Farm Land Prices

Farm Notes | pal-item.com | Palladium-Item

On Monday, a panel of Purdue University experts will discuss during a free webinar what factors are behind the steady rise in farmland values.

Could it be that owning farm land is a quick ticket to a government subsidized income? As I said in an earlier post, you get what you pay for. Government farm subsidies increase the demand for farm land which drives up the price. End the subsidies and the price will fall.

Here's what the government pays farmers in this area.

Union County, Indiana Top recipient got almost $58,000 in 2009

Wayne County, Indiana Top recipient got over $70,000 in 2009

You can see info for your area here: EWG Farm Subsidy Database

tnb

Mitch Daniels

Mitch Daniels, the Stealth Christian Jihadist, wants to fix education in Indiana

Daniels shifts aim to education reform | 2011-01-08 | Indianapolis Business Journal | IBJ.com

On Indiana's declining incomes.

"But per-person incomes—despite everything Daniels has tried on job creation, road building, property tax reform and daylight-saving time—have only fallen further behind the national average.

In 2004, when Daniels berated his opponent, Gov. Joe Kernan, for Indiana’s sluggish economy, Hoosiers earned 91 cents for every dollar earned by the average American. By last year, it was just 86 cents.

Adjusted for Indiana’s lower cost of living, Hoosier incomes have fallen from 98 cents for every dollar Americans earn, to 95 cents.

Daniels is quick to point out that declining incomes have been a problem in Indiana for decades. State economists have been writing about it since the 1980s."

I do a lot of troubleshooting in my job on computer hardware and software, and in my life repairing my own cars, motorcycles, appliances etc. One thing I've learned is that when you're diagnosing a problem you should look at the last thing that was changed/adjusted/fixed on the item prior to the problem, pretty early in the troubleshooting process. Quite often, the last thing that's changed is related to the current problem. Mitch needs to step back and take a "what's changed" look at the Indiana declining income problem.

The article says Indiana (and i think US) incomes have been declining every year since the 1980's. So what changed it that era? The biggest changes I can remember were Reagan tax reductions and our governments shift to a belief in trickle-down economics? Since then, wealth has piled up in the hands of the rich while normal worker incomes have stagnated. Do you think maybe there could be a connection Mitch?

On Education.

"Daniels and Bennett want to require schools to consider students’ year-to-year growth on test scores as a “significant factor” in evaluating and paying schoolteachers and principals."

I don't see testing helping much. Basically, you get what you pay for. If you're going to base educators pay on test results, you'll end up with schools spending their dollars teaching kids how to take the test and shorting the rest of the education process.

The kids will be given practice test after practice test with a lot of coaching and memorization. The kids and educators will be bored and the ability of our kids to think for themselves will diminished.

"They also want to expand options for parents to send their kids to publicly funded charter schools or even to receive publicly funded vouchers to pay tuition at private schools."

I'm not sure about private school vouchers? They seem like a path to two separate, not-equal education systems with the rich kids and anyone that can afford to pay in the good private system and everyone else in an even more crappy public system.

It may hurt public school funding as it will be harder to convince private-school people to fund the public system with taxes.

As I think about it, it seems like a downward-spiral that would eventually lead to our current college-type system where the rich can afford it, the poor are subsidized and the middle class are squeezed even tighter.

"Daniels also wants to let high schoolers graduate in three years and then receive a college scholarship equivalent to the amount the state would have spent to put them through a fourth year of high school. Right now, the state spends more than $11,000 per student per year"

This doesn't seem like a bad idea.

tnb

We Stand With Israel ?

In my small midwestern town, I'm starting to see these yard signs that say "We stand with Israel". I don't know where these signs are coming from but I'm guessing they're from one of the many local churches. This is a damned religious area and I doubt there's any other organization that could pull it off.

Anyway, I have a question for the people with these signs.

Why the hell do you stand by Israel? Because some preacher or old book told you to? What the hell kind of reason is that? Do you know....

