First, there is a key part of the Heinlein quote in "contrary to public interest". There is very much a public interest in food being affordable, particularly when that affordability is targeted at those who most need it. That is separate from the question of propping up farm land value. A proposition I have not espoused or supported.

To whit, US farm land IS overpriced. But that is largely because of the fuel ethanol mandate and related subsidies. I remember when the Bush administration pushed through the ethanol mandate and subsidies and land prices doubled within a few years, and then doubled again a few years after that. This is what drives up land prices. Converting corn into fuel. Not giving families more to buy more carrots and cabbage. And to be clear, I agree that these should absolutely be revoked. However, this is different from SNAP. Where fuel ethanol related subsidies exist to create a market where one would not otherwise exist, SNAP does no such thing. There already is a market for human food, and it instead addresses the affordability question on one side, while also supporting farmers. Where fuel ethanol is largely one sided ($ for the largest farms possible, with little value to the rest of the nation) SNAP is more of a compromise ($ for produce farmers, and Food for those that need it.).

Starting a discussion of food affordability by trotting out Averages completely misses the point when it comes to a means tested benefit such as SNAP. The Average American is legally ineligible for SNAP benefits. It is intended for only those with less than a certain amount of income. In NJ, where I live, that is a gross monthly income of $4.8k for a family of 4. That may seem like a lot, but the median household income in my town is $12k/month and the average cost of a 2 bedroom apartment is over $2.6k or over half of the income eligibility threshold. And SNAP eligibility is determined by the state, so in most states the threshold for eligibility will be lower than a wealthy state with a high cost of living like NJ.

As for "we need a major decline of employment in the sector" it is sentiments like that which toss large tracts of the US into the Republican arms. Farmers don't want to be sacrificed for the sake of progress or anything else like that, and farmers vote. Ignoring that reality while proposing cutting programs that literally feed hungry kids and families is as myopic as farmers voting to support trumps attack on government programs. Gutting SNAP will not impact fuel ethanol related pricing, and as such will not impact midwestern land prices. What it will do is cause a lot of people to go hungry. Mostly children and pregnant/nursing moms. A better policy would be to end ethanol subsidies, and then incentivize conversion of export focused farms into producing for domestic consumption. Which would require converting at least some of the commodity crop fields (corn, soy, etc.) to produce.

This is overly simplistic

The government and citizens both have a vested interest in keeping food affordable. Ag subsidies began as a means to keep farmers from having their farms repossessed, AND to feed those who couldn't afford enough to eat. Both still desirable goals. There is certainly unnecessary subsidies in the US which pervert the market. As a nutritionists, I believe there should be fewer dollars for commodity crops like corn, soy and sugar, and more for things like vegetables. There should also be caps on how much subsidy an operation can receive to limit dollars flowing to the biggest corporate farms (though I can see lots of ways to game that through shell companies).

Raising farm incomes is not, per se, a problem. Lots of small family farms need those subsidies to stay afloat, even with one or two of the family members having jobs off of the farm to provide supplemental income. The issue is that our industry has figured out how to funnel most of the value of those subsidies away from their recipients, and up to the large companies that they sell their products to. Cargill, Smithfield, etc. Cutting off the flow to smaller farmers will just accelerate the consolidation of the industry into larger farms with less interest in the communities those farm lands are part of. making the big ag lobby even more powerful than it is today.

If Doge has taught us anything, is that the superficially attractive idea of just taking a hatchet to those programs that are having unintended consequences does not work. It requires a nuanced assessment of how these programs are being abused, and finding solutions to those abuses, while preserving the things these programs do to help every day folks.

As to your screed about the "ignorant myths" of small farmers, you need to go outside and touch grass. They do very much exist, as I've worked on small farms in 3 states. Even large ag conglomerates like Tyson or Smithfield don't actually own a lot of the crop land or animals that they control. They use supply agreements to lock up small farmers, and include them in the count of animals they control, but those small farms still exist at the mercy of the market and those integrators they are forced to serve like feudal serfs. When market prices drop, these integrators find ways to push a lot of the losses onto those contract growers. and when prices are good, they share only a fraction of the benefit down the line. Rules to limit the negotiating power of large integrators or large commodity grain buyers could be used to limit how much of the subsidy money they can pick from small farms pockets, keeping those farms owned by families in the communities.

