So, where does YOUR job rank??

Darn it! Video store clerk isn't on there!

Not necessarily.  How does skill set fit into it? 

 My job isn't rated, although it seems most people outside my line of work think they can do my job(s).  I often find that amusing.

Here's another question:  How should someone who generates work for other people be valued?

I agree - bogus.  If you look at most of the professions on the front page they all show the average number of hours worked as 45.  If nothing else, that raises questions. 

Looking at the number 2 job - actuary - very few actuaries only work 45 hours a week and the salary shown ($88,000) is completely out of line with those provided by the world's largest actuarial headhunting firm (try increasing them by 50-100%).  If you want comp levels that low you have to go back to mid-level students who probably spend 45 hours a week studying on top of a full time job.

Sven wrote:

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

$55,000 average salary.  Where?  In Canada realized farm income is net negative. 

So, the average Canadian farmer is losing money every year on their business after taking into account government subsidies?  If that was the case, how long would farming last in Canada?  Probably less than one year because everyone would quit, no?

I mean, if my job was "paying" me, say, negative $20,000 per year, I'd do something else.  You can't tell me that famers are irrational. [/b]

You'd be surprised by how many farmers have second jobs in this country.

Sven, you're playing a nice little logic game, and it works well on paper, but you do not have a clue about the realities.

 For example, a friend of ours runs his farm and a Kawasaki dealership.  He doesn't just have a seasonal job, he has two businesses.  Then there's the civil servant around the corner from my mother's place who ran his farm for over 30 years while working a full-time job.  These are only two examples, and there are others who don't work another job (a couple of my hubby's cousins don't) but you often find farmers who are managing to balance two jobs year-round - it's a fact of life here in Saskatchewan, anyway.

As well, many farms, as businesses, run at a loss fairly consistently -- that doesn't mean that the farmer necessarily doesn't get some wages out of it, but the business itself does not run at a profit.

Sven wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

You'd be surprised by how many farmers have second jobs in this country.

Farmers having second jobs, particularly during the winter months, is not uncommon.

But, farming is a business and rational business people do not continue doing something indefinitely that loses money year after year. And I have no reason to think that farmers are irrational.

If a farmer makes $35,000 at a second job and loses $20,000 at farming, why would a rational person continue doing both and accept a net income of $15,000? A rational person would stop farming and increase the amount of time on the second job (that job would become the primary or only job) and make (at least) $35,000 per year.

Obviously, many farmers lose money and one of a few things happen if the loses are persistent: (1) they go bankrupt, (2) they sell their business, or (3) they stop farming. If most (or all) farmers were losing money on a persistent basis, farming would grind to a halt.

So, it is not credible to claim that farmers generally continue to farm and lose money year after year.

 I'm sure the BA can probably address this more clearly then I can as well as other farmers who post on this board.

However I will point out one big, huge fat flaw in your premise.  You assume here that there is one basis, ie money that equates to being 'rational,'  that humans only make decisions and do things if the monetary renumeration  make it rational and anything else is simply 'irrational.'

 While that premise or assumption might be true if you're studying economic theory, the rational actor assumption or theory, human behavior  and choice is made up of more then just making money.  The 'rational actor' premise or assumption is actually one thing that at least in economic theory causes some headache.  

Numerous farmers across Canada!

___________________________________________________________

"watching the tide roll away"

remind wrote:

Numerous farmers across Canada!

   I know. They're a nutty and irrational group. They'd be the first to say it too in self depreciating sort of way.  Heard it many times myself.  Actually I say it about myself all the time.  I must be nuts going this route when I can just as easily and rationally take a job that makes me good $$$ at a desk in some office somewhere. Silly me. 

Catchfire wrote:

 That sounds amazing! How much do you charge? Is it the same for summer and winter farming? Is the patented BA caustic wit included in the price, or do you have to pay extra? Is 10% an adequate gratuity?

