I have family that farms in Iowa and I also worked in the agriculture industry there for a while after leaving the military. One thing that increases the stress on the farmers is the way they avoid income taxes at all costs so they rarely save any of the profits from good years to help them float during the bad years.

This is all anecdotal but I have personally talked with several farmers that would rather buy new equipment they say do not even need than pay the taxes to take the money as income. This mindset causes them to experience a huge amount of stress every season. The farmers would talk about struggling, but have a brand new semi-tractor sitting in a barn unused 10 months out of the year. >One thing that increases the stress on the farmers is the way they avoid income taxes at all costs so they rarely save any of the profits from good years to help them float during the bad years. I'm from Iowa and a family member does lots of farm bankruptcies here.

This is definitely a thing. Farmers buy new pickup trucks in lieu of showing a profit. Pair that in with land purchases at 7k+/acre and the saying 'the neighbors land will never come up for sale again while I'm alive' and you've got a good mix for very high stress situations. It's worth metioning that this distribution system is decided by the UK government (or possibly Eng/Scot etc governements).

The EU allocates subsidy to the member nations according to one system (not accounting for e.g. Bigger hedges), which allocate subsidy to farmer/business according to their own system. It is entirely possible for the UK government, within the EU, to allocate money to farms as an insurance system against bad years, or to encourage profitability at all costs, or in another way. No, there is lots of risk in land, particularly if you borrow money to buy it! People have different risk evaluation and time horizons.

Nitsuh Ethiopia Environmental Services PLC is a registered media house focused on Health, Safety and Environment; we have two working spaces dedicated to. Basic Computer skill, MS office packages ( MS Word, Excel and power point); Knowledge of editing software is an added advantage. I am working on the RMA process now with B&H and that has been very pleasant. August 18 last year mediaman Gregorio Ybanez. CNC Double-Column Metal Band Sawing Machine. Mecamatic 3.0 Ediciyn Hogar by PeruvianCrackers.

If you are sitting on a lot of capital, it’s a no brainer to buy land when financial bubbles pop and leveraged owners need to unload cheap. Not only do you have a long term inflation hedge, but it’s real property, which means you can borrow against it to get cash without paying taxes via dividends or sale. Iowa is great for investors like this because the whole state is just a big corn factory.

The government tries to keep commodity prices less volatile, so you can project lease income with some precision using the value of corn. That's land in the middle of nowhere. If you're near a city you can get a nice premium as the suburbs expand. 4x is a bit extreme (been a long time since it was that much). But it's expensive. In the middle of nowhere there have been quite a number of land sales with $10k+/acre in the past handful of years. Farmland prices have been kinda crazy over the last 5-10 years.

As a quick example of some math: * Rent prices for farmland in Iowa [1] averaged $230/acre in 2016 * Yield per acre for corn is 203 in 2016 * Price per bushel averaged $9.27 [3] Throwing averages into the mix, $1,882 revenue per acre. Without any expenses, farmers could be looking at >5 year time to break even at a 10k purchase price as opposed. Tons of farmers are paper millionaires simply because of the land they own. 100 acres of 10k land gets you there. 640 acres is 1 square mile (much of the state is on a 1x1 mile grid of gravel roads). And of course I found most of the work already done after I found a bunch of sources. [4] has some more detailed numbers.

[1] [2] [3] [4]. Just saw this.

As my late dad and other old timers said a few years ago, the price of land is tied to the price of corn. Land values (both purchase and cash rent) have fallen the past year or two from their high, slowly but steadily.

From a pure numbers standpoint, land prices are still high relative to corn prices, I'd say about 2x as high as some historical years at this corn price (plus historical inflation). I'd like to see it down around $5K/acre in my area. But there are other factors in the cost too, and that is how much people are willing to pay for land. And guys are still willing to pay for it at this level, although not as many as before. There's still profitability, if you play your cards right. But that's a whole other analysis.

There is a more pressing reason that has pushed farmers to continually buy new equipment. Farm credit services pressures farmers into this practice. When giving out a loan for operations, a farmer's ability to pay is heavily weighted on farmers having newer equipment. The excuse that I have heard for the bank to do this, is that the bank can't easily tell which farmers take better care of their equipment, thus favoring the newer equipment across the board.

The agents working directly with the farmers advocate for this, as there are internal incentives for making larger loans. It isn't just a mindset, it is supported by their accountant.

Because of the way depreciation works their long term income is higher by buying new equipment than paying taxes. The busiest week for farm equipment dealers is the week between Christmas and new years.

That is when their account calls them and says trading in some machine would reduce their tax bill by more than the payments! Assuming the trade in value is high enough of course. Farmers are businessmen running a real business. They understand how to use all the loopholes written for them. Is it though? A new truck is going to be reliable and under warranty. A farmer cannot afford for his equipment to break.

The truck being broke means that he cannot get fuel trailer to the equipment. That means that the tractors spend 2 hours every day driving back and forth to the fuel tanks on the farm to refuel - time that is not spent in the field. The truck being broke for just 2 days can cost the farmer more money than the entire cost of a new truck. (if storm wipes out any crop not harvested).

LLC are pass-through entities. So, let's say you're a farmer, and you set up Farm, LLC, and then set up Profit, LLC. Profit LLC has to charge Farm LLC enough to eliminate the profits that Farm LLC generates. One way to do this is to have Profit LLC own the land, and Farm LLC pays Profit LLC a lease rate on the land that nicely eliminates the profit from Farm LLC. This is all well and good, but now you've just shifted the profit to Profit LLC, and what to do with it there? If it's an LLC, whoever owns it has to pay income tax on it. So if you, the farmer, own Profit LLC, you're still paying taxes on it.

If Farm LLC owns it, then the profit just goes back to Farm LLC, undoing the whole purpose. So maybe you decide to make Profit LLC a C-Corp instead, so it's Profit, Inc., with the idea that now it's no longer a pass-through entity. But now you have to pay corporate income tax on it, even if you don't distribute it.

Then, when you distribute it someday, you have to pay regular income tax on it again. Some companies (such as Toys 'R Us) used to get around this by having 'Profit LLC' be a company that owns the brand and licenses it to the retail company, to eliminate the retail company's profits. They then locate Profit LLC in a low/no-tax country such as the Cayman Islands. It's not clear how this would work for a farmer, however, because there's not really a brand to license, and any company that owned the land would still fall under US tax jurisdiction. Sure, income is revenue minus expenditures so the easiest way to avoid income (and income taxes) is to just spend everything you make.

Which is what the parent of this thread was saying. The consequence is that in bad times, the company has to borrow (if it can) or goes bankrupt. Which happens often. We don't generally shed tears over this kind of thing, but this story points out the human tragedy that passes when individuals follow the same strategy. Personally I kinda feel a little meh about the subject.

My heart goes out to every struggling business(wo)man - it's hard to make it on your own. But farmers are especially insulated against market forces by a giant morass of subsidies and land use regulations. They're already getting a much bigger handout than they deserve. There are financial instruments for this, different insurances and such. Not an LLC exactly but there are ways to do it and there are products you can buy to do just that, annuities and different income yielding investments. If you’ve got issues with any form of taxes due to your culture, you’re not likely a good candidate or disciplined enough to accept these kinds of instruments.

Fundamentally it means you have to make less during the great years to pay yourself during the bad years. It has also been my observation that there is a sort of victim mentality that many farmers embrace, they can be legitimate multimillionaires but would rather be seen as poor and bullied by the banks, government and elites. Salaries are a deductible expense for any business entity, so that money is never taxed twice by any reckoning.

The debate about double taxation of corporate profits relates to taxation of dividends, which are neither exempt nor deductible from a business' taxable income. Because shareholders are one and the same as the corporation according to some strains of legal and economic reasoning, by taxing dividends you've taxed the shareholders' profits twice. If you control a corporation, you could achieve the same tax treatment as pass-through entities merely by paying yourself a salary instead of dividends. But if you did that, pass-through entities are easier because there are fewer formalities involved. The real gripe is that because dividends are taxed at a flat 15-20%, paying yourself in tax-preferred dividends is a tantalizing prospect but-for the supposed double taxation 'problem'. The debate is admittedly a little more nuanced when discussing passive investments, but that's a different context than family farms. Not true at all.

