Posts by wearytrucker22

James Phillips92 said:Just wait until they start pumping hormones into the cows—it’s going to be a disaster. Not just for the animals, but for anyone drinking the milk, too. Honestly, those skeptics will probably end up in the graveyard before they ever get proven right.

Look, aren't hormones exactly what boosts production? I don't get why everyone is waiting around for it to happen.

Debunking the myth that dairy farming in the USA isn't sustainable

Back in 2003, the numbers told one story: we had about 58,815 producers pumping out over 540 million kg of milk. Fast forward to 2015, and while the number of suppliers had shrunk to just over 10,000, the actual volume of milk being delivered stayed remarkably steady at roughly 522 million kg. It’s an interesting trend. Between 2003 and 2010, the total number of producers across the European Union dropped by a massive 47%, falling from 3,199,420 down to 1,701,090

Noah Sullivan said:What is wrong with you? What do you mean, a thousand years?

Don't you realize that under Communism—once they finished "dealing" with the small farmers—there were strict limits in place? I believe nobody was allowed to own more than, say, 25 acres. For an individual farmer, trying to fix that by buying up more land was an uphill battle that took decades, if it happened at all.

The point is, people didn't even emerge from the Communist era with those 25 acres per family; they came out with maybe 5. And that 25-acre cap had been in place since '53—it used to be closer to 80 acres before that. Honestly, they didn't give much of a damn about the rocky terrain of the Mediterranean Coast, which is exactly why tourism ended up in private hands, especially on the islands.

Andrew Booth29 said:That just isn't true. If you actually bother to look at the data on the USDA website—which they used to publish more transparently, anyway—you'd see something different. Generally speaking, small-scale farms pick up most of the subsidy checks, yet it's the massive industrial corporations that drive the bulk of actual agricultural output.

You've said this a few times now, but nobody is listening to you.
Let's recap:
most of the subsidies go to small farms, while the bulk of agricultural production is driven by massive corporations.

stormyangler12 said:First off, you need that 100 hectares. At 40 per acre, that puts your land value at $0.00 = 4,000 $0.00. On top of that, you'll need another million just to cover the machinery required to work it all.
And yet, you still have the nerve to claim some guy can take $5 million in startup capital, plant a seed, and then sit in a pub waiting for those $0.00 annual subsidies for that much acreage. You have vastly underestimated us and overestimated yourself.

People have been living there for over a thousand years and yet they don't own 100 hectares of land, so what exactly were their ancestors doing? If you don't have 100 hectares, don't even bother trying to play the farming game. It's like how in the Mediterranean Coast, the government either has no land or controls almost everything.

bluetinker54 said:I assume you’re keeping an eye on the price trends; almonds usually hover around $110-$40, though you might catch them on sale at big retailers like Walmart for maybe $70-$90. But honestly, those $53 prices are more of a fluke than anything else.
I'm not entirely sure what they're charging at the local farmers' market, but I doubt they're much higher than what you'd find in a grocery store.

Yeah, I suppose honey is a bit of a niche product after all, isn't it? 😉

Almond prices have tanked to $5 per kg from a record high of $9 per kg.

An eight-year-old almond orchard yields about 2,000 kg of kernels per hectare at a price of up to $12 per kilo, which works out to roughly $23.
But just like olives, high-intensity almond farming is easy and profitable. Even if you're just messing around, by year two you're looking at 2 tons per hectare, and later on, it can climb to 10,000 kg. At $35 a kilo, that’s $350 $0.00 plus the revenue from firewood after 10-15 years.

As for this guy selling almonds for $53, would he actually buy 24-48 tons of the world's finest, cleaned almonds at $13? I doubt it. People who pull in salaries of $6000 a month or more have already snapped those up. How much does he even pay his staff when he's selling almonds at $53?

neonhound18 said:There are roughly twenty different varieties of wheat out there, though the most common one planted is Triticum aestivum, which generally splits into specific types meant for bread versus those intended for pastries.🕺

Basically, you're looking at grass that's been bred specifically to stay short and tough. Honestly, it’s probably easier to manage than the weeds popping up in a field. We're talking about *Triticum aestivum*—standard Wheat—which is an annual grass that typically hits about 2 to 3 feet in height.

slysurfer14 said:Growing Wheat takes about 20 working days...
I mean, you've got plowing, soil prep, seeding, fertilizing, more fertilizing after it sprouts, and finally harvesting....
That's basically it... It's probably one of the least profitable crops out there.

