Too Bad Sirs is Suspended, I would like his POV

[Plane]

Inheritance taxes are not a major reason for small farmers leaving the business, either. Any venture can incorporate and sell shares to the heirs in such as way as none receives enough to have to pay any inheritance tax.

   This works better for an industral milionaire than for a landowner whose land is worth thirty times his bank account.

     The cheif effect of the death tax is the destruction of farms , why shouldn't we beleive that this is its cheif purpose?

[kimba1]

it`s very doubtful any start up farms will have many modern luxuries since the money needs to be tied in production,so the allure of life will be minimum.


I kinda doubt texting will be a workable past time in a farm,I mean the teenage 4 hour long ones not the quicky ones

[Plane]

http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/home


A modern "startup" farmer would need a huge loan , three million or more for the land and equipment.

In order to convince the bank that the loan is a good risk the prospective farmer will present a masters degree in agriculture, what less would do?

You are not really going to start small, why build an uncomfortable house?

Someone who inherits a farm is sort of a specialist, knows how to run that particular farm, but if he can inherit it clean of debt that would be a miricle.

Our government poliys encourage consolidation ,modernisation and turnover, not family tradition.

[kimba1]

not just farms,business also.

but I blame our greed driven mentality for that. I thought up a busing system with a highly reliable source of income. but pretty much everyone I told wants to start with a more expanded version for more money. I`m having a hard time explaining the incoime source is limited and people actually are making up income sources which I know does not exist..An increase version would kill it`s ability to support itself enitrely.people only want big payoffs and will rationalize it.

I just see making a few extra thousand a month a problem

[Xavier_Onassis]

Our government poliys encourage consolidation ,modernisation and turnover, not family tradition.
========================================================================
Modernization encourages consolidation. It is not cost effective for a 400 acre farm to buy a hugely expensive wheat combine. The same is true of much other expensive equipment and structures.

Turnover is limited to less productive farms. The really big ones, like the King Ranch or Bud Antle, are not getting turned over.

No matter what happens, farmers are about 2% of the population. Consumers of food are 100% of the population. There are very few countries that have managed to "save the family farm" for major crops. Japanese pay about three times as much for home grown rice due to refusing to import rice from elsewhere. Huge rice farms are rare in Japan because of the mountainous terrain of the country. Taiwan has a similar policy and similar results.

About half the guys in my HS graduating class lived on farms in Missouri and were members of the FFA. At my class reunion, there were two who still lived on the "family farm", sort of. Neither was an actual full time farmer, and their farms were under 200 acres. One rented out some land for soybeans and grew sod for developers. Another had several chickens, ten pigs and four cows and his wife grew veggies for the farmers' market.

None of the former farmers said they missed life on the farm.

What would YOU do to "save the family farm"?

[Plane]

What would YOU do to "save the family farm"?

I would kill the death tax!

   How well can a small or medium sized farm be run so that it must surrender half of its value to the government every 40 or 50 years?

  Do we really prefer that all of our food be produced on farms not owned by farmers?

   Urban people are already makeing too many decisions for rural people, the more we centralise the more we remove decision makeing from the effrect of the decisions.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is NOT a Death Tax, it is an inheritance tax, and it is set at $3 million. Family farms have practically nothing to do with this.

[kimba1]

I could of sworn those taxes does minimul damage. people don`t normally lose propertyy this way. it`s more on liquid asset that takes a gouging

[Plane]

You are a city guy Kimba, the death tax does minimal damage where you can see it.

It produces minimal revenue for the government too.

Its main effect is to drive population away from farming and consolidatde farms into large holdings owned by insurance companys and foreign owners.

Who was going to tell you?

[Plane]

It is NOT a Death Tax, it is an inheritance tax, and it is set at $3 million. Family farms have practically nothing to do with this.

Ok make its name more palitable as you please , it is still the gillotine responsible for the derth of family farms and also the garrote that produces a gap between the middle class and the extremely welthy.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Family farms are not the real issue here.

When the Democrats proposed a bill exempting family farms from the inheritance tax (and that is its real name: "death tax" is a Gingrich invention), the GOP rejected it.

[Plane]

Death tax is a good description of what it really is , and I don't exempt Republicans from responsibility.


In terms of ending huge dynastys it is innefective.
In terms of redistributeing wealth it is innefective.
In terms of produceing revenue it is peanuts.

In terms of consolidateing agriculture in few hands it is efective.
In terms of ending Medium and small enterprises in one or two generations it is efective.

For produceing a huge gap in between the superwealthy and the reat of the population it works pretty well.

This is a law in service of the maintence of ogliarchy and defending oligarchy from encrochmnent.

Not so?

[Christians4LessGvt]

Family farms and organic farming is not as efficient at producing the huge amount of
cheap food that population centers need to keep on pointlessly expanding.

Getting Used to Life Without Food, Part 1
Wall Street, BP, Bio-Ethanol and the Death of Millions
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/william-engdahl/2011/06/29/getting-used-to-life-without-food-part-1

Getting Used to Life Without Food, Part 2
Agribusiness as a Long-Term Strategy
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/william-engdahl/2011/06/29/getting-used-to-life-without-food-part-2