An LLC passes through these things for tax purposes only. Each owner is taxed on their pro-rata share of the business’ income offset by its losses, but the business doesn’t have to distribute anything at all.

It’s common to distribute at least enough to cover those taxes but it’s never normally required by state or federal law. Edit: you can’t keep an untaxed rainy day fund, that’s true.

If you keep cash in the business from one year and use it on expenses the following, you deduct those expenses for the year they occurred. If that incurs a net operating loss you can carry that loss backwards or forwards if you want. >The farmers would talk about struggling, but have a brand new semi-tractor sitting in a barn unused 10 months out of the year. Your business having a illiquid depreciating asset that is required for the business to function can still be struggling.

You can't eat a combine, you can't trade it away. This is usually solved with coops owning the equipment and time sharing it to distribute the costs among the coop participants. Farmers are indentured servants to the commodities markets, the land owner's they rent their land from, and John Deere.

Having your own semi is very important during harvest: your combine will fill up in 15 minutes. That means every 15 minutes you need to unload it. 2 combines worth of grain is as much as your can haul in a semi (because of road weight restrictions).

When the farmer is harvesting they don't want to stop: every delay is a chance that a storm latter will destroy the rest of the crop. Farmers often hard hauling to a elevator 20 minutes away where there is a 20 minute line to dump. As a result it isn't unusual for a farmer to need 2 semis for every combine. Now you can rent semis, but it isn't cheap.

For a farmer the rental company will look at it as a semi that won't be rented for 10 months so they charge for it. At least for my family's farm in OK, a lot of the labor moves and takes the equipment with them. They move north to south with the season and the farm owners don't have to own as much equipment (in our case, none of us are farmers and haven't been for a few generations so a different situation). The farm manager still farms his own land, but he uses this same labor and their equipment with own a little of his own for tending during the growing season (the most labor and equipment intensive parts are harvest and planting). Point being, the expensive equipment that is effectively being rented (with the labor in our case) isn't sitting idle most of the year.

It's being used in different areas. I lean liberal but a significant portion of my family is conservative. Their thinking with regards to taxes is that it's spent on one of the following: - Welfare, which is supposedly rampant with fraud to the point that most people who are on welfare don't 'need' it - Unspecified government waste Not that these don't exist- it's just that it's the majority of government spending, according to them. If taxes are cut, they claim welfare will get cut, forcing people to find work, and that government will somehow cut their other wasteful spending while still managing to fund the necessities. I live in suburban NJ, so it's a bit easier for me to see where my taxes go- police, fire, public transit, a handful of schools. But in rural America, where 911 response times can be around 30 minutes, there's no train to get to a nearby city, and there's only two schools in your town?

It looks like that money vanished. Rural areas in the US are heavily subsidized by urban areas (which is not inherently bad, but the perception that money flows the other way is a big political problem), especially when it comes to social services such as healthcare, disability payments, welfare, etc., but also if you just look at basic infrastructure like roads, sometimes disguised as regulatory requirements that private infrastructure providers maintain some baseline service everywhere.

The issue is that providing high levels of service to sparsely populated places is very expensive. Of course many states are also doing a poor job of basic infrastructure maintenance statewide, but that's a different problem. It's the cost of being an American. And in reality, people in rural communities are the ones that are being propped up by money confiscated from others. Roads alone are very expensive, over a million bucks per mile in rural areas. Wyoming has 33,000 miles of road serving a population of 550k. That works out to at least $60k per person in just to build the roads, never mind maintaining them.

And not having these roads means higher transportation costs, which translate to more money spent on goods and more profit being lost to transporting sales. There are plenty of countries in the world without individual taxes, they just also happen to be places most people don't want to live. >over a million bucks per mile in rural areas This is a commonly repeated myth, but is not usually true. Road costs are far lower than often claimed. A 2-lane asphalt road construction costs about $800k on average and lasts approximately 30 years with proper maintenance.

(Using MDOT numbers, since that's what I happen to have on hand). In Wyoming, this works out to $1,600 per person per year ($133/month/person). But that assumes every single road in Wyoming is paved -- they aren't. I don't know the accuracy of this, but the University of Wyoming claims only 20% of a county's roads are paved in the state, on average, so real costs are probably much lower.

In states with any significant city whatsoever, the costs drop dramatically. Michigan, for example, has 120,256 miles of road serving 9.9 million people, 75% of which are rural. That's a total road cost of about $360 per person per year ($30/person/month). Interestingly, Wyoming is actually the worst pick of any state that they could choose. As of 2013[0], it was second in the nation (New Jersey) in balance of payments with the federal government (give more than take). It was one of only two red states, along with North Dakota. Per capita, it paid the most of any state in corporate taxes, 3rd most in estate taxes (behind CT and FL), and 2nd in excise taxes (ND).

[0] I can't find a more recent pre-compiled source, and too lazy to run the numbers myself. I doubt it has changed significantly enough to make the. Yeah, that's kind of bullshit. They send their kids to public schools and maybe public universities later, drive on public roads, use water, electricity, etc. They also have a place where they buy seed, animals, neighbors they attend church with, etc. Not to mention the markets they need to sell to.

There is some level of self-sustainment but it's a myth how 'independent' people really are. They might be detached from the federal side of things but they still also have to interact at a state level. So if a thief steals your car and leaves you his bicycle, it's hypocritical to criticize him while using the bike to get around? Or if you're forced to pay protection money by some gang, it's hypocritical to criticize them even if they do protect your business from other gangs? And is it hypocritical to live in the West and take advantage of all the benefits it gained from centuries of imperialism and exploitation, while criticizing that behavior? I'm not against taxation, but that's some BS logic. Just some notes: Using an bicycle that isn't yours is illegal even if it supposedly was left there by a thief, at least here.

In a similar way it is legal to buy protection from someone if you feel you have a need to, that right is questionable. Private security is much more mob like than taxes IMHO. I think the ideas of anti-taxation is often hypocritical, too often you see people critize tax cuts that do not serve their other beliefs. Mind you, this is not an argument against tax cuts, I just think anti taxation is an pipedream. Your attempt to make an analogy here doesn't hold up. The anti-tax position would be to want to keep your car but also get use of the bicycle whenever you want it, since the true taxation analogy would be both you and the other person granting use of your property to others.

Unless you want to argue about people paying more in taxes than they (feel they) get in benefits. In which case, well, the most rabid anti-tax people generally are getting far more benefits than they pay for (and are busily re-rigging the tax system to tilt even more in their favor).

What you may be missing is that not everyone shares your assumption that taxation is a sine qua non of the benefits they want from modern society. They might be wrong, but that doesn't make them hypocrites. Also, the claim that it's all hypocrisy reminds me of this bit from the TAL episode 'What Kind of Country': Jan Martin: And a gentleman came up to me and actually thanked me for the adopt a street light program.

He had just written a check to the city for $300 to turn all the street lights back on in his neighborhood. And I did remind him that for $200 if he had supported the tax initiative, we could have had not only streetlights, but parks and firemen and swimming pools and community centers.

That by combining our resources, we as a community can actually accomplish more than we as individuals. Robert Smith: And he said? Jan Martin: He said he would never support a tax increase. I was responding to a comment that stated that rural folks believe that they subsidize the cities by pointing out that belief was contrary to the reality (at least in the States; I don't know much about Canada's rural vs urban divisions, but I'd guess the dynamics there are similar). As far as what I prefer: I have no issue subsidizing rural areas, within reason.

I support everyone having access to basic infrastructure, healthcare, and education, regardless of where they live. Beyond that, there's no particular reason for government to provide incentives to live in one or the other; let the market sort that out. Depends on the locale, but sometimes just talking to the city works. If you're in a rural area of a smaller town, the mayor or council may not have reason to go to the rural areas. That can seem like they're getting purposefully neglected.

The reality is that they may not know of the giant pothole on County Road 18 or the rampant littering in certain areas. It may not always work, but informing the local government of issues might get you what you want. After all, you are the constituent that gets those people into office.

