Author Archives: John Lusk

USDA Economic Research Service info on principal farm operator household finances

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I.e., the “small family farm”.

Every time I post something about farms, somebody pops up with “my cousin runs a farm, and…”. Yes, there are a lot of racists. And, yes, #notAllFarmers, as Sarah Taber says at https://www.patreon.com/posts/why-do-farmers-122478451 (behind a paywall, but, c’mon, $2/month!). But. The “poor family farmer” that Willie Nelson and all the Band Aid people love so much doesn’t really exist any more. Even the “intermediate” folks with household income of only $62k are sitting on about three quarters of a million dollars in *non-farm* assets (i.e., other than the land and farm equipment).

I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, but I’m guessing when someone comes up with a farmer who’s actually facing real difficulty and not just throwing a fit on Instagram, it’ll be the exception that proves the rule. And we shouldn’t be making policy based on exceptional cases. (Exceptional cases can be handled with exceptions to the policy, they don’t have to get left behind. And I’m not talking about exceptions for Trump’s people.)

Farm typology:

«The ERS farm typology groups relatively similar farms. The complete typology has eight groups, which are defined by the farm’s gross cash income, the primary occupation of the principal operator, and whether the farm is a family farm (see Updating the ERS Farm Typology, EIB-110, April 2013). The collapsed farm typology combines the seven farm typology groups into three groups:

Residence farms: Farms with less than $350,000 in gross cash farm income and where the principal operator is either retired from farming or has a primary occupation other than farming.

Intermediate farms: Farms with less than $350,000 in gross cash farm income and a principal operator whose primary occupation is farming.

Commercial farms: Farms with $350,000 or more gross cash farm income and nonfamily farms.»

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-household-well-being/glossary

Screenshot of principal farm operator household finances, by farm type, 2023, table from USDA Economic Research Service, showing that, for small family farms, off-farm income vastly outweighs farm income, and household net worth is north of a million dollars.

Source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics

(This opens fine with LibreOffice. I added a little highlighting and changed column width a smidge. Heck, I’ll just attach the original file.

table02December2024Download

)

You can also find some older info here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210318081753/https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics/ in case your friend and mine, Donald Trump (or, more likely, one of the Project 2025 people making fish soup while he plays with whatever distraction they’ve arranged for him today), has deleted this info from the ERS web site by the time you read these words.

Republicans haaaaaaaate the ERS. That’s why the last time Trump was in office (pause for incredulity), it got moved to Wichita or some such.

Trump halts medical research funding in apparent violation of judge’s order | Trump administration | The Guardian

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Interesting little tidbit. Civil contempt of court jail time is not pardonable by the President.

«If the Trump administration continues to evade court orders, Bagenstos says judges have a number of tools at their disposal. They could issue more specific orders directed toward individuals responsible for violations, or even hold them in civil contempt of court, which can include jail time, and which cannot be undone with a presidential pardon.»

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/23/trump-nih-health-medical-research

While Democracy Burns, Democrats Prioritize… Demolishing Section 230?

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«This week, Durbin will join U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to introduce a bill that would sunset Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in two years.»

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/21/while-democracy-burns-democrats-prioritize-demolishing-section-230/

Um… *what*? The law that lets us speak our minds online without the small, independent website we post on getting the pants sued off them?

How is that going to work, exactly?

DOGE released data about federal contract savings. It doesn’t add up

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«NPR’s analysis found that, of its verifiable work completed so far, DOGE has cut just $2 billion in spending — less than three hundredths of a percent of last fiscal year’s federal spending.

“Think of Congress and its budget as the debt-ridden dad on the way to buy a $250,000 Ferrari on the credit card, and DOGE is the $2 off gas card he used along the way,” Riedl said. “It’s great that he saved $2 on gas, but I think his wife may be more concerned about the $250,000 car.”»

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates-savings-federal-contracts

(From a conservative analyst, so of course she portrays government spending as an expensive sports car. «Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the center-right Manhattan Institute who studies ways to cut extraneous government spending…»)

As always, follow the zeros. She has the zeros right.

Courtesy of https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bbp2b224lro3bfnzcqwwnkfo/post/3litzbc52pk2z

New MurderBot show

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«They had talked it over and all agreed not to “push me any further than I wanted to go” and they were all so nice and it was just excruciating.»

https://a.co/edjurwN

Ok [not subjecting the thread I was participating in to any more of me], I had 100% forgotten the “excruciating white liberals’ approach to Black people” aspect of this. If they can capture that in the show, I will get a subscription just to watch it, because that would be a subtle point everybody but me missed. (Shut up.)

#murderBot

Why Are Republican Senators Rolling Over And Playing ‘Possum?

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Hmmm it really is 1933 Germany, and legislators are afraid of violence:

«…the tale of Thom Tillis, who did a reversal in 12 hours after saying he would not vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, on account of Hegseth being a credibly accused rapist, spousal abuser, drunkard, etc. We know that Trump, JD Vance and Susie Wiles leaned on Tillis hard, what we did not know until now is that Tillis was warned by the FBI about “credible death threats” too.

And Tillis is not the only one. Liz Cheney told Jake Tapper that GOP senators voted against impeaching Trump because they feared for their own lives:

“If you look at the vote to impeach, for example, there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives. And that tells you something about where we are as a country, that members of Congress aren’t able to cast votes, or feel that they can’t, because of their own security.”

After January 6, freshman Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) reports a colleague weeping about it: “Remember, this wasn’t a hypothetical. You were casting that vote after seeing with your own two eyes what some of these people are capable of […] If they’re willing to come after you inside the U.S. Capitol, what will they do when you’re at home with your kids?”»

https://www.wonkette.com/p/why-are-republican-senators-rolling

But maybe there’s also the softer approach of our more modern times:

«Musk is also, according to himself, rooting around in everybody’s financial information to “flush out conflicts of interest.” »

Or maybe it’s not fear:

«If all of the Republican Senators stood up to Trump and refused to be intimidated, they might stand a chance. But that would be SOCIALIST, and their beliefs are closer to a pot of crabs trying to drag each other down.

…

Morals, courage, having a life of purpose, look, that stuff is a lot of work. Why not just eat that tasty carrot, and avoid the ouchy stick?

Viktor Orbán approves this message!»