Haves and Haves Nots

[Tradititonal Farmer]

Thinking about it we are a country of 'Haves and
Have Nots'.The Haves have been prudent about spending money in the last 25 years of economic prosperity in the USA the best times in the history of the world by all accounts.The Haves bought a house they could easily afford and paid it off while the Have Nots bought a huge status symbol dwelling and always got 2nd loans for any equity they built up to go on vacations and eat at fancy resturants.The Haves drove a vehicle that got pretty decent mileage even if gas was cheap while the Have Nots drove big SUVs and Double cab trucks.The Haves still planted a garden even though the Have Nots said told them it was a waste of time and the time could be better spent out on golf courses or playing games on $1000 XBOXES.The haves avoided all credit as much as they could and paid off their credit cards at the end of the month while the Have Nots made the minimum payments and charged all credit cards to the max at the local mall.
Now in times of economic downturn the Have Nots are looking to the gov't to confiscate the wealth of the Haves to support the Have Nots since the Haves have taken all the wealth of the country.

 

[Billpa]

Could not have said it any better myself

 

[Anonymous-0]

amen!

 

[Chris in MO]

What was that about the grasshopper and the ant. Or about paying the piper when you dance. We paid cash for everything we've got, since I was stupid with credit when I was younger and learned my mother was right. We even paid cash for our house and land. Though the house is less than nothing to look at, it still does the job.

I can't remember which founding father said that a democracy is the most stable and powerful form of government, until the people learn that they can vote themselves money.

Christopher

 

[Anonymous-0]

Never borrow from the dealership for a used car. My renter showed me her $11,000 car. It was worth $6,000. A bank would have told them.

 

[kyplowboy]

Here is a reply I just made on page two on this have's and have not's. Figured I would put it up here so more people would see it.


"It's like my grandmother said about the depression, she was poor as a church mouse and did not know it. They did not have money for anything, but they had a few sows, a few shorthorn milk cows bred to a herford bull, over an acre of garden just for a family of 5, so on and so on. She tells about going shop'n for new dresses, she would ride with her dad to the mill with a load of corn in the fall. She would pick out the cotton sacks to put the feed and meal in. When they used what was in the sack she made her dresses out of them. They made do just like she does now, the people who buy things just based on the monthly payment, they could loose everything. Hope this is not where we are headed but I am not going to start live'n on a credit card and hope some one bales me out.
Good luck.

Dave"

 

[JOE-ILLINOIS]

When I was younger and getting started in farming I needed to borrow operating $ for inputs and equiptment, at the end of the year I looked at what the bank need for interest payments,a few years we were in the teens for interest,at that time my older banker made a statement to me that I will never forget, INTEREST NEVER SLEEPS, I have never forgot that,I know we need banks but who do you think pays for those new bank buildings, just my thoughts, JOE

 

[jose bagge]

PRETTY ACCURATE.. but does my 2500hd double cab make me a "have not"? Does my 96 Civic with 340,000 miles on it make me a "have"?
My statement here is do not pre-judge based on what folks drive or what they live in...
the 6,000 square foot house that I built myself doen't make me a "have not", it's the six kids living in it (yeah, i know, they found out what causes that)that are pushing me that way!

I find that what the "haves" actually have is a "frugal mentality"- they'd rather make than buy, rather turn trash into money than money into trash no matter how much money they have.
Some are depression era, some were brought up that way, some just learned themselves- but they are proud not of what they have for themselves but what they've made for themselves. THAT'S THE REASON THAT GOVERNMENT HANDOUT PROGRAMS JUST DO NOT WORK- if you did't "make" it for yourself, you'll never fully appreciate it!

 

[fixerupper]

I'm going to print this off and show it to my dad. He'll love it. He was frugal to the bone. He never borrowed for machinery or crop inputs. The depression is his model. The only time he borrowed money was for feeder cattle, if he thought they might make some money, and land. Now he's 83 and living comfortably, but he still lives in an old remodeled house and drives his old 140,000 mile van when he comes out to the farm. Oh yes, he just had the factory spark plugs replaced in the van and he's thinking of replacing the 70,000 mile-old tires. Jim

 

[Anonymous-0]

And the world goes around.......................

