On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:26:05 -0700 (PDT), wrote:


You missed the point. Some dirt is better than other dirt for growing
things. All things equal, it bothers me more when the better dirt goes
out of ag.

No, I think you missed my point. *To use your words, if an ag business's
(family farm or ADM) land, parcel A, is "better dirt" for growing "Y"
crop - for whatever reason: you say so, it's located close to the
market, it's literally "better" dirt, etc. than another available parcel
B, but the profit from the sale of parcel A for a non-ag use, combined
with the lessened profit after acquiring and farming parcel B, is the
economically advantageous move, then, well, it is the economically
advantageous move. *Therefore, the "best dirt" for ag use at that time
is being used for ag and the "best dirt" for whatever parcel A is being
used is being used for that purpose at that time.

TC,
R

Boy oh boy. I can see now how little I know about farming, or
economics in spite of grad school.

Or perhaps, because of it...

I really didn't understand that it all comes down to a formula and numbers.

Oh, there's the chicken bones, cheap cigars, and rum, too...

And I had no idea that it was
so easy to project future prices, the future weather, the policies of
foreign governments, upstream flooding, the availability and prices
of futures contracts, labor availability and immigration policies, war
and peace.

Aside from the nonsensical nonsequiturity of your comments above, I
specifically made no comments about future value and I purposefully used
the phrase "at that time" with regard to value to indicate that I was
not speaking of any value other than present value.

If I had known that it was possible to reliably predict all
these factors, plug them into a formula and out would come all the
right answers I could have shared these techniques with others. Maybe
even changed the course of history.

Yeah, you'd have been a regular John Maynard G. Krebs...

I see now that what I studied in Utah and saw in life as probability
and uncertainty were irrelevant.

With certainty.

Probability just a backward Utah thing.

Probably, too...

Damn, it all just comes down to a formula doesn't it? Why
didn't I figure this out years ago on my own?

Interference from the tin foil? A vast evil Jewish conspiracy? Bad
anchovies on the pizza?

Thank you.

You're welcome.

HTH,
R

Dave