If they’re spraying half the acreage with stimulants, then those subsidies aren't exactly being thrown down the drain.

Paul Gonzalez10 Asks:
Three different disease protections? Please. It’s not like the wind just stays shut for you. You start spraying, the wind picks up, and suddenly you're heading back home to avoid drifting everything onto the neighbor's property. Then you've got insect control, weed control, and growth regulators for the wheat... and in a bad year, you're looking at spraying the crops four times just to stay afloat. Oh, and if an insect infestation hits right during the heading stage? You get to spray all over again. Then you just have to pray to God that after you've done everything perfectly, you don't get hit by a freak hail storm. And even then, you're praying the price hits at least $4.50 for Grade 3. It’s not exactly a walk in the park, is it? As for that advice on fertilizer—you really missed the mark there, buddy. That kind of math only works if you aren't paying rent on the land. But around here, where's the money for the lease? $933 So, what kind of incentive does that actually cover? You basically have to be part of that elite 5% who pull off a perfect season just to break even, and even then, you’re entirely at the mercy of whether the rain actually falls and if you can dodge a massive storm. Now, tell me about insurance. Sure, I have coverage, but the insurance company only recognizes crop damage based on a yield of 5.5 tons per acre. Meanwhile, I need to be hitting at least 8 tons per acre just to feel like I actually made some money.
It’s not quite that simple, is it? Look, I’m not trying to lecture you on how the tourism industry works—that's not my lane and I don't claim to be an expert. But let me tell you something... when you're out there working the wheat fields, you've got more than 20 days of grueling labor ahead of you. Believe me on that one.

How do you feel about cabbage?

Paul Gonzalez10 said:I won't go around quoting everyone here—it’s a waste of time. Let’s look at the reality: there are plenty of farmers out there managing 250 acres of wheat—or corn, soy, or sunflower, if you prefer, but let's stick with wheat for the sake of argument. If you asked me which single intervention would make the most impact, I’d choose herbicide application every single time. It’s the one thing that actually matters. If they can manage a decent yield from that, they might actually earn enough to cover the costs of tilling, prepping, planting, and harvesting. After all that work, they could potentially walk away with a subsidy of maybe $300,000—though, of course, that gets eaten up by corporate income tax. And let's be honest about the unfairness here: whether you're running a small family farm or a larger operation, being hit with a 40% tax rate is absolute madness. Ideally, those folks should also get access to modern machinery to actually make the labor manageable. Of course, that logic only holds water in places where land lease rates aren't astronomical. $133 Yeah, well—there are plenty of fields like that all over the USA.