Let them help you. My parents almost invested in an Apple II solution in the early 1980s that made robocalls using a wardialer and playing a message to people and telling them where to go or call to buy things. In the meetings where farmers as well. The company said the system was designed by Steve Wozniak at Apple and very reliable. Farmers did not want to buy it but rent it instead. When you rent equipment you can claim it as an expense on taxes, anything from a telephone to a computer to tractors, etc.

Another reason is if they broke, rental company would fix it or replace it with another one. >The farmers would talk about struggling, but have a brand new semi-tractor sitting in a barn unused 10 months out of the year. Don't you think that PERCEPTION is a horrible mindset?

Less sympathy to people's stresses because they haven't lost their dignity. This applies to street beggars, immigrants, etc. The stuff I've heard are appalling.

Formally middle class immigrants getting less empathy because they have cell phones. 'Hey they should have sold the cell phone thats not a prerequisite to communication in 2017, their priorities are way too off for them to deserve any support' Back to the topic at hand, maybe thats part of the suicide! >'Hey they should have sold the cell phone thats not a prerequisite to communication in 2017, their priorities are way too off for them to deserve any support' Not to get too off topic here but during my college years I worked at a grocery store. I found it unbelievable how many times I had to listen to a customer complain about the cell phone that the customer who was in front of them had. 'I just don't understand how they can afford a cell phone if they are on food stamps!' [0] 'Uh cool, would you like plastic or paper?' Keep in mind that a trac phone plan is less than $15 dollars a month and even cheaper if you are careful with it.

But I wouldn't have dared tell the outraged customer that. It's always crazy to me how people think they can solve another persons life problems based on a 15 second observation. [0] In Massachusetts the food stamp cards were/are a distinct blue color and easy to spot. Currently, the first comment including replies makes up for 182 comments out of 312, and as far as page estate goes, it completely dominates. It's about technicalities, attachment to land, all sorts of things except depression and suicide. Though what it pushes down isn't all better, with niceties such as 'the market is doing a good job at signaling that they probably need to change professions' Fucking HN. I want textfiles back.

>Is it possible to criticize decisions and have empathy at the same time? Yes, it's possible, but it's not done here. >Or is criticism not acceptable at all? Are you projecting? Whenever the glaring soullessnes in a HN thread is criticized, it's downvotes and hair splitting.

Yes, it's technically possible to have empathy and also criticize, but due to the sequential nature of communication even when you do both, you have to decide what to do first. When the whole page is taken up by chatter, the empathy exists somewhere below the 'More' fold, if at all. Yes, criticism is acceptable. As long as criticism of the criticism, such as calling it heartless victim blaming as I would, is also acceptable. Otherwise, the right to criticize is forfeit. Many 'family farms' even in the dainty UK are multi-million $ businesses, run by people who know how to shear sheep and bunt hurdles and wurzels. They complain about the effect of market prices, and the worry they create, but they are taking on these risks unhedged (and farmers being unhedged makes me giggle).

Similar size businesses would we hedging their FX risk through their local bank with simple FX forwards. Farmers could directly hedge corn prices (commodities futures), and indirectly hedge fertilizer and diesel prices with oil futures. They could virtually remove market risk and concentrate on the risk inherent in the business (weather, disease etc) I would offer this advice, but they are all so clever you can't tell them anything. They are a very insular bunch in general and their tie to their land is a bit more than the blood sweat and tears mentioned below, its a bit more like being the Lord of their Manor.

I agree with the top post, they would happily be less profitable to save tax. It is intriguing (but not surprising to me) that many UK farmers voted to leave the EU, despite it being their main source of unearned income and the main market for their goods, and despite the National Farmers Union coming out in favor of remaining.

I have noticed the young generation of farmers be openly aggressive towards foreign people (not that they actually meet any). It is kind of sad, but when they all lose their farms after Brexit they will still blame the French for it. Disclosure: worked a lot with farmers, and have some in the family. In the case of Brexit 'Fear of immigration drove the leave victory – not immigration itself' Dominic Cummings, architect of the Vote Leave campaign has been pretty open about what they regarded as the winning factors: ' Would we have won without immigration? Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests No.' Even though I was a Remain voter I have to credit Vote Leave with how dynamic and data driven their campaign was - they knew what buttons to press based on large quantities of raw data.

Farmers that are killing themselves grow commodity products. The people who are leaving corporate jobs to become farmers are wanting to farm specialty products like organic products or high end products like mushrooms, flowers, wine, or specialty cheeses. The problem is that the farmers who grow commodity crops live in areas that are not suited to growing specialty crops (the middle of the country) so they can't switch. Specialty crops are mostly grown on the west coast and the east coast where there is better soil and in some cases more water think Central Valley, Willamette Valley, Hudson River Valley. I also expect commodity farmer have significant debt and illiquid assets (namely all the machinery necessary for large-scale commodity farming as well as related lands), and most likely contracts with agro distributors to fulfil. Regardless of soil suitability, you can't just shuck off a farm worth (tens of) millions, debt on the same scale (average debt-to-assets as of 2017 is ~13% and I would expect the farmers featured here are way worse) and throw out decades of experience to try and grow mushrooms, it's unlikely that it would make your clients and creditors happy.

Even less so when you're in your 50s. It's not just what they grow, but how they grow it and sell it. The soil on many mid-country farms is bad because of years of growing with chemical pesticides and fertilizers and bad practices, something that is potentially reversible with alternate growing methods. Commodity growers on huge farms distribute their food into large grocers potentially all over the world, to be sold at the lowest possible price. They must maximize yields at any cost to make money. Specialty growers sell into farmer's markets, CSA's, etc, at a much higher cost for the goods. This is why many of them are in coastal and affluent areas, where the buyers are willing to pay considerably more for local, fresh produce that has been grown organically.

So true, I sometimes quip that growing up shoveling manure on our family dairy farm was excellent preparation for the corporate world I now work in. This life is so much easier, everyday, I'm warm and dry. The image of Blaske on the farm, illuminating the darkness, is a powerful one. “Sometimes the batteries were low and the light was not so bright,” he wrote, “But when you found the cow that was missing, you also found a newborn calf, which made the dark of night much brighter.” Winter was the worst, fumbling around in the dark, the mud, the cold. Miserable existence. As someone else who also grew up on a dairy farm (UK), it's very hard to find reliable people to do the work.

I can understand that as an office job has a lot of attractions compared to being out in rain in the winter darkness. They will often leave with no notice and it can be very hard to find someone reliable to replace them. I don't see much progress on this, unless farming becomes profitable to employ staff on top wages or robots can become cheap enough to take over. Therefore, my family, though managing the farm, will often have to get involved in long hours manual labour.

I remember that discussion. I also remember the major criticism was that a good portion of the people who are moving from tech to farming were already independently wealthy enough to bootstrap their farm into a good place. And on top of that getting to choose where their farm is located. Contrast that with a farmer who may have inherited what he has from his parents and may not be in as good a financial state, or their land holding is too small or has too much local or regional competition to make it profitable. I mean, inheriting a farm is inheriting a lot of money.

Were family farmers perfectly rational economic actors, they'd presumably sell their inherited farm and use the proceeds to buy one more suited to the newer, locally grown, organic type farms that are more insulated from the economies of scale that are driving them out of business. But obviously people aren't such rational actors, and farmers have emotional attachments to their farms, the rural areas they grew up in, etc. And so they keep trying to make the old model work, increase their debt loads and hope things will turn around until its too late. One issue at least in my own state that has eliminated many family farms is the inheritance tax rate judges the value of the land on its highest possible economic value of use. This means getting taxed on subdividing the entire property and developing it not taxed on the value of the land if kept as a farm. This lead to every generational change over of a family farm to generally have to halve the size of the farm and then have a new development of NIMBY's surrounding them steadily.

