JamisonM (u/JamisonM)

JamisonM commented on Canadian bill would strip internet access from 'specified persons', no warrant nationalpost.com/opinion/... · Posted by u/walterbell

preommr · 2 months ago

> low social trust and cohesion necessarily require increasingly authoritarian measures

Then this country is fucked.

It's really hard to have some kind of national identity when the previous PM goes and says things like Canada might be the first post-national state.

JamisonM · 2 months ago

Jean Chrétien is the one that said Canada is the first post-nationalist state, why would it be a bad thing?

Is there a reason why national identity and being a high-trust society need to be linked?

JamisonM commented on Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels grist.org/buildings/how-g... · Posted by u/bilsbie

V__ · 3 months ago

* I would have dig deeper on that, but regarding the timeframe when the shutdown occurred, there wasn't a big effect on gas prices. That happened before due to the war with Ukraine and the reliance on Russian gas in general. [1] The idea once was to use cheap gas from Russia and at the same time build out renewables. The latter didn't happen, resulting in the mess Germany is right now.

* There were multiple tax reductions and I think some are in the talks now. Those were independent (and before) the nuclear shutdown.

* Probably. Nuclear should have been shutdown after gas, coal etc. I am with you on that. But the ship had already sailed long ago, before the last three plants were shut down.

[1] https://www.iwh-halle.de/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/...

JamisonM · 3 months ago

Fair enough on the immediate consequences.. but shutting down these plants was a long term decision, so the long term consequences are still consequences. It is certainly true that no one predicted a Russian invasion of Ukraine when Fukushima happened but Germany's over-reliance on Russian gas was well understood at the time. Which I raise only to point out that the bad things that did happen were foreseeable, the German energy system was subject to systemic risks and those risks were made worse by these choices.

It seems like the statement "No negative effect" is probably not well supported by subsequent events.

JamisonM commented on Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels grist.org/buildings/how-g... · Posted by u/bilsbie

V__ · 3 months ago

> the worst political decision of German politics since WW2

Except the shutdown had no negative effect. There was no supply shock and prices keep trending down since (Though that of course doesn't mean because of). Let's keep it real. I can probably name worse German political decisions from this week.

JamisonM · 3 months ago

"Except the shutdown had no negative effect."

Three things here:

* Didn't the diversion of natural gas to electricity generation end some German industrial production completely?

* Are there not large electricity subsidies in place via subsidies for US imported LNG?

* Isn't the alternate reality where there is a surplus of electricity in German due to nuclear power a better world where Germany has more opportunity? (the AI datacentre boom is built on excess electricity, isn't it?)

JamisonM commented on Three farmers on monopolies and mismanagement in U.S. agriculture agweb.com/markets/outrage... · Posted by u/strict9

FollowingTheDao · 3 months ago

It’s not secret , it’s published widely and I read it often. Here’s an example of how much cheaper Canadian farmland is an American farmland.

And your farmland is not only cheaper, but it’s more productive.

You can’t compare the United States and Canada because we have different political systems. I mean, you guys get free healthcare. You can probably afford to buy land because you’re not spending all your money on outrageous insurance premiums, or out-of-pocket cost from going to the doctor.

https://www.producer.com/news/prairie-farmland-still-a-barga... Western Canadian farmland is cheap when compared to Europe and the United States, says the director of an investment fund with offices in Calgary and Toronto.

JamisonM · 3 months ago

Do you think that 25% of Arkansas farmers are going to go bankrupt soon?

JamisonM commented on Three farmers on monopolies and mismanagement in U.S. agriculture agweb.com/markets/outrage... · Posted by u/strict9

DaveZale · 3 months ago

sure, but enough of it is close to urban areas

you never lived in California?

The urban sprawl there ate up all of the orange groves, for example... in Orange County!

JamisonM · 3 months ago

Define "enough"? The article in question is about Arkansas and broad acre farming, there is 600+ million acres of farm in the midwest down to the delta 99% of which isn't close to a major population center. There is lots of pressure in areas of California and all up and down the west coast up to Vancouver.. but that is a trivial amount a farm land in the grand scheme of things (and specialized due to climate, water, and market access issues that don't apply to most farm land in the US or really anywhere)

JamisonM commented on Three farmers on monopolies and mismanagement in U.S. agriculture agweb.com/markets/outrage... · Posted by u/strict9

9rx · 3 months ago

> I'm not surprised that this doesn't work out well

As a small commodity farmer, I don't see why it can't work well. Cash crop farming is quite well suited to small operations as far as I am concerned. The actual hard place to be is the mid-sized farmer trying to manage boatloads of debt.