Coming from the Midwest—where things actually make sense—there is absolutely no way that model works. At the end of the day, you have to actually turn a profit. $933 So, we're calling this an incentive—for what exactly? It certainly doesn't feel like one. $750 It's already happened. $603 Well, it’s alright—there are a few little perks tucked in there, but let's just say we should look at the whole package together. $650 If you want to pull that kind of money in—we’re talking serious capital here—you really have to earn it. $283 It’s all a bit much without some kind of incentive—honestly, if you want to actually pull in those kinds of numbers, you need a real reason to move. $283 Just pouring seed isn't enough anymore—you have to put in more work just to break even. Once you finally hit that point, you’re basically sitting at zero. To actually see a profit, you have to pull in at least that much extra, and even then, your actual earnings per acre end up being pretty slim. $233 You can't make this work long-term—it’s a losing game. You either have to farm massive acreage just to stay in the black, or you'll find yourself underwater within a few years. Between unpredictable ice storms, droughts, or a piece of machinery snapping shut and requiring a repair bill that costs more than the equipment itself, you're constantly one bad break away from needing to take out another loan just to survive.
Look, if you actually want to survive—let alone turn a profit—under the current economic climate (and trust me, looking at how things are trending in Germany, it’s only going to get much worse), you have to go all in. I’ve already laid out exactly what that entails, but there's a massive catch: this only works if you’re inheriting a solid foundation from your father or grandfather. If no one in your family has ever touched this business and you’re starting from absolute zero, my advice is simple: don't even bother with farming. You’ll spend your entire life just working to pay off the equipment—what I like to call "working for the iron." However, if someone actually left you something tangible to work with, then yes, you can make money—but you’re going to have to work your tail off to do it. All those little schemes people talk about—planting a few crops, doing a couple of operations, and just chasing government subsidies—that's nothing but pure nonsense. At least around here, where land leases are what they are, it's a fool's errand. $933 (private lands).
When it comes to consolidating land, you shouldn't be surprised if a boss like Mark approaches you—or if you end up at his doorstep—with a deal that sounds absolute. He’ll tell you that you’re going to manage his acreage and nobody else's. It sounds straightforward, but let's be real—there’s always a catch. We actually tried testing the waters with a small plot that sat right between our two properties, and once that guy showed up, we were left with nothing. Sure, there are plenty of reasonable people out there who play by the rules, but those types are the exception, maybe two or three in a hundred. The way I handle consolidation is simple: I wait for larger parcels to hit the market, or if the owner is dealing directly with me, I buy them then. Honestly, there isn't any other way to do it.

The whole concept of subsidies—though they didn't call them that back then—actually dates back to around 1947 in the Black Forest region of Germany. The local farmers there were facing a brutal reality: their yields simply couldn't compete with the massive harvests coming out of Southern Germany or central Germany. It just wasn't worth the grind. If a factory worker was pulling in 500 Marks, a farmer might struggle to scrape together 100 Marks—mostly because food prices weren't high enough to offset their low output. Faced with that math, people just packed up and headed for the cities, abandoning the land entirely. To stop that exodus, the government stepped in with what we now recognize as agricultural subsidies based on acreage. Suddenly, staying on the farm actually made sense—it allowed a farmer to match a factory wage, and it provided an extra cushion on top of that. There was also a clever secondary benefit: it kept consumer prices stable. Instead of forcing a systemic 20% hike in wheat prices just to ensure farmers could turn a profit—which would have sent bread prices skyrocketing at the grocery store—the subsidy bridged the gap without hitting the customer's wallet.

The issue with today's incentive is pretty straightforward—it's hard to get excited when Wheat has been stuck at this price point for basically fifteen years now. $0.33 The incentive fluctuates—sometimes by a few cents, sometimes more—but it’s clearly dropped. Given that shift, I have to wonder: what exactly was the logic behind bread prices dropping from 2?$1.00 Fifteen years ago, we were looking at one price—now, we’re staring at seven times that amount. Look, I get it: wages have climbed, commercial rent for a bakery has shot up, utility bills are through the roof... I follow the logic there. But it is sheer madness that bread prices have spiked by 300% while the cost of wheat has stayed virtually stagnant. Just imagine for a second what would happen if those government subsidies were scrapped. Let’s be real—those crooks in Washington would find a way to pocket that money regardless of how you spin it. If the subsidy disappeared, instead of seeing a modest 15% increase in costs, small businesses would be left footing the entire bill just to stay afloat. Honestly? If I were running a shop under those conditions, I don't know if I'd even show up to work for a plate of fish. And here is the kicker: instead of the price of bread rising by a reasonable 15%, you'd have all these middlemen, wholesalers, and bakery owners spinning a massive yarn about how much "costs" have increased. They wouldn't mention the 15% loss—they'd claim a 40% hike. In the end, the bread wouldn't go up by 40%; it would likely jump by 60%. So, instead of a 15% increase, we'd end up paying 60% more anyway. It's a rigged game. $2.25 rather than $3.75. there you have it...

If you don't have the fundamentals down to actually run an agricultural operation, then leave the farmland alone. It's like saying, "I think I'll get into farming," when you don't even own any land to farm.