The farm lobby in my state has been pushing a bill to base the inheritance tax on the farm value of the land if the land is kept in production as a working farm for 15 years following payment. Not the phenomenon itself — everyone should be free to pick a new career as circumstances and desires change — but of some interpretations of that phenomenon. I don't want to set up a straw man here, but a hypothetical analyst could look at this trend and think something special is happening with farming (as mc32 put: '[thinking] that they have a better farming plan or better farming insight over generational farmers') — picture a cover story with the headline 'farming is back', now picture a less upmarket story titled '15 reasons to be a farmer (ear of corn emoji)! You won't BELIEVE number 12!' Whereas it's an iteration of the eternal 'strike gold, open a boutique' story.

Yes and yes, the conditions aren't great. I've heard video games is even worse (esp. Edited: [long paragraph about vfx but the reddit link covers it exactly] I came across the same model when working with an architecture firm and it makes me wonder if maybe all client services, given the power disparity and need to please, isn't like this. Architecture is far more regulated of course but in the design stages I heard from people that were pissed that they were going to take a bath on a project (and look bad and have their numbers look bad) because an executive wanted to make sure that client was happy (such that they cut a mansion renovation down by 50%) or won't do an add service after a client completely throws stuff out the window and changes the scope of a project. At least in VFX there was OT and DT. I felt bad for architects that were highly educated, with subsequent loans, and working a lot of overtime but not being compensated for it.

I'll stick with IT, even though that has its own issues. It sucks that this may be happening in farming, which isn't a 'sexy' industry like architecture or film, but our greater society as a whole seems more cutthroat and bargain-driven these days. There are few places where market forces work as well as in farming. Which is surprising considering the distortions imposed by subsidies. Still, I think this is a case where automation will eliminate many if not all of their jobs and the market is doing a good job at signaling that they probably need to change professions. This especially rang true when they mentioned how the price of a wheat bushel appeared to below production costs.

It’s really pains me to see these men having to deal with the dark side of creative distruction but I also don’t know what’s the best way to help them reinvent themselves for the future. I was reading other commenters mentioning the relatively old age of farmers. Maybe the only good option would be something like removing/phasing out existing subsidies so that only right amount of young people choose the profession coupled with a generous retirement program. Something like social security plus but with your farmland backing the plus part. Maybe in the spirit of what you’re describing.

I worry about the unforseeable consequences of paying to leave arable land fallow. You’re essentially raising food prices and that really affects poor people the most. I imagine that farmers' high rate of gun ownership and social isolation are the big factors. It's pretty well documented that people with guns are more likely to successfully take their lives when compared to suicidal people who do not have guns. Couple that with the fact that there is not really a support system or general awareness of this issue and you have a problem. Veterans are also likely to own guns, but at least they have the VA and other organizations that are readily available to help in the event of emotional or psychological issues. Farmers do not have an equivalent organization.

The Guardian article on Dec 6, 2017 quotes the stat from Newsweek which has a date of July 13, 2016 quoting a 2014 study showing the number at 15.2 per 100,000. The other cited source is a CDC Study from 2016 with data up until 2012 that shows Farmers, Foresters, and Fishermen have the highest suicide rates of any profession in the US. Strangely, the CDC study puts the number at 84.5 per 100,000[1].

I would really like to see a bit more rigor and comparison so I know what is really going on. My educated guess (I was a sysadmin in a major north Texas age company) is the hidden nature of the mergers, acquisitions, and interdependency the huge ag firms and bankers have fostered on what used to be family farms, and don't be fooled, true family farms are rarer and rarer these days.

I don't know when it changed so much from my great grandparents days, but when I see farmers with brand new ford raptors and 500k tractors less than a few years old it seems to fly in the face of what my grandparents described as life on a farm. I wonder how much prior boom times have an impact on farmers because prices on the crops have just languished for years now. 2008 had very aggressive price appreciation in corn & beans. Same can be said for late 2010, all 2011, all 2012, & early 2013. After that prices have absolutely fallen off a cliff & continue to hover near those lows every single day.

I suspect it's difficult to be in the 'risk management' business which farmers are by being 'long' the crop in the ground & having no price appreciation for years. Meanwhile all other risk assets continue to explode higher. At some point it probably becomes challenging to find a light at the end of the tunnel. Now with rising interest rates the cost of capital is higher & likely going to accelerate higher. Higher operating costs (wages & debt service) & continually deperessed prices of the product you produce.

I don't have a solution for any of this but by putting myself in those shoes it sure does seem horrible. >but the most extreme anti-government/anti-tax ideologies. It's the very definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face. That sadly isn't an extreme ideologies.

Every wonder why Republicans are all for tax cuts? Its the simple idea that if the Government has less money it must be smaller.

So lower the taxes of the rich and corporations = smaller government. This is why we have problems all the time with tax talks. Both sides talk with different worldviews.

You might say 'Trickle Down Economics Doesn't Work,' they simply don't care, 'There is nothing that Government does well.' 'Government is the problem' - Ronald Reagan 1981 Inauguration Though I love throwing Reagan into the face of today's 'Conservatives' they really would HATE Reagan today and his liberal ways. I am generally in favor of a smaller national government and my default position on a tax cut is positive until proven otherwise, yet I still understand how progressive tax structures work. I have many friends and associates who would be considered conservative even among other Republicans, and probably have inconceivably conservative viewpoints by most of HN's standards. And I don't think any of them would spend $150k just to keep $30k out of the government's hands. So yes I think if you're going to hurt yourself financially to make some token gesture toward the government that won't even show up on a budget spreadsheet because it's so small, that's either an extreme ideological viewpoint or you don't know how taxes work. 'Never ascribe to malice' and all that.

And individual taxes aside, corporate taxes should absolutely be lower, they're among the highest in the world. >corporate taxes should absolutely be lower, they're among the highest in the world. Effective Rate So lets say Corporate Tax is a 20% flat tax from 35% the taxes would actually increase. Because they are actually paid at around 15% and no where close to highest in the world.

We are actually on par or bellow the average tax rate across the world. Personally I would love to see a drop of corporate federal taxes and place them more on the individuals. Tax the shareholder and those that profit from the corporations. The truth is this isn't happening and why we see the money continually going to the top and not filtering down.

Corporations are incentivized to lower wages and benefits to extract more profit. As the economic disparity continues to climb and the burden is placed on the middle and lower class to support profit growth.

Looking at taxes for the national safety net for the working poor, higher utilities bills, and higher medical expenses and insurance cost. None of these are of concern for the wealthy. We can't even have a conversation on what is fair for the working poor and instead we disincentive work in America.

The 'conservatives' today are just totally Libertarians who could careless if work is incentivized. I've always thought of 'trickle down economics' as an overly-rosy way of saying that we'll 'grow our way out of the hole'. Nevermind the 'conservatives' will never stop digging, will never cut spending, even occasionally spinning up another entitlement of their own, and only occasionally toss their people a bone by slowing existing programs' growth rate. I don't think Reagan thought of government size as being a problem since he grew it massively.

I think he did rebel against bureaucracies and waste/fraud/abuse, at least rhetorically. Ultimately, the guy was a deal-maker, and he'd happily grow the government (with military at the forefront) if he could get his stimulative tax cuts. >Though I love throwing Reagan into the face of today's 'Conservatives' they really would HATE Reagan today and his liberal ways. He was as liberal as JFK was, which is to say Reagan was your classic 'govt can do some good here'-liberal. Today's true 'liberals' are cultural marxists, which ultimately makes them toxic, hence their precipitous decline recently. If the libs could drop the culture war stuff and focus on labor issues and positive right-sized governing, they'd shoot back to popularity. Nothing will improve while power comes chiefly from dividing people and the hatred continues to flow.

Reagan was a moral man and he was a good orator, making him a fine spokesman for America and raising our stock worldwide. That he could reassure and comfort people was the best part about him; the rest of Reagan was muddled goods and bads. But Hillary wasn't a liberal. Liberals actually hated her. We are now in the world perception of Democrat = Liberal and Republican = Conservative and its just wrong. I grew up being a Republican and I don't think I have changed much in my political stances but everyone else has moved far to the Libertarian doctrine.

Case in point: Increase the wages and benefits = less government funding. Never going to get backing from Republican Party in its present form.

