hope is that my Hat Talker friends are as well...


Agree...

I found it rather interesting that when the Eagle Ford Shale started being drilled a few years ago, US oil companies were SO pressed for capital that they really couldn't afford to build and operate the drilling rigs necessary to bring these new fields into production. Years of neglecting the exploration and drilling side of the business had "left the cupboard bare" so to speak and they didn't even have the capital to make the heavy investments necessary to start drilling those fields. The Chinese came in and offered to BUY 50% of the Eagle Ford Shale in exchange for several billion dollars of badly needed capital to build new rigs and equipment necessary and recruit the manpower needed to run them, but the US gov't balked (surprisingly), so the Chinese bought large interests in a lot of these oil companies that are producing the Eagle Ford shale. Now, isn't that an interesting coincidence?? China is making billions from selling us cheap junk consumer goods even as our manufacturing capabilities have withered and died and been exported everywhere else around the globe, then they use our money to buy vital interests in our indigenous resources.

Now, when the dollar eventually becomes worthless, instead of holding tons of worthless scrip, they're going to own interests in our food production and energy production and other key sectors of our economy. When we can't afford to pay them the interest we owe them on our gubmint debt, and our economy tanks and collapses, our money is worthless, what do you think will happen?? Think they're gonna say "oh rell, so sowwy" and go home and forget about it?? Methinks not. I can see a day coming when we're back to a donkey and oxcart economy here in the States while "our" oil is transported down to *our* ports here on the Gulf Coast, and loaded onto ships bound for China... if they can't get *their money* out of us as anything other than worthless scrip, they'll take it out in food, energy, and other resources. I think that's their ultimate plan...

Later! OL J R: )


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## Swv.farmer

Verry well said


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## JD3430

Stories like this make me feel like trump just might be what the doctor ordered.


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## mlappin

Another thing to be considered, the UK has been in the EU for around forty years, the younger generation never knew the UK not to be a apart of the EU and therefore I would think swayed those votes to remain. Originally it was called the EEC which they joined in 1973, that eventually became the EU.


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## Swv.farmer

Tater Salad said:


> Take a good look at Europe.....the winds of Socialism are gaining steam here ! Bernie would have been put on trial as a communist 40 years ago......now the "Mellenials " think he's a hero......."what's yours is mine" !


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## Swv.farmer

You summed it up.
I bet 50 percent of 20 to 40 year olds don't know what a socialist is they just like the word free.


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