I would so pay extra for some caustic wit with my bushel of apples. Name your price, Bookish! :)

Personally, I do not know how farmers stay afloat or how farming income is accounted, ie; whether the losses occur after the farmer takes an income, or whether it's all just debt down the line, how much of the loss is written off, etc. I am guessing however, that farmers are not as quick to give up farming, even if they're hit with several years of bad crops or low prices, as other business people might be. I think also, because farming is not just a business but a choice of lifestyle, that a farmer is always held by the possiblity of the cycle changing: prices going up, new crops becoming viable, weather cooperating and bumper crops realized. If we're talking about non-corporate or family-run farms, and I think we are, it's not so easy to just give something up that has so much invested into, financially as well as emotionally, and also something that still, on paper, presents some potential. So, although every year there are farmers who get out of the business, many hang on and try to make it work, so the cycle, I'm guessing, is longer and slower for farm closures.

Sven wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

As well, many farms, as businesses, run at a loss fairly consistently -- that doesn't mean that the farmer necessarily doesn't get some wages out of it, but the business itself does not run at a profit.

If a farmer has revenue of $250,000 and costs (before the farmer’s salary) of $195,000, the farm business makes a net income of $55,000.  Now, let’s say that the farmer pays herself a salary of $55,000.  So, after paying the salary, the farm business has an income of zero.

The fact of the matter is that the “farmer” and the “farm business” are one and the same: The farmer, in any event, is seeing a net benefit of $55,000—even though the “farm business” has zero profits.

In contrast, if the farmer’s costs are $300,000 (and revenue of $250,000), the farmer has a loss of $50,000 (and an even greater loss if she pays herself a salary).  Unless the farmer is independently wealthy, that can only, if persistent, lead to bankruptcy, a sale of the farm, or stoppage of farming.

I notice you neglected to quote the first part of my quote wherein I provided some examples of people who run second businesses or work other jobs and continue to farm - often not paying themselves for the farm work, or only very little.

Regardless, a farm as a business entity and the farmer are not exactly one and the same, any more than any other business operator is.  Coming from an accounting background, you should have some inkling of this.  Either that or you were a piss-poor accountant and it's a good thing you went into law.

 Now that we're done playing silly buggers, I'm off to balance my own books.  Cheerio.

Jeez- I sure didn’t mean to cause a kerfuffle

Where to start with all the misunderstandings about the reality of farm income. Here is a bit from a report available at http://www.nfu.ca/briefs/2007/Ontario_Farm_Income_brief_to_Parliamentary...

According to Statistics Canada, small and medium-size farms rely on off-farm income for approximately 90% of their total income Meanwhile, even large farms with gross annual revenues between $100,000 and $499,000 rely on off-farm income for over half (52.1%) of their total income. And astonishingly, Canada’s largest farms, with gross revenues over $500,000 annually, depend on off-farm income for between 25.9% and 33.5% of their total income.

Me again

There is a simple reality facing farmers. Do you want to lose your home, your business and walk away or do you want to tough it out and work off the farm to subsidize food production in Canada and keep your home – a home that may have been in your family for generations. Unlike many other businesses bankruptcy farming includes not just the business assets but also the family home and location. It is something people forget too often and makes the desire to hold on any way possible a little more understandable.

Some farmers are choosing to hang on and to find niches for themselves. Others are walking away. The average age of farmers is climbing steadily. Anyone farming or living in rural Canada will know 70 year olds still working the land because they cannot find someone to take over the farm. We are in fact facing a demographic crisis in primary food production in Canada. In Ontario the numbers work out like this (these are Stats Canada numbers so you can do your own math for other provinces) in the last 15 years we have lost 62% of our under aged 35 farmers. Young people are staying away from farming in droves exactly because the rewards, both financial and in terms of return on investment. There are simply not enough young people taking up the task of primary food production for it to remain viable in the long term.

Many of recognize the problems with agricultural payments with governments. They mask the real problem. The other concern is that most of that money never gets into the hands of family farmers for the most part. Remember all that BSE aid. Well studies showed that the overwhelming amount of it ended up not with farmers, but with the packers.