So instead we have this Corporation Welfare system where tax dollars for Walmart's benefits. She was a centrist. Bill Clinton was more Conservative than Liberal and Hillary was certainly more like Bill. The platform was built to help bring on Bernie Sander's supports on board. It didn't help with the release of the Russian Hacked DNC Email that was published by wiki leaks. If you look at the emails it is clear how Democrat Leadership saw Bernie as to liberal and to far to the left. Heck in America Canada is equal to communism so I can understand why people view her as a liberal.

>Modulo foreign policy, the daylight between her campaign and the Sanders campaign was pretty narrow. They weren't as close as you are presenting. >But Hillary wasn't a liberal. I don't know why you're bringing her up.

You're using the term 'liberal', but I haven't got a clue what people mean when they say that anymore. What's your definition? You say what Hillary is not, but you don't say what she is. I don't separate her in any way from the Democrats politically - at least those who hold power currently - not the rank-and-file of course. >We are now in the world perception of Democrat = Liberal and Republican = Conservative and its just wrong.

I disagree, you're just assuming everyone's stuck in old tribal thinking when there's so much evidence to the contrary. Haven't you noticed the tectonic shifts in media over the last 5 years?

The boomers are starting to die off, their power is waning, and the younger generations are restless. #metoo works because the majority is disgusted by what they see. Look at how many congress-rats are jumping ship at the end of this cycle.

The Republican party is dying for abandoning their base in order to cling to power, despite their fundraising. The Democrats are losing seats everywhere, have not been grooming enough replacements for the old-timers, and won't shake the loser 60's radical ideology - they might as well just die too. >Case in point: Increase the wages and benefits = less government funding. Why would you believe that taxes are a zero-sum game? Not that it always works out this way, because the economy has cycles, but you can stimulate economic activity by taxing less which does create growth that yields net increases in tax revenue.

Ask yourself, could your 'tax more == more revenue' mental model be too simplistic? Who put that assumption in your head, and why is that idea so powerful for them when you accept it? (My theory is: a human tendency to treat the top of one's conceptual hierarchy as god/religion and the desire to sacrifice to the gods. If government is at the top of your hierarchy, certainly taxes are a worthy sacrifice to the good!) I'll posit a related question; I don't know the answer because I'm not an economist, but I think it's a good one nonetheless: is there a scientifically/statistically optimal tax rate that we could tweak once a year based on forecasts and trends?

Why have we not done this already if maximizing revenue is the goal? I go so far as to claim that for most people on the left (radical or not), maximizing tax revenue is never the goal, just a standard talking point when discussing tax cuts. >Democrats are losing seats everywhere, have not been grooming enough replacements for the old-timers, and won't shake the loser 60's radical ideology Uh, the Democrats never, as a national party, had a “60s radical ideology”, and since the 1990s have been a solidly pro-big-business center-right neoliberal party barely distinguishable from late 1980s Republicans but for some equal rights stands; that's weakened a bit in the last few years, and may have hit a tipping point after the 2016 election, though its kind of hard to tell for sure with the Dems lacking any of the national power centers. Black Lives Matter seems very throwback racial politics to me.

Is that a DNC thing, specifically? No, but clearly there's an embrace of the movement in order to secure their votes and energy. So yes, as a national party, democrats are all about griping for oppressed minority groups.

60's radical ideology is what I understand stems from the Marxist shift from class struggle to oppressed identity groups in the 60's as a means of staying relevant. Here's a discussion about this phenomena on Wikipedia: This is cultural Marxism. This brand of politics is pessimistic, negative, divisive and wicked by nature. It foments discontent. And notice that it only seeks to lift the oppressed minorities up by bringing the oppressive majority down! Sounds like typical democrat rhetoric to me. 60's boomers' clock is ticking, the radical ideas just fading away to obscurity now.

Time for some fresh thinking on the left. Bill Clinton was a centrist, and that's part of why I think he was so popular as president.

I had not considered what you say as a possibility. I always thought the Marxists were the real power in the Democratic party and they implemented their policies slowly and incrementally. Does neoliberalism really hold sway in the Democratic party and what I considered incremental marxism was really just left-of-center Clintonian politics? How does the constant ratcheting up of identity politics stuff fit in to your theory, though?

It seems integral to Democratic power and is ideologically not Clintonian. >I always thought the Marxists were the real power in the Democratic party The most powerful faction in the Democratic Party are center-right neoliberals like the Clintons, the next most powerful are center-left Social Democrats (including what passes in the US, but not really by international standards, for “Democratic Socialists”.) There are essentially no Marxists in influential roles in the Party. There's probably a few Marxists (or Leninists/Stalinist/Maoists) in the electorate that hold their nose and vote for Democrats as, from their perspective, the very slightly lesser of two evils (and probably some who vote for Republicans as the greater evil in hopes of provoking revolution), but they aren't really driving the party, either by having their hands on levers of power or being an actively courted constituency. >Does neoliberalism really hold sway in the Democratic party and what I considered incremental marxism was really just left-of-center Clintonian politics?

The first, yes, the second.well, insofar as it is not Marxist, sure. >How does the constant ratcheting up of identity politics stuff fit in to your theory, though? While there are Left forms of identity politics, other-than-proletarian-identity politics are not Marxist even when they are somewhere on the Left, though the practitioners (even among right-wing identity politics) may draw something from Marxist (or Leninist) tactics or analytical modes (Marx's adaptation of Hegelian dialectic is widely influential in this way), but this doesn't make the movements involved politically Marxist. And while the Democratic Party does include some who pursue Left forms of identity politics, it predominantly pursued bourgeois feminism and the similar bourgeois versions of other group-rights movements, rather than any of the Left (for instance, radical, socialist, or Marxist) versions. While to anti-feminists (etc.) the distinction may seem irrelevant, it's actually quite critical to leftists of all stripes.

Bourgeois identity politics (and the fairly overt rejection of Left identity politics) is a fairly key part of Clintonian Third Wayism. >The most powerful faction in the Democratic Party are center-right neoliberals like the Clintons, the next most powerful are center-left Social Democrats (including what passes in the US, but not really by international standards, for “Democratic Socialists”.) My gut tells me your assessment is wrong - that the Clintonian Third Wayism you describe is waning - chiefly evidenced by Obama being so much further to the left and comparatively weak/confused on foreign policy as compared with the Clintons. Maybe I place too much weight on the presidency and not enough on Congress. I admit to being largely ignorant about how center-right or left-leaning the congressional Democrat's policy positions actually are.

>it predominantly pursued bourgeois feminism and the similar bourgeois versions of other group-rights movements, rather than any of the Left (for instance, radical, socialist, or Marxist) versions. That the Democratic Party embraces identity politics was my impression as well. I can see by your explanation how that doesn't require marxist tendencies to work. I still don't agree with dividing people into groups and pitting them against one another, though. But at least I see the differences in motive, so thanks for explaining that. >Bourgeois identity politics (and the fairly overt rejection of Left identity politics) is a fairly key part of Clintonian Third Wayism. I can see that as well, which was my confusion!

I wish the Clintons were better people, there's a lot to like about their philosophy in the abstract. >My gut tells me your assessment is wrong - that the Clintonian Third Wayism you describe is waning - chiefly evidenced by Obama being so much further to the left and comparatively weak/confused on foreign policy as compared with the Clintons. It is waning, as evidenced by how competitive Sanders was in the primary and how popular Sanders remains, though the neoliberal faction is still dominant; but Obama wasn't significantly further to the left than Clinton (not was his administration nearly as weak and fumbling on substantive foreign policy as the Clinton administration, not that that, in either direction, says anything about the dominance of Third Wayism.) >That the Democratic Party embraces identity politics was my impression as well. So, incidentally, has the Republican Party for a long time. Christian identity politics, obviously for quite a long time, but also since the Southern Strategy White identity politics (with a sharp uptick recently in n how overt and direct their appeals on both are.). >I disagree, you're just assuming everyone's stuck in old tribal thinking when there's so much evidence to the contrary. I wish you were correct but what evidence?

Facebook and the Internet has increased Tribalism to Yellow Journalism levels. We have Breitbart and MSNBC. People mostly just read news and opinions that they agree with and don't listen to the other side. >The Republican party is dying for abandoning their base in order to cling to power, despite their fundraising. The Democrats are losing seats everywhere, have not been grooming enough replacements for the old-timers, and won't shake the loser 60's radical ideology - they might as well just die too.

