Who is aware of this proposed program???

[KB5252]

You base you argument on people are not lazy.

People are freakin' lazy and want the bud now!

Then they would buy from from those who grow a little extra. The government would inflate the price, the average guy with a little land or a garage set up would make a killing selling it much cheaper.

 

[truefan]

There would be little money for the government if they made marijuana legal and taxed it. It is just to easy to grow yourself.

Where are you going to get the seeds? Unless you know what you are doing, you aren't going to be able to grow qualilty marijuana, but lets just say you are right. You still have to get the seeds from somewhere. (and no, those in the bottom of your bag aren't going to grow quality marijuana). The purchase of seeds is taxed now.

 

[rjd970]

There would be little money for the government if they made marijuana legal and taxed it. It is just to easy to grow yourself.

Maybe, but it could still be commercialized. People brew their own beer too. I think people would still head down to the gas station and buy themselves a pack of smokes as opposed to dealing with the hassle growing and processing it themselves.

I am probably underestimating how easy it is to grow, I don't know a lot about it. However, even though I would never use it, I think the law is stupid and the reasoning is very hypocritical given tobacco and alcohol are legal. I still think it could be a significant tax revenue generator.

 

[KB5252]

Where are you going to get the seeds? Unless you know what you are doing, you aren't going to be able to grow qualilty marijuana, but lets just say you are right. You still have to get the seeds from somewhere. (and no, those in the bottom of your bag aren't going to grow quality marijuana). The purchase of seeds is taxed now.

Many people know exactly what they are doing. I haven't so much as been around bud for many years but i still remember what to do, there are many ways to go about getting seed, if you know the right people. If it were legal it would be much easier, it's not that hard now.

 

[KB5252]

Maybe, but it could still be commercialized. People brew their own beer too. I think people would still head down to the gas station and buy themselves a pack of smokes as opposed to dealing with the hassle growing and processing it themselves.

They would go to a local grower and probably pay half of what the local store would charge.

I am probably underestimating how easy it is to grow, I don't know a lot about it. However, even though I would never use it, I think the law is stupid and the reasoning is very hypocritical given tobacco and alcohol are legal. I still think it could be a significant tax revenue generator.

There are other reasons it is not legal, the mental illness or feelings of paranoia are pretty well documented for those who smoke over long periods of time. Not to mention the lack of productivity it seems to cause in many people.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

Dorito sales would go through the roof!

 

[rjd970]

There are other reasons it is not legal, the mental illness or feelings of paranoia are pretty well documented for those who smoke over long periods of time.

It still doesn't make any sense that it is not legal. Mental illness and paranoia aside, the long term effects of other legal drugs are much worse than this. Tobacco and alcohol are much more lethal and addictive. Marijuana is also unique amongs drugs as having legitimate medical uses and no known lethal dosage.

Any kind of drug done over long periods of time will lead to bad consequences, but I would argue the long term effects of other legal drugs are far worse than that of marijuana.

Not to mention the lack of productivity it seems to cause in many people.

Alcohol does the same thing for those who abuse it....along with killing their liver.

 

[therealUT]

Of course I've read it, but the major meat of the story is the demise of small farming at the hands of consolidated farms. It has nothing to do with estate taxes. They default on a loan, have to move, and end up being manhandled in California. Have you read it? Also, the estate taxes are simply not the major force in killing American small farms. The lack of an ability to make a profit, and therefore make an existence in farming, are the reason they were consolidating as farms became larger due to technological advances. You can keep harping on taxes being the devil, but even today the estate death tax is not a major culprit as some people would have you believe.

Your ignorance is truly astounding. You are basing your argument on a book written by none other than John Steinback. Great idea and I suggest you keep that up so that you can look like the pseudo intellectual you are in future debates.

If, however, you want to look at policy and analyze said policy in connection with the rapid erasure of the small farmer in America, you should start by checking out what effect FDR's estate tax increases had on said small farms.

 

[TreeGreen]

Your ignorance is truly astounding. You are basing your argument on a book written by none other than John Steinback. Great idea and I suggest you keep that up so that you can look like the pseudo intellectual you are in future debates.

If, however, you want to look at policy and analyze said policy in connection with the rapid erasure of the small farmer in America, you should start by checking out what effect FDR's estate tax increases had on said small farms.

I'm not basing anything on a book. I'm basing everything on the extensive research, conversations, and experiences in rural America. What are you basing things on? My comment about Grapes of Wrath was about how it doesn't help you at all, so why would that person even bring it up? There are multiple economic, political, and sociological sources who talk about how estate taxes are an absolute myth in the destruction of small farmers. Bipartisan research institutes, and even the insurance firms of small farms have debunked this myth by finding few or no cases. You clearly have no clue what you're talking about, but keep trying. Small family farms closing due to the estate taxes are at the bottom of the list.