Jerry Clark72 said:You're finally starting to see how the game is played. 😁

The thing is, they plant the Wheat mostly for crop rotation purposes. So, out of that massive acreage, maybe only a fraction actually matters.

The rest? They're planting whatever cash crop keeps the profit margins high.

And yeah, they actually have to put in the work—spraying crops, fertilizing, buying the seed.
But because of how they mess around with the Wheat, America's tourism industry ends up paying the price, since bakery products become a total disaster. High-end restaurants and pizzerias end up sourcing their flour from abroad just to keep their doors open.
You can't bake a decent pizza with local wheat, let alone make anything remotely tasty when it comes to bread or pastries.

rustydriver said:If having fertile farmland is such a massive upgrade over owning vacation rentals, why don't you two (rowdypilot19 and wearytrucker22) just sell everything, move to the Midwest, and go chase those government subsidies?

It’s honestly absurd watching you try to push this narrative that managing an Airbnb is some grueling ordeal. You clean the place once every ten days, hand off the keys to tourists, and collect the cash. Or, if you're feeling lazy, you just hand over 5-10% to a property management agency to handle the whole thing while you sit back and watch the money roll in without lifting a finger.

And then you have the nerve to compare that to agriculture, where you’re grinding for 6 to 9 months a year, putting in well over 100 hours a month just to keep the operation from collapsing. Basically, the rental owners start with an extra 100 hours of free time every month to pick up a second job—or, as is usually the case, to do absolutely nothing. Not to mention that farmers are at the mercy of things they can't control, like the weather. This year was a nightmare with the drought burning everything to a crisp, whereas on the coast, you’ll get rain 70% of the time like you did three years ago. The rental income stays steady regardless.

Then there’s the overhead. You have to till the land constantly using heavy machinery, which means either renting equipment or shelling out a fortune to own it. And at the end of the day, you actually have to sell the product. Most of the time, you're selling at the border just to break even, or sometimes even at a loss. Those subsidies you love to talk about aren't making people rich; they're just keeping them from drowning. That's the reality, despite the story you two are trying to sell.

How can you even put tourism and farming in the same conversation? Look at how something like Ultra in Split works—scammers hike prices by 200% and fill every room without having invested a single cent more than they did last year. When does that happen in farming? When demand outstrips supply—like during this drought when yields dropped by 50%—does the price skyrocket? No. If the local supply is too low, we just import food from other countries, and the domestic farmers still get stuck with the same old prices.

Sure, there’s a fair percentage of people who went bust because they overleveraged themselves on tractors and combines, or simply because the economy tanked. But what really grinds my gears is the attempt to claim that renting out apartments is harder work or less profitable than farming.

The kind of rental you're describing pulls in maybe $60 to $200 tops in places like Miami or LA.
You can tell by my rates that I’m not running apartments—I’m running rooms. The price is high because I provide actual value (and no, I don't mean food). I'm up working for an hour before the guests even wake up, and I don't hit the sack until after they do. My workday is a minimum of 18 hours. Taking guests out to restaurants is work, too; I have to play host, translate, explain things, blah, blah, blah.

Midwest farming (for most people, anyway) is child's play.
Some guy plows 100 acres in ten days, sows his Wheat, harvests it, and collects his government subsidies. $75000 If he's unlucky enough for the crop to actually grow, he has to harvest it, haul it to the buyer, and then spend his time complaining about low prices and blocking highways.

Sam Martinez9 said:Your opening line tells me you completely missed my point.

To be clear, my post wasn't some "it's either the government's fault OR the farmers' fault" type of argument where you have to pick a side and shout, "The state is to blame!"

My actual point is that both parties share the blame. It's the government, and it's also the farmers.

Stop trying to force things into two opposing camps; life doesn't really work that way.

