Hannity's California Farmers Water Rally - Page 2 - Politics and Economics

Huehuecoyotl · 09-18-2009, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ineedaride2

I understand that you believe that farmers are jet-set playboys, but even -they- have a difficult time relocating all their cows and tractors and harrows and bottom plows and barns and furniture and irrigation equipment.

Why move to the water when you can move the water to you? And have the taxpayer foot the bill.

Chips Ahoy · 09-18-2009, 04:55 AM

I read some of the book. Most of the research was done in the early 1980s, so the dollar amounts seem small.

The water in question belonged to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The project was funded by special assessments on residents of the district. The decision to sell "surpluses" to farmers was super shady. Delivering the water from the Delta takes a lot of energy. It's expensive. The farmers were charged well below costs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc Reisner

...it had received a total of 1.8 million acre-feet of surplus water. It got it for around $6 million -- the alleged cost of delivery. Meanwhile... the Met's customers had been assessed about $170 million for the same water -- water they never received. The growers had gotten a $164 million gift.
...
The farmers ... were using surplus water to expand their acreage well beyond a level sustainable with contract water alone. ... they were also using it to irrigate permanent crops ... It would have been very foolish of them to do so unless they expected to have a lot of surplus water for a long time.
It was the same old story again. The big farmers had managed to get something (a lot of water) for next to nothing. People in Los Angeles, meanwhile, were being taught a different lesson: that you can get nothing for something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc Resiner

Prudential got into farming in the 1960s, when Congress passed legislation allowing investors to deduct all expenses on a number of crops (chiefly orchard fruits and nuts) while the trees or vines are maturing and bearing no fruit. All of a sudden, a lot of land that wasn't worth very much was worth a great deal -- in an inverted sense. ... the news tax provisions amounted to a tax break of $346 on an acre of land for persons in the 70 percent bracket. ... Prudential could realize a tax saving of around $1 million per year, farming the government. ... It was all made possible by the State Water Project.
...
Until the late 1960s, when the first deliveries from the California Water Project arrived, $50 an acre would have been a good price. Now it is worth at least $2000 an acre.

Discussing a 1981 California Institute for Rural Studies report on property ownership in five water districts mostly in Kern County that had received about half of all the water the State Project had delivered: 2/3 of the acreage was owned by eight companies. They were:

Chevron USA
the Chandler family (owned the LA Times then)
Getty (oil)
Shell (oil)
Prudential
Blackwell Land Company
Tenneco
Southern Pacific Railroad

To recap: you have a project funded by taxpayers and residents of Southern California. It delivers water south for around $100 an acre foot. "Surpluses" get sold to farmers (big business) for $3.50 an acre foot. Competing farmers are put out of business. Now the surpluses are gone, pretty much exactly when they were projected to run out when Cadillac Desert was written.

Once again, LOL Hannity.

Money2Burn · 09-18-2009, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autocratic

The only goal is to prop up American farmers and appease the agricultural lobby. The subsidies are effective in achieving the desired ends.

*flexing muscles* You bitches had better ABIDE! We has a strong lobby.

Money2Burn · 09-18-2009, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ineedaride2

Very little of that money actually goes toward real agricultural production.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Borodog

That's not what he said.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ineedaride2

Pretty sure it's 1/3, if not 1/2, of what he said.

Up until I read this third post, I thought Borodog was making a "That's what she said" joke. Alas, politics is serious biz

Money2Burn · 09-18-2009, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steelhouse

1st. The farmers can move somewhere else where there is water. Such as the northern valley or another state.

2nd. I like to fish in the delta and would like to fish in the these rivers. I eat the Salmon and shad I catch and the stripers. They put food on my table. You are picking winners to select farmers over fish.

3rd. Are we to the point to allow a river to go dry just so some farmer can make big bucks with the water. The unemployment rate is 15% in Fresno county. Can they do other things? 80% of the southern valley is not farmed because there is not enough water in the valley.

Most of the illegal farming labor that comes to California comes to places like Fresno county. Because the farmer can get away with the labor laws. Except for the owners, many of the jobs lost were to immigrants.

It has already been decided in the courts.

http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1651131

Taken from this site.

I am amazed by the ignorance displayed on tonights program. The pumps have been on for months. No one seems to care about the other industries being affected by the drought. Like the fishing industry. This is a drought issue not the smelt. Of the 2,000,000 acre feet of water not pumped through the pumps in 2009, 1,500,000 acre feet is documented as being due to the lack of water in california attributed to three years of drought. The remainder is due to restrictions imposed by the Endagered Species Act of which there is no way for California to legally deviate from.

1. No farmers can't necessarily move somewhere else for various reasons. The biggest two, imo, are because of different climates and they have established land bases there.

2. And Ineedaride2 has already beat me to this, but it needs reiterating. California is some of the most productive agricultural land in the world, they produce around half our country's fruits, and vegetables. California farms represent less that 4% of the country's total active farms, but produce almost 13% of the nation's value. The average farm in California is about 25% smaller than the rest of the country as well. So, I think, and I'm just taking a guess here, that these farms that are destroying your fishing opportunities are producing much more food/value in one year than as many Stripers as you could catch in a lifetime.

AFAIK California has some of the most progressive and restrictive water useage regulations and farming regulations in general, so I would highly doubt that these farmers are sucking all the water out of this river with no oversight all the while they are flying at 50K ft in their private jets eating the last remaining Stripers and Salmon that they've trapped from the river.

3. Can they do other things? Like what, go work for the government? Or perhaps bar tend?

JayTeeMe · 09-18-2009, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steelhouse

1st. The farmers can move somewhere else where there is water. Such as the northern valley or another state.

2nd. I like to fish in the delta and would like to fish in the these rivers. I eat the Salmon and shad I catch and the stripers. They put food on my table. You are picking winners to select farmers over fish.

1. Well, I'm sure it's not that easy to just go buy another farm somewhere else. Especially since the resale value of your current farm is going to suffer due to lack of water...

2. Correct. The government is picking winners either way. It's what the government does.

tubasteve · 09-18-2009, 12:44 PM

allow private ownership of the river and let coase sort it out

dlorc · 09-18-2009, 12:57 PM

The video of Sean Hannity begging for socialist intervention is hilarious.

Chips Ahoy · 09-18-2009, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tubasteve

allow private ownership of the river and let coase sort it out

What river?

Mondogarage · 09-18-2009, 03:00 PM

Hannity was against the bridge to socialism, before he was for the bridge to socialism.