Um not certain what your point is but the issue is the Gerrymandering and electoral college. This is the second president this century to win with a minority of votes. The issue is the unfair way voters votes are manipulated in states, i.e. >could your 'tax more == more revenue' mental model be too simplistic? If you mean that if working poor made more money they would need less benifits???? >I don't know the answer because I'm not an economist, but I think it's a good one nonetheless: Your asking a political science question.

Economist don't get to say what our tax rates are but our politicians and there isn't one economist in the bunch. Here is one article for you. >Facebook Obama ran great campaigns, including social networks where his opponents did not -- won in landslides. Same with Trump and Hillary. Winners targeted, with laser focus, on individuals. The messages resonated; people DID listen to the other side! Meanwhile, especially in the last two years, traditional media has totally faltered.

News agencies rocked by fake news scandals, Hollywood getting #metoo'd up the keister, Amazon acquiring WaPo. YouTube is TV for a lot of kids.

It's a huge shakeup going on. >Gerrymandering Hillary was a terrible candidate. There's no excuse for losing some of the states she lost. I don't get the opposition to the Electoral College system, it's a check on large population cities/states running the board.

Hillary would have creamed Trump if she had any substance. If you mean that if working poor made more money they would need less benifits???? No, I just took your 'Case in point' about increased wages and benefits as equating to less tax revenues being collected (you had 'less government spending' on the right, which I read as govt having less to spend.) Maybe I misread your point as it pertained to repubs, sorry if I did. I agree repubs are all talk on cutting spending.

>Your asking a political science question. Economist don't get to say what our tax rates are but our politicians and there isn't one economist in the bunch. It really shakes my confidence, what are any of these numbers based on??

It's a miracle anything works at all. >Obama ran great campaigns He was a strong candidate >I don't get the opposition to the Electoral College system I'm not and I agree, but I am talking local elections and state elections are minimizing votes and then on top of that we have 2 minority vote presidents discourage people's voting. >No, I just took your 'Case in point' about increased wages and benefits as equating to less tax revenues being collected No I just think the right thing to do is to make the working poor have a better incentive to keep work and they will spend. Give money top the Rich and it sits in a bank. I am not for Small Government I am for efficient government which I believe includes out nation safety net:) >It really shakes my confidence, what are any of these numbers based on?? Numbers and facts mean nothing in today's conversations.

Taxes have and always will be a political tool of conservatives and libertarians (AKA neo-anarcist). >Strong candidate In 2012? Vicinity Map Creator Autocad Commands there.

After Obamacare?? Not so strong! Romney ran a traditional campaign with broken-ass digital and get out the vote.

Trump was savvy. He spent big on comment bots and social ads, Hill had none of that because she had no clue how to campaign, form a compelling message, budget, be truthful, etc. >I am not for Small Government I am for efficient government which I believe includes out nation safety net If we could only prioritize. >a political tool of conservatives and libertarians (AKA neo-anarcist) And liberals are pure of heart and would never use tax as a political weapon?

Please, hehe.

• • Occupation () Website Robert James Lee Hawke, (born 9 December 1929) is an Australian who was the and the from to. Hawke was born in but moved to as a child. He attended the and then went on to as a. In 1956, Hawke joined the (ACTU) as a research officer.

Having risen to become responsible for wage arbitration, he was elected in 1969, where he achieved an unprecedented level of popularity. After a decade as ACTU President, Hawke announced his intention to enter politics, and was immediately elected to the as the Labor MP for. Three years later, he led Labor to a landslide election victory at the and was sworn in as Prime Minister. He led Labor to victory at three more elections in, and, thus making him the most electorally successful Labor Party Leader in history. The created and, brokered the, formed, floated the Australian dollar, deregulated the financial sector, introduced the, announced ' as the official national anthem and initiated for all workers. Hawke was eventually replaced by at the end of, who would go on to deliver the Labor government a record fifth consecutive victory and a record thirteen years in government at the. He remains to date Labor's longest-serving Prime Minister, Australia's, and at the age of 000000000♠88 years, 10 days, Hawke is currently the oldest living former Australian Prime Minister.

To date, he is the only Australian Prime Minister to be born in South Australia, as well as being the only one raised and educated in Western Australia. Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Early life and family [ ] Hawke was born in, the second child of (1898-1989) (known as Clem), a minister, and his wife Edith (known as Ellie), a schoolteacher. His uncle,, was the Labor between 1953–59, and was also a close friend of Prime Minister, who was in many ways Bob Hawke's. Hawke's elder brother Neil, who was seven years his senior, died at the age of seventeen after contracting, for which there was no cure at the time. Ellie Hawke subsequently developed an almost messianic belief in her son's destiny, and this contributed to Hawke's supreme self-confidence throughout his career. At the age of fifteen, he presciently boasted to friends that he would one day become the.

At the age of seventeen, the same age that his brother Neil had died, Hawke had a serious accident while riding his that left him in a critical condition for several days. This near-death experience acted as his catharsis, driving him to make the most of his talents and not let his abilities go to waste. He joined the in 1947 at the age of eighteen, and successfully applied for a at the end of 1952. Education [ ] Hawke was educated at and the, graduating in 1952 with a and. He was also president of the university's guild during the same year. The following year, Hawke won a to attend, where he undertook a Bachelor of Arts in (PPE). He soon found he was covering much the same ground as he did in his education at the University of Western Australia, and transferred to a, writing his thesis on wage-fixing in Australia which was successfully presented in January 1956.

His academic achievements were complemented by setting a new for beer drinking; he downed 2 1⁄ 2 imperial pints (1.4 l) – equivalent to a – from a in 11 seconds as part of a college penalty. In his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to an electorate with a strong beer culture. In 1956, Hawke accepted a scholarship to undertake doctoral studies in the area of arbitration law in the law department at the in. Soon after his arrival at ANU, Hawke became the students' representative on the University Council. A year later, Hawke was recommended to the (ACTU) to become a research officer, replacing Harold Souter who had become ACTU Secretary.

The recommendation was made by Hawke's mentor at ANU, H.P. Brown, who for a number of years had assisted the ACTU in national wage cases. Hawke decided to abandon his doctoral studies and accept the offer, moving to with his wife. Australian Council of Trade Unions [ ]. Hawke soon after his election as ACTU president in September 1969. Not long after Hawke began work at the ACTU, he became responsible for the presentation of its annual case for higher wages to the national wages tribunal, the.

He was first appointed as an ACTU advocate in 1959. The 1958 case, under previous advocate R.L. Eggleston, had yielded only a five-shilling increase.

The 1959 case found for a fifteen-shilling increase, and was regarded as a personal triumph for Hawke. He went on to attain such success and prominence in his role as an ACTU advocate that, in 1969, he was encouraged to run for the position of ACTU President, despite the fact that he had never held elected office in a trade union. [ ] He was elected ACTU President in 1969 on a modernising platform by the narrow margin of 399 to 350, with the support of the left of the union movement, including some associated with the. He later credited, General Secretary of the, as the single most significant union figure in helping him achieve this outcome. Hawke declared publicly that 'socialist is not a word I would use to describe myself', and his approach to government was. He concerned himself with making improvements to workers' lives from within the traditional institutions of government, rather than by using any ideological theory. He opposed the, but was a strong supporter of the US-Australian alliance, and also an emotional supporter of.

It was his commitment to the cause of Jewish which purportedly led to a planned assassination attempt on Hawke by the, and its Australian operative. In 1971, Hawke along with other members of the ACTU requested that South Africa send a non-racially biased team for the, with the intention of unions agreeing not to serve the team in Australia. Prior to arrival, the Western Australian branch of the, and the Barmaids' and Barmens' Union, announced that they would serve the team, which allowed the to land in Perth. The tour commenced on 26 June and riots occurred as anti-apartheid protesters disrupted games. Hawke and his family started to receive malicious mail and phone calls from people who thought that sport and politics should not mix. Hawke remained committed to the ban on apartheid teams and later that year, the South African cricket team was successfully denied and no apartheid team was to ever come to Australia again.