Both parties are at fault, but let's be real—politicians don't have a clue how to actually raise hogs, for instance. Instead, these guys band together just to block highways or demand subsidies; basically, they want quick cash without offering anything in return. Rather than forming actual consortia, clusters, or cooperatives—whatever you want to call them—and sending educated agricultural masters and corporate lawyers to negotiate with the government based on European Union laws, they just act out. And it's not like everyone is incompetent; there are successful farmers out there, they just tend to keep their heads down and do the work.
I've gone bankrupt twice in my life. Is that the government's fault, or is it me and how I managed my business?

Sam Martinez9 said:It’s honestly a bit tragic. We fought so hard to dismantle socialism and embrace capitalism, yet here we are, a quarter-century later, and people still seem completely lost when it comes to the fundamental rules of how a market economy actually functions.

See, capitalism is driven by efficiency. And you simply cannot achieve efficiency without economies of scale. You aren't going to outproduce someone managing massive tracts of land when you're stuck working a tiny backyard plot. Your unit costs will always be higher. It’s basic math: if you’re raising livestock, your overhead per animal is significantly lower if you're managing a herd of 1,000 compared to someone struggling with just 10.

I could go on, but those are really just the basics.

The bottom line is that those who wanted to make a living in agriculture should have been looking for ways to consolidate their holdings. That responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the farmer.

That said, the government bears its own share of the blame for sitting on its hands. Instead of investing in essential infrastructure—things like irrigation, drainage systems, cold storage, or silos, which are far more critical than mere subsidies—they did nothing. A state built on laziness and graft inevitably leads to exactly what we are seeing now: systemic decay.

Check this out, then tell me it isn't incompetent farmers instead of an irresponsible state. These guys probably import corn from the Midwest, run a successful hog operation, and then end up selling some of those pigs back into the local market where even folks in the Midwest buy them at Walmart. I picked a standard farm on purpose.


Once you've watched that, you absolutely have to see this:
what the Midwest and the plains look like today compared to what American farmers went through in the '90s.

The video was made as a warning to rural farmers about what happens if the American system gets implemented in the European Union.

If I were running a hog farm, for example, I’d fail miserably. I’ve barely ever seen a live pig in my life. Same goes for you guys—if you tried running my business, you’d go belly up after the first season. You wouldn't even make it through the year before you were drowning in lawsuits over damages and trying to claw back your investments.

rowdypilot19 said:Hitting a price point like that isn't easy, honestly—not even for a single hotel. I guess you could say it takes some serious skill and a lot of upfront investment to pull it off.

If he was dealing with an old house from the 70s or 80s, he would have had to, at the very least, tear down all the walls and start over to offer a rate like that.

You want to know how people actually manage to hit those numbers? Of course you don't.

To be totally honest, charging 100 euros per bed for a quad room is a massive win, and you really have to give the guy credit for that.

At the end of the day, if he wasn't hosting Britons, there probably wouldn't even be any incentive to do it.

You're absolutely right—it hasn't been easy. One single slip-up and one bad review can tank the whole operation. My original plan was to pull in about $6,000 to $7,000 per season. But if you spot a gap in the market and put the work in, you've basically broken even on your initial investment between this year and last. Now, I’ve identified a specific niche paying anywhere from $1,250 to $1,500 a day. Moving forward...

Noah Sullivan said:For hundreds of years, they were considered the hardest workers around, and now, suddenly, they’re labeled "lazy"—doesn't that strike you as a bit suspicious? Look, the reality is that their products (along with a massive array of other goods) simply aren't competitive under current conditions—given an overvalued currency and sky-high interest rates on loans.
Those who *are* actually competitive under these constraints should be rewarded with higher margins,
rather than watching the majority of domestic production wither away while a few barely scrape by. Farmers, for instance, should be receiving low-interest loans stemming directly from primary Federal Reserve emissions, instead of being blamed for failing to compete with those who are profiting from cheap money pumped out by the European Central Bank.

The fault lies, quite clearly, in a nonsensical monetary policy—one that has remained fixed since 1994 despite nothing but poor results.