 

[Anonymous-0]

VERY WELL DONE TRADITIONAL FARMER --- I LOVE IT --- AND IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO (( COMMON SENSE ))

 

[noncompos]

But...but...but...didn't Our President say that if we got scared, and stopped buying things, that it'd mean the terrorists had won??? That we should "participate in the economy"??? Did he say to stop buying things, that we were overdoing it, when I was getting a beer out of the 'fridge or something???
Seriously, when two=thirds of our economy has become the importing, selling, financing etc of stuff to each other, it's a real problem: if we stop buying, thousands will be out of work, which will frighten people, who'll buy less, and we'll be spiralling downhill...what did you say?...that we're spiralling downhill BECAUSE we bought too much??...Geez, you're right, it does look frightening...oh,well, our New Pres will fix it all, I heard them all say so on TV...

 

[Gun guru]

In the book of Proverbs, OLD TESTAMENT.
Chapter 13, verse # 7
"One man pretends to be rich--yet has nothing"
"Another pretends to poor--yet has great wealth"

In this country these 2 statements clarify the haves and have nots.
Nuff said.

 

[Dave from MN]

Same with my folks, dad still drives his 300,000+ mileage '71 F100, they make 1 trip to town a week and buy everything they "need" and ussually have coupons for it. They have plenty of savings and could live quite well if they wanted, but both grew up in hard times and hard work, and they both say get ready, it may happen again. The only loan they ever had was a home loan, and put everything they had "extra" to pay it off. Took 7 years at at 12% mortgage rate. I remember "getting" to go fishng and huntng almost every weekend, ALL day, because what we "harvested" would be our food for that week, because they could not afford many groceries. they still live that way today even though they dont have to. I believe hard, very hard, times are coming, and some of us who have managed to reduce debt and save something, will fair better than those that refuse to live within their means, but even I am gonna have it hard the next few years, the upper class wont hurt a bit, they will profit from the hard times, and that profit will come from the little we all have left. You watch, this is the last decade or two of the middle class, it'll be the poor and oweing, and the rich and owed, no in between.

 

[tlak]

political

 

[UncleTom]

I have done so much with so little for so long,that i can do almost anything with nothing.

 

[MN Rick]

It occurs to me that we dont have an income or wealth gap in this country. We have an ambition and savings gap.

 

[Big Mike]

I have an OLD House and an Old Truck.......

 

[rrlund]

I think a lot of it goes right back to what I posted about yesterday. Some of it was HOW you were raised,but more of it was WHEN you were raised. I've been broke and hungry,I'll keep driving my 1985 pickup if it'll keep me from ever being that way again. Same way my folks were hungry during the depression. Better believe they'd bend over to pick up a penny off the ground.

 

[Bret4207]

All true. What a lot of folks forget is the "Tech Bubble" of the 90's was financed on credit cards. I recall when no one I knew had a credit card. You couldn't get one unless you HAD money. In a way it was more like todays debit cards. The banks figured out they could make more by issuing cards and collecting the interest. They started handing them out and folks, me included, bought into the easy credit idea. Thats why we're where we are today. The Gov't isn't trying to help out homeowners by bailing out the sub-prime loans, it's trying to help THE BANKS.

We have gotten exactly what we deserve. But I suppose the good news, from what I can find out as long as I keep making some sort of payment on my loans all they can do is down grade my credit rating, (BIG DEAL I have everything I need), and send me nasty mail. I'll keep working to try and dig myself out of this hole.

 

[mj]

(quoted from post at 05:00:30 03/02/08) What was that about the grasshopper and the ant. Or about paying the piper when you dance. We paid cash for everything we've got, since I was stupid with credit when I was younger and learned my mother was right. We even paid cash for our house and land. Though the house is less than nothing to look at, it still does the job.

I can't remember which founding father said that a democracy is the most stable and powerful form of government, until the people learn that they can vote themselves money.

Christopher

Well said ..... :!:

 

[Eric SEI]

I don't think my parents were ever actually hungry during the depression. Mom grew up on a farm in Kansas, they grew a lot of their own food. Always had milk, bread, and chicken. Dad was a preacher's kid, Granddad served rural churches. Even when people didn't have money they took care of the preacher. Garden produce was plentiful and when people did their butchering something would go to the church.