It was this ongoing dedication to racial equality in South Africa that would later earn Hawke the respect and friendship of. In industrial matters, Hawke continued to demonstrate a preference for, and considerable skill at, negotiation, and was generally liked and respected by employers as well as the unions he advocated for.

As early as 1972, speculation began that he would seek to enter and eventually run to become the. But while his professional career continued successfully, his heavy drinking and his notorious womanising placed considerable strains on his family life. In 1973, Hawke was elected as the. Two years later, when the was controversially, Hawke showed an initial keenness to enter Parliament at the., the MP for, came under pressure to step down to allow Hawke to stand in his place, but he strongly resisted this push. Hawke eventually decided not to attempt to enter Parliament at that time, a decision he soon regretted.

After Labor was defeated at the election, Whitlam initially offered the leadership to Hawke, although it was not within Whitlam's power to decide who would succeed him. Despite not taking on the offer, Hawke remained influential, playing a key role in averting national strike action.

The strain of this period, serving as both ACTU President and Labor Party President, took its toll on Hawke and in 1979 he suffered a physical collapse. This shock led Hawke to publicly announce his alcoholism in a television interview, and that he would make a concerted – and ultimately successful – effort to overcome it.

He was helped through this period by the relationship that he had established with writer, who, in 1982, published a biography of Hawke. His popularity with the public was, if anything, enhanced by this period of rehabilitation, and opinion polling suggested that he was a far more popular public figure than either Labor Leader or Prime Minister. [ ] Member of Parliament [ ].

Hawke addresses the Labour Day crowd in October 1980 Hawke's first attempt to enter Parliament came during the. He stood in the seat of in and managed to achieve a 3.1% swing against the national trend, although he fell short of ousting longtime Liberal incumbent. Hawke passed up several opportunities to enter Parliament throughout the 1970s, something he later wrote that he 'regretted'.

He eventually stood for election to the at the for the safe seat of, winning it comfortably. Immediately upon his election to Parliament, Hawke was appointed to the by Labor Leader as Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations. Following his entry to Parliament, opinion polls continually indicated that, in contrast to Hayden, Hawke was regarded as 'a certain election winner'.

After losing the 1980 election, Hayden's leadership had become insecure. In order to quell speculation over his position, Hayden eventually called a leadership ballot for 16 July 1982, believing that if he won he would be able to lead Labor into the next election. Hawke duly challenged Hayden, but Hayden was able to defeat him and remain in position, although his five-vote victory over the former ACTU President was not large enough to dispel doubts that he could lead the Labor Party to victory at an election. Despite being defeated, Hawke continued to agitate behind the scenes for a change in leadership, with opinion polls continuing to show that Hawke was a far more popular figure than both Hayden and Prime Minister. Hayden's leadership position was thrown into further doubt after Labor performed poorly at a by-election in December 1982 for the Victorian seat of, following the resignation of the former Liberal Minister.

Labor needed a swing of 5.5% to win the seat, and had been predicted by the media to win, but could only achieve a swing of 3%. This convinced many Labor MPs that only Hawke would be able to lead Labor to victory at the upcoming election.

Labor Party power-brokers, such as and, now openly switched their allegiance from Hayden to Hawke. More significantly, Hayden's staunch friend and political ally, Labor's, had become convinced that Hawke's chances of victory at an election were greater than Hayden's. Having initially believed that he could carry on, Button's defection proved to be the final straw in convincing Hayden that he would have to resign as Labor Leader. Less than two months after the disastrous result at the Flinders by-election, Hayden announced his resignation as Leader of the Labor Party to the caucus on 3 February 1983. Hawke was subsequently named as leader—and hence became —pending a party-room ballot at which he was elected unopposed. By a remarkable coincidence, on the same day that Hawke became Leader, Fraser called a for 5 March 1983, hoping to capitalise on Labor's feuding before it could replace Hayden with Hawke. Fraser initially believed that he had caught Labor out, thinking that they would be forced to fight the election with Hayden as Leader.

However, he was surprised to find out upon his return from seeing the that Hayden had already resigned that morning, just hours before the writs were issued. In the election held a month later, Hawke led Labor to a landslide election victory, achieving a 24-seat swing—still the worst defeat that a sitting non-Labor Government has ever suffered—and ending seven years of Liberal Party rule. Prime Minister [ ]. Hawke presenting a relief cheque to,, in April 1983, in the aftermath of the. After Labor's landslide victory, Hawke was sworn in as the by the on 11 March 1983. The inaugural days of the were distinctly different from those of the.

Rather than immediately initiating extensive reform programmes as Whitlam had, Hawke announced that 's pre-election concealment of the budget deficit meant that many of Labor's election commitments would have to be deferred. As part of his internal reforms package, Hawke divided the Government into two tiers, with only the most senior ministers sitting in the. The Labor caucus was still given the authority to determine who would make up the Ministry, but gave Hawke unprecedented powers for a Labor Prime Minister to select which individual ministers would comprise the 13-strong Cabinet. Hawke said that he did this in order to avoid what he viewed as the unwieldy nature of the Whitlam Cabinet, which had 27 members.

Caucus under Hawke also exhibited a much more formalised system of parliamentary, which significantly altered the dynamics of caucus operations. Unlike his predecessor, Hawke's authority within the Labor Party was absolute. This enabled him to persuade his MPs to support a substantial set of policy changes. Individual accounts from ministers indicate that while Hawke was not usually the driving force behind individual reforms, he took on the role of achieving consensus and providing political guidance on what was electorally feasible and how best to sell it to the public, tasks at which he proved highly successful. Hawke took on a very public role as Prime Minister, proving to be incredibly popular with the Australian electorate; to this date he still holds the highest ever AC Nielsen approval rating.

Economic policy [ ]. Hawke and President at the in November 1984. According to political commentator, 'the most influential economic decisions of the 1980s were the floating of the Australian dollar and the deregulation of the financial system'.

Although the had played a part in the process of financial deregulation by commissioning the 1981 Campbell Report, opposition from Fraser himself had stalled the deregulation process. When the Hawke Government implemented a comprehensive program of financial deregulation and reform, it 'transformed economics and politics in Australia'. The Australian economy became significantly more integrated with the global economy as a result, which completely transformed its relationship with Asia, Europe and the United States. Both Hawke and Keating would claim the credit for being the driving force behind the success of the Australian Dollar float. Among other reforms, the Hawke Government dismantled the tariff system, privatised state sector industries, ended the subsidisation of loss-making industries, and sold off the state-owned,, and. The tax system was reformed, with the introduction of a fringe benefits tax and a capital gains tax, reforms strongly opposed by the Liberal Party at the time, but not ones that they reversed when they eventually returned to office. Partially offsetting these imposts upon the business community – the 'main loser' from the 1985 Tax Summit according to Paul Kelly – was the introduction of full, a reform insisted upon by Keating.

Funding for schools was also considerably increased, while financial assistance was provided for students to enable them to stay at school longer. Considerable progress was also made in directing assistance 'to the most disadvantaged recipients over the whole range of welfare benefits.'

The political partnership between Hawke and his, Paul Keating, proved essential to Labor's success in government. The two men proved a study in contrasts: Hawke was a Rhodes Scholar; Keating left high school early. Hawke's enthusiasms were cigars, horse racing and all forms of sport; Keating preferred, symphonies and collecting and antiques. Hawke was consensus-driven; Keating revelled in aggressive debate. Hawke was a lapsed Protestant; Keating was a practising Catholic. These differences, however, seemed only to increase the effectiveness of their partnership, as they oversaw sweeping economic and social changes throughout Australia. [ ] Social policy [ ] In spite of the criticisms levelled against the Hawke Government, it succeeded in enacting a wide range of social reforms during its time in office.