 

[therealUT]

I'm not basing anything on a book. I'm basing everything on the extensive research, conversations, and experiences in rural America. What are you basing things on? My comment about Grapes of Wrath was about how it doesn't help you at all, so why would that person even bring it up? There are multiple economic, political, and sociological sources who talk about how estate taxes are an absolute myth in the destruction of small farmers. Bipartisan research institutes, and even the insurance firms of small farms have debunked this myth by finding few or no cases. You clearly have no clue what you're talking about, but keep trying. Small family farms closing due to the estate taxes are at the bottom of the list.

Small family farms by and large sold-out to wealthier investors in the 1930s and 1940s due to the impacts that FDR's estate taxes had on the beneficiaries.

Today, that impact is about as negligible as the small farm is.

 

[MontereyVol]

Of course I've read it, but the major meat of the story is the demise of small farming at the hands of consolidated farms. It has nothing to do with estate taxes. They default on a loan, have to move, and end up being manhandled in California. Have you read it? Also, the estate taxes are simply not the major force in killing American small farms. The lack of an ability to make a profit, and therefore make an existence in farming, are the reason they were consolidating as farms became larger due to technological advances. You can keep harping on taxes being the devil, but even today the estate death tax is not a major culprit as some people would have you believe.

I was hitting on the point that was posted that small farmers were being forced out since the 80's. This process has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And if you knew much about history estate taxes, rent and the combination of the dust bowl is how a lot of those guys were forced off of their farms. One way or another the government was going to get them out.

 

[TreeGreen]

I was hitting on the point that was posted that small farmers were being forced out since the 80's. This process has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And if you knew much about history estate taxes, rent and the combination of the dust bowl is how a lot of those guys were forced off of their farms. One way or another the government was going to get them out.

I see, but the point is it has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution due to other issues not related to estate taxes. Estate taxes for small farms are at the bottom of the barrel for reasons why they are disappearing. There is 0 legitimate research that supports the claim that FDR, death taxes, ect are the reason small farms have disappeared since the 1930s. My point about the 1980s was more about how boom / bust cycles effect small farm migration and selling patterns. When the economy is bad, they leave, when it's decent they tend to try and come back. It is well documented that small farmers cannot make a living, and if they try and farm, must have a job outside farming. Bottom line, large farming killed the small farmers ability to make a profit.

 

[MontereyVol]

I see, but the point is it has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution due to other issues not related to estate taxes. Estate taxes for small farms are at the bottom of the barrel for reasons why they are disappearing. There is 0 legitimate research that supports the claim that FDR, death taxes, ect are the reason small farms have disappeared since the 1930s. My point about the 1980s was more about how boom / bust cycles effect small farm migration and selling patterns. When the economy is bad, they leave, when it's decent they tend to try and come back. It is well documented that small farmers cannot make a living, and if they try and farm, must have a job outside farming. Bottom line, large farming killed the small farmers ability to make a profit.

I don't know if estate taxes were at the bottom of the barrel at the time but it was a tool that was implemented, among others.

As to the large farms taking over small farms do you see that as a bad thing?

 

[therealUT]

It is well documented that small farmers cannot make a living, and if they try and farm, must have a job outside farming.

Interesting. I have apparently not spent enough time in Kansas (or spending time in Kansas does not count as "experience in rural areas"), however, until I read this statement, I was under the belief that I still knew a handful of people who work their own family farms and make enough money annually to send their children to out-of-state universities...

I guess I don't have all the documentation, though...

 

[TreeGreen]

Interesting. I have apparently not spent enough time in Kansas (or spending time in Kansas does not count as "experience in rural areas"), however, until I read this statement, I was under the belief that I still knew a handful of people who work their own family farms and make enough money annually to send their children to out-of-state universities...

I guess I don't have all the documentation, though...

Do you frequently use anecdotal evidence? Also, the irony of you pointing out a small farmer still surviving in the midst of the horrid estate taxes is noted. Your point is completely asinine. There is irrefutable evidence that American small farmers have been effectively going extinct, and the reason is because they have been largely out competed in the market. Keep trying though.

 

[therealUT]

I have yet to argue against the fact that, upon the advent of the large, industrial farm, small farms have been forced to sell due to their lack of competitiveness. This process is also entirely unavoidable. However, the the rapidity of said collapse of the small farm and the boom of the large farm, find their origins in the estate taxes of the 1930s and 1940s.

 

[sea of orange]

Regardless of what taxes and competitiveness have done to the small farmers in the past, the people who are keeping up a small farm now, like myself, probably could not survive another tax of that magnitude. It is a struggle to even turn a profit with feed, fertilize, and equipment so expensive.

 

[gsvol]

Regardless of what taxes and competitiveness have done to the small farmers in the past, the people who are keeping up a small farm now, like myself, probably could not survive another tax of that magnitude. It is a struggle to even turn a profit with feed, fertilize, and equipment so expensive.

Most small farmers who are the mainstay of our food production do it more for their own enjoyment than profit, most work forty hour weekly jobs while paying more for commuting to keep those jobs while maintaining a rural homestead.

What has the ethynol fuel mandate done in the last 18 months??

Drive the price of corn to three times is previous price??

Absolutely insane!!! And it can only get worse.