Israel of today, is not the Israel of biblical times.

Today's Israel was founded after WWII following European immigration to the area in the early 1900's. Many of its founders were basically the "terrorists" of their time, killing innocent people to advance a political agenda. Link

Today's Israel has killed around 8,000 Palestinians since 2000. Palestinians have killed 1,500 Israelis (estimates based on figures found here and here).

Today's Israel has attacked it's neighbors more than it has been attacked.
1982 Lebanon, 2006 Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt, Syria and Jordan

The Palestinians do fire rockets into Israel but I'll bet they don't cause as much damage as you think. Here is a list of fatalities from those rockets. link

Total Israeli Fatalities from Palestinian Rockets

2001 - 1 death
2004 - 5 deaths
2005 - 6 deaths
2006 - 4 deaths
2007 - 2 deaths
2008 - 8 deaths
2009 - 0 deaths

Israel also oppresses the non-Israeli people of West Bank and Gaza with apartheid actions like walls, check points and special laws.Israeli_apartheid

Israel has been stealing land from the Palestinians in the West Bank for some time. Link

Most of the the rest of the world has called on Israel to stop the oppression and land grabs but they have continued largly because of US support.

Today's Israel receives almost 3 billion in aid from the US. More than any other country. Then to keep peace in the area we give additional aid to many of Israel's neighbors.

Today's Israel is the primary reason the Muslim world hates the US. The Muslims don't hate our freedoms. They hate the fact that we allow Israel to kill their people and take their land with US support, aid and weapons.

Today's Israel is not the US's friend.

They have killed or injured several Americans over the years: Rachel Corrie, USS LIberty, Israel refuses to pay medical bills for American-Jewish protester who lost eye, US citizen killed in Israeli Flotilla Attack

They have been caught spying on the US several times. Israeli Spying

Here's what the current Israeli Prime minister has to say about the US. Binyamin Netanyahu

So for those in my area that "We stand with Israel".

Today's Israel doesn't give a damn about you or your America except to cash the checks we send to them. It has become a corrupt, evil, war-like state that feeds on the US taxpayer.

I'd like to spend that money here at home on US citizens.

Mitch Daniels - Religious Idiot

This is from possible 2012 presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels' interview posted on WANE.COM and found here: Daniels talks candidly about his faith.

Daniels:

.... And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists -Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth- because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.....

Yeah Mitch, like there's never been anything evil done in the name of religion. You fucking idiot.

Farm Welfare #2

here's the EWG.org listing for Union County, Indiana.

EWG Farm Subsidy Database - Union County Indiana

Over the 1995 to 2006 period, the farmers in one of the smallest counties in Indiana have received a total of over 41 million dollars in US government handed-out, farmer welfare.

Number two on the list, at over 1 million dollars in the period, is a farm partnership that includes an Indiana state congressman,... a republican.

SFI #1

Stupid fucking idiot.... Passes me on a blind curve at about 65-70 mph, with a car coming at us. I had to slow down hard to let the stupid fucker back in our lane. He (she?) missed a 65-70mph head-on by less than 30 feet! Then, the SFI rides the center line for the next ten miles trying to get around a truck, often over the line, with traffic coming at us. Had a couple of less than one or two foot near-miss head-on's. Stupid fucking idiot....

i hope you hit a tree before you kill someone.

December 11, 2009 on US 27 between Liberty and Richmond, Indiana.

Indiana handicapped plate #47583.

Stupid fucking idiot....

Smoking Dope

The drug laws in this country suck! How can pot be more dangerous than alcohol, oxycotin, etc. Why should it ruin a person's career. is it really worse than cheating on you taxes? sleeping around on your wife? taking a sleeping pill? i don't think so.......

This guy smokes and he gets to keep his job.

Bong Hits for Billions

This guy doesn't

Teacher resigns but charges dropped

pot laws suck. free the weed.