I work in agriculture. All of my customers rely HEAVILY on government programs, yet they are all happy Trump is taking a hatchet to the government. it's assinine.

We rely on NOAA for weather forecasts to plan planting and harvesting, avoiding getting killed by hurricanes and tornadoes. We rely on FEMA when those severe weather events do come through and destroy our fields, barns, homes, and towns. We rely on the USDA to collect SO MUCH FUCKING DATA on imports, exports, crop progress, drought conditions, commodity pricing, etc. we also rely on the AMS and ARS groups at USDA to help us build markets for our products, and to keep our science competitive. We rely on the Army Corp of Engineers to keep our waterways navigable so that our products can get to the rest of the world economically (the low cost of river transport is criminally under appreciated). The DOT keeps the trains rolling for those crops that cannot be shipped via waterways. SNAP is a welfare program at first glance, but it is an agricultural subsidy first and foremost. The programs origins were in keeping US crop prices high by buying surplus goods at above market prices to receive the over-supply and distributing them to those who couldn't afford them. The list just goes on, and on, and on, and on.

Part of me legit wants to leave my industry becuase of how stupid we look for supporting Trump so strongly. He's destroying the things we use to make our livelihoods, and thanking him for it. Likes some sad co-dependent wife talking about how great her abusive husband is while he goes in the kitchen to grab yet-another-beer.

If you had read that page before, then you would Already be familiar with those lists as they are on there.

that means you are lying about that, and suggests you are also lying about your education. You are just a troll trying waste time because makeing others angry with your ignorance validates your world view. Iâ(TM)m donâ(TM)t, kindly fuck off

Google is your friend. Do the work. You can start by reading the Wikipedia article on fascism. There is a section that lists academic work to define it over the years.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

there are many different researchers over the years. Some modern, whom you might dismiss based on your own prejudices, but many are much older. Dating back to the decades immediately following WWII. In either case there are unifying themes to these definitional checklists. And Trump satisfies all of them.

There are a couple of different lists from post WWII that are used to define fascism. Trump checks all the boxes on both major lists. Heâ(TM)s the only uUS president ever to have done so. That you donâ(TM)t want to call it fascism does not change what it is. There has been a lot of hyperbole around calling people Nazi on the internet, but just because some folks have used those terms inappropriately in the past does not invalidate their use here.

stop spreading false equivalencies between fascism and non-fascism. you may think it makes you look cool or smart to be jaded about politics, but it just makes you look like a useful idiot apologist for fascism. the dems are run of the mill bad, as far as politics goes. Trump is once every 3 generations or so bad. he is operating on a whole different level. there is a continuum of bad, and trump is off the charts relative to all other options.

So we canâ(TM)t have money to feed students who are too insecure, but we can spend money to force AI into classrooms where it isnâ(TM)t needed and will, in all likelihood, worsen student learning by encouraging them to outsource the act of generating answers to an AI? Fuck I need to get my kids the fuck our do this stupid fucking country.

As someone who reviews regularly (and has Never been offered money), and is close with several section editors for journals in my field, I can't say I see this as a bad thing.

People who review for the obligation of it (ie most everyone currently) will still review, they will just now get paid. People who did a solid job of reviewing have no reason to do a worse job. People who do a crappy job, about 1 in 3 in my experience, will have an incentive to do a better job. People who get asked, but rarely say yes will now have a reason to say yes more often.

Right now it is very difficult to find enough reviewers in my field, so a lot of less-than-stellar reviewers get asked just to have another person look it over. However, if there is money on the line, they are more likely to try and maintain a minimum viable standard, so that they can get that money, whereas now they don't have any downside to doing a half-assed job (what, you won't send me work I have to do for free anymore? Talk about threatening me with a good time!).

As for what is the right amount of money? can't say, as it'll probably have to vary by field.

I gross around $120/hr (after bonus, but before taxes, and benefits), and I tend to take half a day to do a thorough review of the average manuscript. $250 for 4 hr of work is less than my going rate, but I'm likely to do it while also on the clock at work. So the payment is on-top of my normal salary for the same hours. I'd review far more often than I do now if I could get $250 a pop.