I just spotted an opportunity to pull in about $1,300 to $1,600 a day, but there’s a catch: you need at least $650,000 in capital—or a massive loan—to get off the ground. Honestly, that kind of debt is a joke to ask of regular folks. I’m personally not diving into this until I’ve scraped together 80% to 90% of the cash myself. I say that as a nod to those people out in the Midwest asking for loans just to start production. Sure, getting a bank loan is easy, but you actually have to pay it back, and nobody is giving you any guarantees once things go south. Taking a loan isn't a handout; if you don't have your own skin in the game, you're basically throwing money into the wind and setting yourself up for total ruin. If you don't have the funds, just pack up and head to Denmark to work on some pig farm. Get your experience and build up enough seed money to cover at least 30% of the investment—not counting the land, obviously. When you're playing with your own hard-earned cash, the psychology is completely different than when you're gambling with someone else's money.

Here’s how you actually make it in some small Midwest town with maybe 100 to 500 people.

Get together at some house, grab a beer, and round up your fellow citizens.
Let's get a farming collective off the ground.
Let's get an inventory of the machinery together.
Compile a list of core competencies. You have to know everything—and frankly, you need to understand agricultural production better than any of the competition in the European Union. It’s like how people from Southern California just inherently know how to grow the perfect mandarins or watermelons.
Compile a land registry list.
So, let's say you all decide to pool your resources and jump into large-scale production together—we're talking about hitting a target of, say, 1,000 tons of vegetables.
So, you want a full-scale vegetable harvest schedule mapped out a year in advance, including specific quantities? Fine. Let’s get down to business. You can't just wander into the garden in July and hope for the best; that's how you end up with nothing but dirt and regret. If you want to actually feed people—or at least have enough to stock a pantry—you need a roadmap. Here is how you structure a professional-grade planting and harvest master plan for an American backyard or small farm setup. **Phase 1: The Inventory & Goal Setting (The "What" and "How Much")** Before you touch a shovel, you need to know your numbers. Don't guess. * **Define your yield targets:** Are we talking about feeding a family of four for the summer, or are we trying to preserve enough canned goods to last through a Midwestern winter? * **Calculate by weight or volume:** Instead of saying "I want tomatoes," say "I need 50 pounds of tomatoes." That dictates whether you plant three plants or twenty. * **Analyze your zone:** This isn't one-size-fits-all. Your plan for a garden in Florida is going to look nothing like a plan for a garden in Maine. Determine your USDA Hardiness Zone immediately. **Phase 2: The Seasonal Breakdown (The Timeline)** You need to divide your year into three distinct operational windows. **1. The Early Spring Push (Frost to Late May)** * **Focus:** Cold-hardy crops. Think peas, spinach, radishes, and kale. * **The Math:** These grow fast. If you need 5 lbs of radishes, you can plant them in waves every two weeks to ensure a continuous supply rather than one massive, overwhelming harvest. * **Action:** Get your soil prep done in late February/early March. **2. The Summer Heat Wave (June to August)** * **Focus:** The heavy hitters. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, corn, and squash. * **The Math:** This is where your quantity calculations matter most. Corn takes up significant real estate for relatively low caloric density per square foot compared to, say, potatoes. Plan your acreage accordingly. * **Action:** Stagger your plantings. Don't put all your tomato starts in the ground on the same day unless you want 40 pounds of tomatoes rotting on your porch all at once in July. **3. The Autumn Harvest (September to November)** * **Focus:** Root vegetables and brassicas. Carrots, beets, garlic (which gets planted in the fall for next year), and broccoli. * **The Math:** Garlic requires a massive lead time. You plant it now to reap the rewards next summer. * **Action:** This is your cleanup and preservation phase. **Phase 3: Creating the Master Spreadsheet** To do this right, you need a document with these columns: 1. **Crop Name** 2. **Target Quantity** (lbs/oz) 3. **Estimated Yield per Plant** (Research this; don't wing it) 4. **Number of Plants Needed** (Target Quantity ÷ Yield per Plant = Number of Plants) 5. **Planting Date** (Based on your local frost dates) 6. **Expected Harvest Window** **The Bottom Line:** If you aren't calculating based on the actual yield of a single plant, you aren't planning—you're just wishing. Do the math, account for the inevitable pests or a random July drought, and build in a 15% buffer. That’s the only way to actually succeed.
If you can find someone truly capable, send them out across the US and the coastlines to hammer out deals with shopping malls and the big corporations that supply hotels and everything else.
Look, if you’ve got inventory that got trashed because of some crazy weather hitting your supply chain right after you signed a sales contract, don't just sit there staring at the loss. If you actually want to run a business, go out and buy the stock on the open market instead. Grab it, get it moved, and deliver it to your customers five or ten minutes before the deadline hits. That's how you handle it.
Success is a total guarantee if you can pull off 1,000 tons of organic produce every single day. You negotiate the deals now, deliver next year, and you’ll have everything sold off to the Mediterranean market without a single hitch.