Deflecting arguments that the Hawke Government had failed as a reform government,,, and made a number of speeches throughout the 1980s arguing that the Hawke Government had been a recognisably reformist government, drawing attention to Hawke's achievements as Prime Minister during his first five years in office. The Prime Minister's Office at, preserved as it appeared during Hawke's prime ministership; he was the last prime minister to work there before the opening of in 1988. Hawke benefited greatly from the disarray into which the Liberal Party fell after the resignation of Malcolm Fraser. The Liberals were divided between supporters of the dour, socially conservative and the more liberal, urbane. The arch-conservative,, added to the Liberals' problems with his ' campaign, which proved highly damaging. Exploiting these divisions, Hawke led the Labor Party to landslide election victories in a snap and the. Hawke's tenure as Prime Minister saw considerable friction develop between himself and the grassroots of the Labor Party, who were unhappy at what they viewed as Hawke's iconoclasm and willingness to cooperate with business interests.

All Labor Prime Ministers have at times engendered the hostility of the organisational wing of the Party, but none more so than Hawke, who regularly expressed his willingness to cull Labor's 'sacred cows'. The faction, as well as prominent Labor figure, offered severe criticism of a number of government decisions. He also received criticism for his 'confrontationalist style' in siding with the airlines in the.

1990 election and leadership tensions [ ] The and accompanying high interest rates had seen the government in considerable polling trouble, with many doubting if Hawke could win in 1990. Although Keating was the main architect of the government's economic policies, he took advantage of Hawke's declining popularity to plan a leadership challenge. In 1988, in the wake of poorer opinion polls, Keating put pressure on Hawke to step down immediately. Light Of Aidan Lament Cinematic Celtic Version Mp3 Download. Hawke responded by agreeing a secret deal with Keating, the so-called ', that he would stand down in Keating's favour shortly after the 1990 election, which he convinced Keating he could win. Hawke duly won the 1990 election, albeit by a very tight margin, and subsequently appointed Keating as to replace the retiring, and to prepare Keating to assume the leadership. [ ] Not long after becoming Deputy Prime Minister, frustrated at the lack of any indication from Hawke as to when he might step down, Keating made a provocative speech to the. Hawke considered the speech extremely disloyal, and subsequently indicated to Keating that he would renege on the Kirribilli Agreement as a result.

After this disagreement, tensions between the two men reached an all-time high, and after a turbulent year, Keating finally resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in June 1991, to challenge Hawke for the leadership. Hawke comfortably defeated Keating, and in a press conference after the result Keating declared that with regards the leadership, he had fired his 'one shot'. Hawke appointed to replace Keating as Treasurer, but Kerin quickly proved to be unfit for the job. Despite his convincing victory over Keating, Hawke was seen after the result as a 'wounded' leader; he had now lost his long-term political partner, his rating in opinion polls began to decrease, and after nearly nine years as prime minister, many were openly speculating that he was 'tired', and that it was time for somebody new.

Hawke's leadership was finally irrevocably damaged towards the end of 1991, as new released ', a detailed proposal for sweeping economic change, including the introduction of a and deep cuts to government spending and personal income tax. The package appeared to take Hawke by complete surprise, and his response to it was judged to be extremely ineffective. Many within the Labor Party appeared to lose faith in him over this, and Keating duly challenged for the leadership a second time on 19 December 1991, this time narrowly defeating Hawke by 56 votes to 51. In a speech to the the following day, Hawke declared that his nine years as Prime Minister had left Australia a better country than he found, and he was given a standing ovation by those present.

He subsequently tendered his resignation as Prime Minister to the Governor-General. Hawke briefly returned to the backbenches before resigning from Parliament on 20 February 1992, sparking a which was won by the independent candidate from a record field of 22 candidates.

Hawke wrote that he had very few regrets over his time in office; although his bitterness towards Keating surfaced in his earlier memoirs, by 2008, Hawke claimed that he and Keating had long since buried their differences, and that they regularly dined together and considered each other friends. However, in 2010, the publication of the book Hawke: The Prime Minister, by Hawke's second wife,, reignited conflict between the two.

In an open letter to Hawke published in Australian newspapers, Keating bitterly accused Hawke and D'alpuget of spreading falsehoods about his role in Hawke's premiership. He declared that 'in hindsight, it is obvious yours and Blanche's expressions of friendship towards me over the last few years have been completely insincere.' Retirement and later life [ ]. Hawke in 2012. After leaving Parliament, Hawke entered the business world, taking on a number of directorships and consultancy positions which enabled him to achieve considerable financial success. He deliberately had little involvement with the Labor Party during Keating's tenure as Prime Minister, not wanting to overshadow his successor, although he did occasionally criticise some of Keating's policies publicly. After Keating's defeat and the election of the at the, he began to be more involved with Labor, regularly appearing at a number of Labor election launches and campaigns, often alongside Keating.

In 2002, Hawke was named an honorary member of South Australia's during In the run up to the, Hawke made a considerable personal effort to support, making speeches at a large number of campaign office openings across Australia. As well as campaigning against, Hawke also attacked 's record as Treasurer, stating 'it was the judgement of every economist and international financial institution that it was the restructuring reforms undertaken by my government, with the full cooperation of the trade union movement, which created the strength of the Australian economy today'.

Similarly, in the and, Hawke lent considerable support to and Kevin Rudd respectively. Hawke also maintained an involvement in Labor politics at a state level; in 2011, Hawke publicly supported, who was facing almost certain defeat, in her campaign against Liberal, describing her campaign as 'gutsy'. In February 2008, Hawke joined former Prime Ministers, and in to witness Prime Minister Kevin Rudd deliver the long anticipated apology to the. In 2009, Hawke helped establish the Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding at the. Interfaith dialogue was an important issue for Hawke, who told the that he is 'convinced that one of the great potential dangers confronting the world is the lack of understanding in regard to the Muslim world.

Fanatics have misrepresented what Islam is. They give a false impression of the essential nature of Islam.' In 2016, after taking part in Andrew Denton's Better Off Dead podcast, Hawke added his voice to calls for voluntary euthanasia to be legalised. Hawke labelled as 'absurd' the lack of political will to fix the problem.

He revealed that he had such an arrangement with his wife Blanche should such a devastating medical situation occur. Personal life [ ] Hawke married in 1956 at Perth Trinity Church. They had three children; Susan (born 1957), Stephen (born 1959) and Roslyn (born 1960). Their fourth child, Robert Jr, died in his early infancy in 1963. Hawke was named Victorian Father of the Year in 1971. The couple divorced in 1995.

Hawke subsequently married the writer, and the two currently live together in, a suburb of the of Sydney. On the subject of his religion, Hawke previously wrote, while attending the 1952 World Christian Youth Conference in India, that 'there were all these poverty stricken kids at the gate of this palatial place where we were feeding our face and I just had this struck by this enormous sense of irrelevance of religion to the needs of people'. He subsequently abandoned his Christian beliefs. By the time he entered politics he was a self-described agnostic. Hawke told in 2008 that his father's Christian faith had continued to influence his outlook, saying 'My father said if you believe in the fatherhood of God you must necessarily believe in the brotherhood of man, it follows necessarily, and even though I left the church and was not religious, that truth remained with me.'

Titles, styles and honours [ ]. Bust of Hawke located in the in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens Honours [ ] Orders • 1979: (AC) 'For service to trade unionism and industrial relations' as President of the ACTU; Foreign honours • 1989:. • 2008, Papua New Guinean Prime Minister informed Hawke that he was being honoured for his 'support for Papua New Guinea. From the time you assisted us in the development of our trade union movement, and basic workplace conditions, to the strong support you gave us during your term as Prime Minister of Australia'. Organisations • August 2009: Life membership, Bob Hawke became only the third person to be awarded life membership of the Australian Labor Party, after and. During the conferration, Prime Minister referred to Hawke as 'the heart and soul of the Labor Party'.

• March 2014: Life membership. Appointments [ ] Fellowships • Honorary degrees •, Various honorary doctorates •, Honorary Doctor of Civil Law •, Various honorary doctorates •, Honorary Doctor of Humanities •, Honorary Doctor of Letters •, Various honorary doctorates •, Various honorary doctorates •, Honorary Doctor of Letters •, Honorary Doctor of Letters Other honours [ ] •, Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library Film [ ] A biographical television film,, premiered on the in Australia on 18 July 2010, with playing the title character.

And portrayed and respectively. See also [ ].