It didn't put clothes on kids on gasoline in the tank, but it kept people fed. Unless you were in the dust bowl farm people had no excuse for being hungry.

Does remind me of the farm crisis of the 80's. I saw stories in the paper about Iowa farmers who couldn't afford groceries. I was amazed when I would drive across Iowa at how few farms had gardens. Made no sense to me.

I got my garden seed order in a week ago, a lot more than I can use, If my sisters expect some they better show up to help some, otherwise it will go to the farmers market.

 

[keh]

Like an earlier post said, my parents said they couldn't tell much difference on the farm when the Great Depression came. They were religious about having a garden. I was recently talking to a banker and I asked who was building the large houses locally and he said a lot of people had inherited $200k or so from the older generation who came along during the Depression and had saved their money. The descendants were spending it on large houses. Next generation wouldn't have much. I guess the idea is that someone would have a nice house to inherit or cash in. Don't know if that will work or not. The quality of some of these houses dosen't impress me.

Old saying: overalls to overalls in three generations.

KEH

 

[steveormary]

I can rember feed sack shirts.
Pumping water with a hand pump for the calves.
Splitting firewood and putting it in the wood boxes.
Working the garden and selling some produce.
But I was never hungary or cold.

Dads cousin said one time,"We lived so far back in the hills(E TN) we didnt even know there was a depression untill 1943.

steveormary

 

[Anonymous-0]

My Dad told me many years ago that his grandmother told him to "Pay as you go and you will never owe." He followed that advice during his life and I have tried to do likewise.

 

[kyplowboy]

Well said.

 

[Rich Iowa]

My grandparents grew up during the great depression, as many people did. Remember hearing my grandpa talking about having lard sandwhiches at school cuz that's all they had. I've allways been pretty thrifty myself but past few years have gotten little out of hand. I hit a rough spot couple months ago and am just now starting to get caught up. Looking back I'm glad it happened, I needed an eye opener. Randy Travis has a song called "The Bible and the Farmer's Almanac" that has a lot of truth to it.

 

[dave guest]

Learned long ago to live on shoestring. Mom died in 2003. She was raised on farm in SC. Said she never knew anything about the depression. Her and 4 bros. and sisters and mother ran thing alone.

 

[dave guest]

Learned long ago to live on shoestring. Mom died in 2003. She was raised on farm in SC. Said she never knew anything about the depression. Her and 4 bros. and sisters and mother ran thing alone.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I guess I never considered myself one of the "haves", but what you wrote pretty much describes me as being one. Good job!

 

[Nancy Howell]

I think there are many very good comments here. I agree that we are in for some very hard times. I don't plant a garden right now because I just don't have time to take care of it. I work a full time job and every Friday eve we head for our farm in e. Tx and work there then back to Dallas on Sunday eve. At least we have the equipment and the can-do if we need to.

 

[Tim B from MA]

I see your poind Mr. Farmer, but you are really describing the "Have Nots" and the "Wasted What they Had's".

The real "Haves" have more than most on this site ever even dreamed of having.

They were born into it, or earned it by smarts, hard work and a willingness to take risks, ....

or got it by luck and/or hard work and/or cheating and/or sleazy practices.

I'd say that the one thing that all the "Haves" have in common in the good old US is paying the government for rules and regulations that help them keep most of what they have, and making it even easier for them to get more.

That by-the-way would include the Non-Traditional Farmers.

 

[BobinKY]

I too was raised poor but didn't know it. My dad took a job with the power company in 1957 making 50 cent an hour. He thought he was in heaven. I remember going out to the chicken farm and buying the old laying hens and butchering them in the yard. For years, I thought fried chicken was supposed to be tough. We hunted for our food and thought we were living high. I grew up on bar-B-Qed groundhog and coon. We ate a lot of rabbit cooked many ways. If mom had some extra money for the week, we may get some brains and potatos for dinner. Sliced tongue made a great sandwich. My mom will still drive twenty miles for Bar-B-Qued snoots. Life was good back then and I would not trade it for anything.