Check before you object, next time:

United Airlines reported $7.2 billion in operational cash flow as of the end of Q3 (YTD numbers). It's right on their website. That works out to a margin around 8-9%. And they are pursuing stock-buy backs of $1.5 billion.

Delta Airlines reported a Q3 operating income of $1.4 billion, and a YTD operating income of 4.3 billion. They too put that on their website.

American looks the worst of the big 3, with a small net loss or profit in Q3 depending on how you do the math. But they are sitting on 11.8 billion in liquidity per their Q3 financial statements.

Now, American could - maybe - make a case for needing to shave costs or increase net-income/flight by changing baggage fees, but with that much liquidity available to them, it is not urgent. They could operate for 20 years at that loss rate before they ran out of cash to operate. And it's not like baggage fees are the only way to increase revenue. Not being the least reliable of the big 3 would be a huge help. I avoid AA because literally every itinerary I book with them ends up with multi-hour delays, with many resulting in last-minute cancellations that require them to rebook me on their competitor, turning a potentially profitable ticket into a complete loss.

However, even if you accept AA doing it for business reasons, United and Delta don't need to, but will likely follow suit as soon as possible. And just hand over that cash to shareholders in the form of stock by-backs and dividends.

No matter how much you fellate those in the owner class, they will not help you become one of them.

Have you looked at Florida? Opposite politics, same problem, similar solutions being discussed.

governments (normally) need to look out for their citizens safety. Cannot pay those property taxes if you die in a forest fire out a sink hole swallows your family home with you in it. So both are looking for ways to strong arm insurance companies into covering high-risk properties.

The only other alternatives are something like the federal flood insurance policy for coastal states (which does not actually operate as insurance, and forced tax payers to pick up the bill), to let those communities die by catastrophe, or legislate those areas to be uninhabitable (as was done in post Katrina New Orleans). That last one may be the a decision considering how little we are doing about climate change, but it is also the one with the worst political products for reelection.

This. It is not like they are hurting financially, and need to do this to stay solvent, which was excuse for starting to charge for checked bags post 9/11. This is just maximizing shareholder revenue in an environment with insufficient competition due to consolidation. It is millionaires screwing over customers, who have no other option, for the benefit of billionaires. It will get worse in the future, not better, because we elected a billionaire to over see the government that is supposed to prevent this kind of thing.

At some point they will need to come clean about what they were doing. The lights keep them legal, so they just have to apologize for being secretive (not illegal) and not for breaking aviation laws, which mandate safety lights, and for which they could be fined once it is known who is to blame.

of course cannot rule out other explanations. This just seems most plausible to me.

Dwell time and size suggest it is not hobbyists. The drones are likely in the 6 figures each, and there are more than one of them aloft at a time.

my guess is a tech startup, planning to ask for forgiveness instead of permission for some new type of ground scan they are conducting. Would rather scare the shot out of an entire state, than risk being told to stop or scoped by another startup.

hopefully the recent crash will shed some light on things.

I'm referring to Musks well document history of screwing over his employees and contractors. Which you know, even if you don't want to acknowledge it. Here is a link to an article that simply summarizes as many of the cases as they could find. Dozens of cases against Musk and his various customers.

Furthermore, I implied nothing. I STATED that caution should be shown when judging the value of a deal offered by someone with a documented history of screwing people over.

I think you need to learn the definition of the word "Narcism". It has a specific definition, and that definition bears no resemblance to what I said, nor to what you accused me of doing (neither of which bear much resemblance to each other).

And then you resort to name calling. The last resort of those who know they are wrong but are too emotionally invested in their opinion to take a step back and re-evaluate their position. To be CRYSTAL CLEAR - as I stated before - the accomplishments of Musk's various companies are impressive. That includes the recent catching of the rocket. But the accolades for those accomplishments belong far more to the hundreds to thousands of EMPLOYEES who actually do the work at his various companies, than to their boss. I can applaud the accomplishments even as I acknowledge the validity of criticism. This hero worship mentality you are expressing is just not healthy.