I will end with this quote from a press release around realized net incomes and the masking effect of government payments from actual marketplace incomes from here http://www.nfu.ca/press_releases/press/2008/November-08/Negative%20net%2...

Statistics Canada reported November 24 that Canadian farmers earned a realized net farm
income of $2.157 billion in 2007. However, that number includes taxpayer-funded government support payments of approximately $4 billion.
“When support payments are factored out, Canadian farmers earned a net income in 2007
of negative $2 billion,” stated National Farmers Union (NFU) Ontario Coordinator Grant
Robertson. “Farmers’ net income from the sale of their commodities in the market alone
– not counting taxpayer-funded subsidies - was deeply negative in 2007.”

I’ll end with that because this is getting long, but the rest of the two documents and others on the NFU website www.nfu.ca describe the reality pretty well. This is all I have time for right now as we are very busy on the farm getting ready for calving- which may even start tonight since they are predicting stormy weather and that seems to be the time hefiers like to come in during the dead of night in.

Oh, my dad told me that one this year!  It doesn't just kill kids, it kills adults too.  That's just about my favorite joke ever!  :D

 That was my nephews favorite joke when he was 3ish  Hee hee.  I told it to him and he'd break down into hysterics, then it was always 'more more auntie'.   It got even funnier when he tried to learn it and get the timing juuuust right,  mix  it up and just run  around the house  laughing  'impatient cow ...moo...impatient  cow  mooo  mooo!!!"   I love that joke!!! 

Thanks Sean thoughtful as usual.

I also had to laugh about the postive stress levels for Principals.  I know a few very closely.  The stress of being a Principal in today's world is very, very high.  Even elementary principals are dealing with violence, drugs, sexual harrasment and on and on- and I remember I live in bucolic, pastoral rural Canada.

Totally off topic.  I am glad people like my joke.  I taught my oldest daughter it years ago and I think it is responsible for her amazing comic timing.  

And a little update.  We really did have a calf.  My partner and I spent our very early morning pushing the calf back in -think about that you momma's - because one of the front legs was pushed back and twisted which is a kind of breach.  And I really mean pushing the calf gently all the way back in as only the nose and one hoof could get out.  The calf can't be born, so you have to push it back in and twist it around- otherwise the cow will die.  Then we had to help pull it back out because it was so big.  It is the size of a good month year old calf.  The thing is huge.  Mother and calf are doing really well, but I had this image in my head all day of the cow talking to the other animals in the barn saying-  "you would't believe what those asshole freaks did to me today.  What kind of sickos are they?  Wait until I get some opposable thumbs and then I will show them what the hell that was like"

Thing is though she was never tied up and let us help her the whole time.  Now admittedly we work with our cattle more than some others as organic farmers, but still she knew she was in trouble too and accepted the indignity of it all.  After all that she got a quadruple helping of grain tonight as she has always been one of my favourites and we often talk together about the weather and all the silly things the other cows are up to.  She is very progressive in her thinking and totally opposed to the Harper agenda by the way.  She pointed out tonight that she wouldn't have a child care program to help her either and what after all was a cow going to do with a few hundred dollar cheque.

We normally don't have these kind of problems with our cows, or even heifers as we have a herd with a bloodline dating back to my grandfathers herd.  But every once in a while it gets very dramatic.  Our 13 year old daughter was totally, 100% grossed out!

According to Stats Can (http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/ind01/l3_920-eng.htm?hili_none), the total Net Farm Income for Canada, was a bit over one billion dollars in 2007. Given that there are over 200,000 farms in Canada, this suggests that the average Canadian farm makes four to five thousand dollars profit. I do not know whether this is before or after the farm operator has paid herself/himself a salary (that would come out of the operating budget), and the immediate members of her/his family for their work. Presumably, these statistics also include huge corporate owned farms, which might (for all I know) make huge profits.