Farmer Income Drops Most Since 2016 as Trade War Losses Mount

[swag]

Source: Bloomberg

By Mike Dorning and Katia Dmitrieva
April 29, 2019, 10:50 AM PDT

Personal income for farmers fell by the most in three years in the first quarter, as losses to U.S. agriculture mount from President Donald Trump’s trade wars.

The Commerce Department on Monday cited the steep decline in farm proprietors’ income as a key factor weighing on the nation’s overall personal income growth in March, even though agricultural producers represent only about 2 percent of total employed Americans.

The report provided fresh evidence of the growing financial strain on U.S. farmers hit by the trade war, low commodity prices and a series of natural disasters including spring floods in the Midwest. With rural voters a key part of Trump’s electoral coalition, it also underscores the political pressure to conclude the China trade war as U.S. negotiators begin another round of talks in Beijing this week.

One-time subsidy payments from the Trump administration to compensate producers for some of their trade-war losses helped prop up farm income in the previous quarter, but earnings plunged by an annualized $11.8 billion in the January to March period, according to seasonally adjusted data. On Monday, Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s top economic adviser, said the White House is prepared to do more to help agriculture.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-29/farmer-income-drops-most-since-2016-amid-trump-trade-war-pain

[duforsure]

1. Farmers got screwed over by trump and the gop

And maybe learned a lesson from what they say and what they do are totally different things. They will get tired of being lied to, and getting screwed over by them, and vote these corrupt criminals out of office with most of the rest of the American people. They are also neo-fascists hate mongers and troublemakers.

[Lucky Luciano]

10. Your utility function is wrong. Owning the libs outweighs all else! nt

[cstanleytech]

11. I would not count on the ones that continue to support Trump even while they are hurting

to learn shit.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

20. Just look to the WVa coal miners that voted against the ACA

Because they didn't want minorities and low-income families to benefit from health care, they voted for trmp. Once he got in, he pulled the very programs that benefited them, specifically programs targeting healthcare for the coal miners' disease, Black Lung. They were so full of hatred for others that they literally killed their own health care.

[Maxheader]

2. Talk this morning about a possible 1 BILLION Bushel carryover in beans next year.

That is not good for americun ag....And a big hearty fuck you to the yellow haired traitors, trade war...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Link to the source:

News Release BEA 19-18

EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2019

Personal Income and Outlays, March 2019

Due to the recent partial federal government shutdown, this report combines estimates for February and March 2019. Personal Income is updated for January and February and new estimates are available for March. Personal consumption expenditures are updated for January and new estimates are available for February and March.

Personal Income and Outlays, March 2019

Personal income increased $11.4 billion (0.1 percent) in March according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $0.6 billion, (less than 0.1 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $123.5 billion (0.9 percent).

Real DPI decreased 0.2 percent in March, and real PCE increased 0.7 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.2 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased less than 0.1 percent.

The increase in personal income in March primarily reflected increases in compensation of employees and government social benefits to persons that were partially offset by decreases in personal interest income and farm proprietors’ income.

In March, real PCE increased $87.4 billion, which reflected a $66.3 billion increase in spending on goods and an increase of $27.9 billion in spending on services. Within goods, increases were widespread, with spending on motor vehicles and parts the leading contributor. Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending on health care.

Personal outlays increased $126.5 billion in March. Personal saving was $1.03 trillion in March, and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 6.5 percent.

{snip}

Click on Related Materials

Click on Full Release & Tables

[riversedge]

4. "earnings plunged by an annualized $11.8 billion in the January to March period,"

[PatrickforO]

5. The root of this problem (we ARE talking about farmers, here, after all),

is Reagan's pocket veto of the Fairness Doctrine. That is what allowed AM hate-talk radio to metastasize over the entire face of the nation between 1987 and now. These hate-talkers are by themselves little more than shills, but corporate sponsors feed them talking points through right-wing 'think tanks,' and they use the words and make the points in a very sophisticated way.

They are the ones, these freakish billionaire parasites, who have poisoned America's heartland against the traditional New Deal philosophy of helping anyone vulnerable and working together to eliminate poverty and injustice, and replaced that with the 'rugged individual pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap' mentality.

This plays directly into the hands of the billionaires because if we all hate each other and hate the government and hate the Democratic 'lib-er-uls,' then we won't ever notice them transferring more wealth from the public treasury to themselves so they can get just a little richer while the rest of us fight amongst ourselves for shares of an ever-smaller piece of pie.

Listen...you can hear a sort of sucking sound as your money flows into the pockets of dirt-bags like the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and Robert Mercer and his batshit crazy daughter.

The reason, of course, I'm making this point is my ex-number-one used to have an uncle in Nebraska who farmed wheat. His place was near Car Henge if you know about that. Anyway, he had some first class farm machinery - air conditioned, cushioned and very nice. Complete with radio. So picture hundreds of these farmers out every day in their machines listening to the likes of Limbaugh and you can readily see the problem.

[Dave Starsky]

7. Spot on.

Same goes for truck drivers, too. They've been steeping in Limbaugh's nasty shit for decades. At least farmers could listen to FM, if they wanted to. Truck drivers tend to listen to AM (chock full of hate radio and fundie religious stations), because AM travels a lot farther.

I had a red-state friend whose grandpa was a farmer. Like your ex's uncle, he drove a beautiful Massey-Ferguson combine equipped with an AM radio-- always tuned to Limbaugh, and always turned up FULL BLAST, because he was half-deaf from being around farm machinery his whole life.

[Chin music]

9. +1

God forbid theyd slam some FM in there. Sirius now, but, the die is cast.

[TeamPooka]

6. elections have consequences

[PatSeg]

8. But, but, but

This is the greatest economy our country has ever seen!!! Greatest for a few apparently and they're probably the 1%.

[ananda]

12. If they're supporters of MF45, they won't care.

They'd rather die than .. well, you know.

[yaesu]

13. good thing they got that YUGE bailout! nt

[Bengus81]

14. Ask any of them,they'll pull a lever for Trump again instead of some librul......

Many,many counties in far western Kansas voted 90+% for Trump and his Republican thugs and will do it AGAIN in a heartbeat--even after being fucked over. Watch those farmers in action on Nov 3rd 2020.

If Obama had pulled this tariff stunt and damn near sunk their business they'd be doing a tractor motorcade to DC wanting his head.

[Crowman2009]

21. They may as well fall on a Scythe and get the same effect.

[blue-wave]

15. But I thought the tRump

Was on their side??? I’m soooo confused.

[Mc Mike]

16. So he went to a farm area and talked about how much wages are rising for city workers.

[Midnight Writer]

17. Time for more free market subsidies.

[Skittles]

18. they'll vote for Trump again

count on it

[captain jack]

19. I guess beliefs don't pay the bills. n/t