The current crop price situation is not ideal, but we are also just coming off some insanely profitable years. Save during the good times to weather the bad is farming 101. I suspect, given how much equipment prices jumped in the last few years, that some of these guys thought they could get away with going out and buying a bunch of new toys and that's what really has gotten them into trouble.

JamisonM · 3 months ago

Lots of farmers in my area owning equipment with fresh paint (well, plastic panels these days) that can't make land payments, or at least complaining about it. The ROI on new equipment is poor and when things were booming the farmers lost discipline and the manufacturers were happy to add features and cost - fun for everyone! Chickens are coming home to roost now for a lot of folks and some of them are sharpening their pencils and some of them are in denial - in my opinion.

JamisonM commented on Three farmers on monopolies and mismanagement in U.S. agriculture agweb.com/markets/outrage... · Posted by u/strict9

FollowingTheDao · 3 months ago

You don’t understand America because you don’t live in America. Monopolies drive up land prices to squeeze out people who can’t afford the land.

JamisonM · 3 months ago

OK, what secret information do you have from living in America that I don't have? I got people driving land prices up here too.. they have driven them up to roughly the same as Arkansas and I can still afford to buy land from time to time. Do explain.

JamisonM commented on Three farmers on monopolies and mismanagement in U.S. agriculture agweb.com/markets/outrage... · Posted by u/strict9

JamisonM · 3 months ago

From the article: In August 2025, Graves sent an open letter to media and politicians, pleading for attention to eye-popping numbers. “My letter told what things are like right now. In our geography, it looks like you need to yield 100-300-300 to stay ahead,” Graves describes. “That’s 100-bushel beans, 300-bushel rice and 300-bushel corn. Basic Arkansas averages are 56-bushel beans, 166-bushel rice and 175-bushel corn. In a nutshell, we are going over a cliff. Banks are forecasting farm bankruptcies at 25% to 40%, and the dirty secret is out. Everyone knows it; everyone feels it.”

Couple of things here:

- Where I farm we grow 40-50bu beans most years, rarely hit 180bu corn and, not cited as reference points above, wheat in the 60's, Oats around 130, and Canola in the 40's. All of which is to say $400/ac revenue is a pretty easy target to hit. Our costs, besides land values are essentially the same as farmer in Arkansas and things aren't all that bad for me, so what gives?

- Who honestly thinks that 25% of Arkansas farmers are going to go bankrupt in the next 3 years? (I don't know what report he is citing or the timeline so I just picked a timeline that seems reasonable.) My bet is no one.

I looked up Arkansas land values and good ground seems to go for under $5,000USD an acre, not much different from where I farm - is there some crazy extra cost that American farmers bear that I am unaware of? As a Canadian I hear American farmers whining all the time about how tough things are and I just don't get it. Things are not as good as they were in some recent crop years but overall profitability is not a big issue.

https://www.arfb.com/uploads/pages/arkansas_land_values_2024...

These monopolies, if they were so powerful, would be squeezing farmers so bad that land values would be dropping, not rising... but land values keep going up. Profits are being plowed into fixed assets, which means that there are profits - that's the economics of the thing, right?

JamisonM commented on Three farmers on monopolies and mismanagement in U.S. agriculture agweb.com/markets/outrage... · Posted by u/strict9

larsiusprime · 3 months ago

Indeed. One of the chief causes of high land prices for farmland is unmet demand for housing in the urban core, so farm and ranch land gets bid up to development prices.

A lot of advocates of building restrictions did it in the name of preserving nature/farmland/greenspace, but in many ways it’s had the opposite effect:

https://youtu.be/-Qn4iZgQY8k?si=LFzuAdWgMxB1BpIG

JamisonM · 3 months ago

That doesn't really make sense, the vast, vast majority of farmland is not close enough to an urban area to be influenced by sprawl and get bid up to development prices.

JamisonM commented on How a $2k 'Made in the USA' Phone Is Manufactured 404media.co/how-a-2-000-m... · Posted by u/jaredwiener

raincom · 8 months ago

Most of the demand (in terms of dollars/euros) is confined to the developed world. What happens when both US and EU want to bring back operations back to the home countries? Then these companies are left with serving less of the global demand.

JamisonM · 8 months ago

The Europeans seem to have become more free trade curious after recent events so this doesn't seem like it will hold up as a "what if". And I expect that the coming months of US-only inflation are just going to confirm that position for them even i they face a mild recession due to US market access/demand collapse issues.