Betty Bennett70 Asks:
Is it really that hard to make a buck on the coast? I mean, you inherit some old shack, flip it into a nice little vacation rental, and then squeeze a Brit for $60 a night. Seems like a solid gig to me. 😁

Just to set the record straight—it’s not $60 a night. It's actually $100 per person with a four-person minimum, so you're looking at $400 total, plus a one-time $100 cleaning fee.
P.S. Just got my first two paid bookings for 2018 yesterday.
It’s official! The arrival is set for Tuesday, June 12.
June 12 be sure to message step with check-in details.
Check in
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Check out
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Guests
4 adults
Confirmation code
xxxxxxxxxxx
Earnings reports. Everyone’s losing their minds over them lately. It feels like every single quarterly update is treated like a life-or-death verdict on the entire economy rather than just a snapshot of how one specific company performed over three months. You see the big players—the Walmarts of the world—dropping their numbers, and suddenly the whole market starts twitching. It’s all noise. People obsess over a few cents of difference in earnings per share as if that dictates the future of the nation, when really, it's just accounting math filtered through pure speculation. Honestly, it's exhausting to watch.
$399.00 per night for 4 nights comes out to $1,596.00.
Cleaning fee $110.00
Subtotal $1,850.00
Service fee—$68.50
You're pulling in $1,775.00.

rowdypilot19 Asks:
No lowlife is going to pull in those agricultural subsidies unless they’ve already inherited a massive chunk of land. And honestly? Nobody even bothers to ask you how much you actually produced. ☕

Look, rowdypilot19, you couldn't have been more spot on with that answer. If those massive billions in government subsidies had actually been handed over to us lazy coastal folks, we’d be sitting on 30 to 40 billion dollars in tourism revenue by now.

If they actually had what it takes, they wouldn't be failing right now. Honestly, they should just sell off their land or lease it out to someone who actually knows how to run a business.

Benjamin Taylor6 said:That’s exactly why my former colleague ended up losing everything:

First off, when it comes to running daily tourist charters, the Port Authority doesn't have much say in the matter. They’re basically just sitting on a gold mine, pulling in about $2 per mooring from those boats every single day. Or you could look at how things work over at the Marriott Marina near Manhattan. $2000 Monthly.

Parking along the waterfront is free for the first two hours. No catch.
If they had $100,000 burning a hole in their pocket for some boat, they can certainly afford to cough up a little more. $2000 Monthly summer vibes for the connection. Total downpour. $67 They always end up with their own way of doing things to avoid any unnecessary pressure. If they aren't dealing with that stress, they can actually put those two hours to good use—maybe getting guests boarded if there’s an open slot available.
Most of the time, that kind of work just isn't cut out for them.

Jessica Murphy61 said:So, I’m looking at starting a small LLC—mostly sandblasting and some polishing stuff... skipping the lacquering for now because the equipment costs would totally blow my budget.

My goal is just to pull in maybe $300-$400 a month in profit, nothing crazy.

I've already got the gear, and I think I have a handle on the paperwork to get the business registered.

But I'm stuck on one thing—the workspace. How does anyone view a setup like this with basically zero technical requirements?