One owes it to himself to read the whole of Tragedy and Hope. by Carrol Quigley.

One needs to learn about the Federal Reserve System.

A tutorial on money.

Anthony Sutton has some very interesting revelations.

And who is aware of the Roosevelt farming cooperatives of the great depression era?? For that matter who is actually aware that the world central banking system precipitated that depression on purpose????

None of Rossevelt's programs did anything to stop or even slow down the depression, only WWII brought us out of that depression.

(Bernanke recently admitted the central banking system caused the great depression of the '30s and apologized saying they would try not to do that again as if the first time was an accident.)

Who among you knows that the Bank of International Settlements has controlled our Federal Reserve (thus our money supply) since the great depression??

It should be noted also that the world bank and the international money fund are reliant on the federal reserve as lender of last resort and the federal reserve is dependent upon the IRS to keep it solvent, meaning that you and I are the ones responsible for propping up most of the governments of the world and really the only way to pay off that debt is to give up whatever we may have, ultimately.

I don't care who you are, if you havn't read everything Adam Starchild has written, you are not an educated person. If you know just exactly what questions to ask the constitutionally illegal IRS system, they will send you a letter saying you owe no taxes.

I participated in a study done in 1960-61 about small time farming as a full time activity. We went into great detail about diversification, crop rotation etc. We found that a million dollar investment, buying very rural land, buying used equipment, going it on the cheap in other words, with about a 60 hour week, year round would realistically expect to produce a $20,000 yearly income. If one were to invest one million in a bank at 4% interest, then one would earn $40,000 annually.

As for my original post, I doubt petitioning the EPA will have any effect whatsoever. I have petitioned them before and have never even gotten any sort of response that indicated that I even exist or that the petition of any citizen would mean the slightest to them whatsoever. It never hurts to try though, good luck if any of you are thinking of becoming politically active.

As the SPCA says; "politics is not a spectator sport."

Which brings me to the fact that there are those who are hyper-politically active, fanatical even, who believe it is a cardinal sin to consume meat at all by anyone under any circumstance. Hence we have, from the point of those who love to eat meat, totally insane projects such as the taxing of cow farts.

BTW, back in the sixties and seventies it was considered the intelligent thing to do for the family farm, to get a college education and incorporate the farm into a business in order to get tax breaks etc, now we have idiotic well funded environmental organizations who demonize corporate farming.

Make no mistake about it, the global warming scare is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetuated on mankind and is one of the least of our worries.

Anyone who buys into it fits into one of three categories;

1. naive
2. has something to gain
3. is an utter fool

It isn't about controlling the environment, it's about controlling mankind.

 

[MontereyVol]

Regardless of what taxes and competitiveness have done to the small farmers in the past, the people who are keeping up a small farm now, like myself, probably could not survive another tax of that magnitude. It is a struggle to even turn a profit with feed, fertilize, and equipment so expensive.

I'm not an expert on this subject, but it seems to me to have a small farm and want to succeed you should farm a niche product. Something everyone would like to have but is rare in the market. Big farms are not going to run you out of business and you should be able to drive your own price on the product.

 

[gsvol]

A new take on bringing home the bacon:

Kiwi_Baco...wmv

 

[sea of orange]

I'm not an expert on this subject, but it seems to me to have a small farm and want to succeed you should farm a niche product. Something everyone would like to have but is rare in the market. Big farms are not going to run you out of business and you should be able to drive your own price on the product.

You are right on, I have been selling a few of my feeder calves for freezer beef to people I go to church with, but a lot of people are sceptical about putting $700-$800 into a beef to get slaughtered even though it would save them a couple hundred in the long run. As long as you have a large freezer it is well worth the money though.

I also have a couple dozen chickens and I sell their eggs, but even with the farm-raised brown egg price, I still can't make any profit to amount to anything. Corn and other feed prices just keep going up, and if I raise prices any higher I can't sell them.

 

[gsvol]

You are right on, I have been selling a few of my feeder calves for freezer beef to people I go to church with, but a lot of people are sceptical about putting $700-$800 into a beef to get slaughtered even though it would save them a couple hundred in the long run. As long as you have a large freezer it is well worth the money though.

I also have a couple dozen chickens and I sell their eggs, but even with the farm-raised brown egg price, I still can't make any profit to amount to anything. Corn and other feed prices just keep going up, and if I raise prices any higher I can't sell them.

I have friends up at Smithville.

Let me ask you this, would you ever care to sell a steer in the 150 to 200 lb range for someone else to fatten??

Care to trade something like that for fresh farm sausage and other cuts, or even killing size live hogs??

My neighbor and I have been talking about killing and processing a baby beef ourselves. About 400 lb is what suits me the best.

Having your own beef slaughtered is the way to go, if you can find a place that doesn't steal or substitute for lower quality product.

We are equipped to do our own.

I recommend for everyone who does that to have a small generator just in case of an ice storm or other interruption in electrical service.

I think yesterday's market report had a 300 to 350 listed as bringing about $.75 or so a lb on the hoof.

Of course I would assume that would be straight off the pasture and not fattened out.