See, I’ve got this old workshop on my property—it's basically an oversized shed. It’s about 11x9 meters, with 13-foot ceilings hitting up to 20 feet at the peak. Huge space. Most of it is Zidati, with just a little bit of siding. It’s on the county tax maps, but I don't have the official Certificate of Occupancy or whatever you call it. The structure was built back in '59 along with the house, but the paperwork is a mess. We managed to sort out the papers for the main house, though.
Someone offered to help me fix it for $100 by drafting a project plan, plus maybe $83 some fees to get everything legalized. Apparently, they had all the records once, but they lost them 🤦

Anyway, let's just pretend that part is handled for now.

What's next? I could probably just draw up a tiny lease agreement between myself and my LLC so the business has an official address to use.

The real headache is the zoning and building codes—does the city or the SBA care about stuff like that? Especially for a niche business like mine. I can easily install ventilation (like a dust collection system) and add a bathroom if I really need to.

Thanks, guys!

A structure built in 1959 doesn't need legalization, an occupancy permit, or a building permit. Before 1968, everything was considered legal by default. And honestly, they are. All you really need is a confirmation from the county assessor that the building shows up on the 1968 aerial survey.
Just file a request citing "minimal technical requirements."
The less you say, the better off you'll be.

slysurfer14 said:for what $333 for filing papers? seriously, stop wasting everyone's time, again...

Where exactly are you finding rates for $2000 annual bookkeeping when a business is processing at least five transactions a month?
At those prices, your homegrown berries aren't worth more than $0.33 a pound. Honestly, you people are asking for hourly rates starting at $1-$0.67 per hour. It’s ridiculous.
As for commercial space, I'd rather take in some refugees from overseas and pay their utilities out of my own pocket than rent out a $0.67 sq ft unit for anything less than $2 per square foot.$0.67 It just isn't worth it.
Man, people from the rural heartland really get under my skin. To them, everything is gold—organic $3.25 pounds of potatoes, eggs worth at least $1.75 apiece, and so on.
And let me ask you: what's the actual going rate for labor in rural America? How much would you realistically be willing to pay someone per hour down there?

Andrew Murphy said:A rural cooperative could potentially provide enough food to sustain an entire urban residential development.
That is the concept at hand.
It leads me to wonder: is it possible to establish a Commercial farm based on capital investments from these residents? They would essentially pool their funds to fund a shared production site in the countryside, intended primarily for their own consumption, while any surplus could be sold directly through the Commercial farm's operations.

I am not entirely certain about the legal specifics regarding a Family farm, but I am considering the term "Small family farm" as a new business model.
The idea involves collective capital being invested into a single property that a landlord then leases out to these investors...
How might one legally structure such an arrangement, and what are your thoughts on the feasibility of this idea?

And who actually does the labor? Is it clear to you that after harvesting wheat, you might net a measly $50 to $100? You'd need a massive amount of acreage just to cover the gas money required for members to drive out and check on that wheat. Growing produce is a whole different beast—it demands specialized expertise and serious capital.
You really need to have 10 to 20 successful independent farms established first before even thinking about forming a cooperative. Only then would you see actual reductions in production costs and better market prices for your goods.

slysurfer14 said:What exactly are you looking for?.....
So, basically, you need at least 8 people to start a co-op (maybe 7 or 8, I don't want to dig through the legal fine print right now). Everyone puts in some initial capital—it's at least $333, but honestly, the more the better....
All the members make up the assembly and they vote on everything, like picking the secretary, the manager, and all that stuff....
The manager has to be a pro (like, an actual employee), unless the co-op isn't pulling in more than $180 $0.00 (that's just a rough estimate) in revenue; then you don't necessarily need to hire someone....
You gotta open a business bank account, get a seal, and hire a firm to handle the paperwork (you absolutely have to have a contract with an accounting firm)....
A co-op can do anything—manufacturing, sales, whatever....
If you don't hire a full-time manager, your only real cost is the bookkeeping (maybe $100-$67 a month)....
All the big decisions happen at the general meeting, and obviously, you have to vote on the bylaws to define how everything works, including how profits are split or how losses are covered....

That's the gist of it, I guess....

http://www.cooperative-info.org/index.php?opti...d=38&Itemid=82
Please. What do you mean "$100-$$67" for the paperwork? You're looking at over $1,000 upfront before you even start.