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Long-time Iowa farm cartoonist fired after creating this cartoon
- based2 11y agosrc: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4hmvhl/longtime_iowa_farm_cartoonist_fired_after/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4hmvhl/longtime_iowa_...
- gragas 11y agoI'm an Iowa native. I find the cartoon itself pretty ridiculous. Why shouldn't CEOs of multibillion-dollar companies earn more than farmers? In addition, every single farmer I've ever met is very well off. In addition to the money made while farming, farmers are sitting on millions of dollars of land.
- jccc 11y agoI'm having trouble finding that part of the cartoon that suggested an Ag CEO should not make any more than an average farmer. Could it be instead that the cartoon is about the scale of the difference? There is an actual number in the punchline. [Edit: Nebraska native, by the way.]
- lolc 11y agoWell if they'd terminated the contract because he was not funny that would be one thing. But it seems he hit a nerve there no?
- gpvos 11y agoMore like he hit their bottom line.
- astrodust 11y agoIt's not a question of more, running a multi-national corporation is obviously more responsibility, it's a question of the factor. > Every single farmer I've ever met is very well off. Maybe you're in an area where the crops are in demand and your view is heavily biased.
- qaq 11y agoAnd Larry and Sergey gave Sundar Pichai 200 mil. not to jump from Google and Steve gave Tim Cook 400 mil. to stay on. It's their private business how they compensate their executives.
- astrodust 11y agoNot if they're accountable to shareholders.
- qaq 11y agoThey are accountable to shareholders they are not accountable to farmers and are not bound by what farmers think is a fair compensation.
- astrodust 11y agoIf farmers, and by proxy the people in general have no say at all then their society is broken.
- qaq 11y agoWhy would they have a say in how private company compensates it's officers?
- dragonwriter 11y agoFor companies which are corporations, because a corporation is a creature of government, granted a charter by some government and permitted to operate within the jurisdiction of others with various privileges and protections because doing so is seen as serving the public interest for which those governments are responsible to their people.
- qaq 11y ago
- mmanfrin 11y agoWhy shouldn't CEOs of multibillion-dollar companies earn more than farmers Every farmer. 3 people vs 2,129.
- davidw 11y agoThere are 2129 farmers in Iowa? I have to say that wasn't very clear.
- mmanfrin 11y agoThe exact text of the comic is: "There is. In year 2015 the CEOs of Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer and John Deere combined made more money than 2,129 Iowa farmers." Note 'combined'.
- jws 11y agoHeavens no. There are 88,000 farms and something like 130,000 "farm operators" in Iowa.† That 2129 of them are doing very poorly shouldn't come as much of a surprise. I'd be surprised if at least 3% of them aren't actually losing money! There is something to be said about income distribution, but it didn't make it accurately through the comic strip. ␄ † https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/edwards/EdwSept14.html https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/edwards/EdwS...
- alistairSH 11y agoExcept there are FAR more than 2129 farmers in Iowa. There are apparently >80,000 farms in Iowa and 130,000 farm operators.[1] So, the CEOs of a few multi-national corporations make more than some undefined subset of farmers in Iowa. Are the 2129 the least successful farmers? The most? A random sampling? I assume the cartoonist meant something like 2129 * [average farm revenue] = sum(coo salaries)? 1 - https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/edwards/EdwSept14.html https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/edwards/EdwS...
- jqm 11y agoPartially agree. I do happen to think the cartoon raises a very valid point. But... having known a lot of farmers they are indeed usually quite well off. And many of them are not aweshucks salt of the earth types people often perceive, but rather more like a sort of spoiled generational semi-duke or noble type thing looking down upon the little non-land owning commoners who they often pay very little and sometimes wantonly abuse. That being said.. what was the guy thinking? He has to know who financially supports the paper. Maybe he was ready to do something else.
- zaphar 11y agoI've known a lot of farmers too, admittedly none of them from Iowa, and none of them were like what you describe. Maybe it's due to regional differences but I'm inclined to think you exaggerated rather a lot there.
- jqm 11y agoNope. No exaggeration. I've known probably 30+ farmers in 4 or 5 states (and even worked for a few) and many have attitudes exactly as I state It's not that they were bad people or unkind (although some are... bordering on abusive), but it's the attitude of inherited big landowner. It absolutely exists. In retrospect I suppose "spoiled" (in the sense a gulf state prince might be) probably isn't the right term. Every farmer I've known has worked hard and paid attention to their task. But the attitude I speak of is pervasive. The landed nobility and the little people. At least in my experience. And I found it unpleasant.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rabboRubble 11y agoAgree with jccc... the point wasn't that a single farmer wasn't earning the same amount as 3 corporate CEOs, it was that the 3 CEOs earned more than 2000+ farmers combined. Furthermore, I think you missed a level of insight about where the earning power is. That land may come with a mortgage and other liens. The trick is scrounging enough money to pay the mortgage every month on that land. Only after a lifetime of paying off the mortgage, does the typical farmer or rancher have enough equity in the land to make it a cash windfall when they sell. I think the cartoon was commenting on the difficulty of making the farming business model work because of the tiny incoming cash flow from raising crops and being the frontline person working the land.
- Laforet 11y agoI agree. Not to mention that corn farming was not profitable at pre-recession commodity prices and even more so now without government subsidy. In New Zealand, our main agricultural outputs (dairy and meat cattle) have recently gone into the unprofitable territory and it was only land speculation that kept the farms producing at the current level.
- jkestner 11y agoThat's a naive view, and anecdata. Many farmers don't own their land but lease it. They're also subject to the whims of weather and the commodities market... not exactly a steady income.
- onetimePete 11y agoAlot also loose the land they had, to the banks over time and become glorified landscape facility managers for the bank or for example a energy company. The guy in that "My-little-farm"-book you've read, might never have smiled so happy, and it might never have been his "little-farm". I know a lot of people who wont accept this though. You got to be rich, living the good life out there- else, where to daydream-escape towards from a day in the city.
- inanutshellus 11y agoThe USA prides itself on free speech AND capitalism, but there are obvious conflicts of interest demonstrated here. I imagine losing Monsanto (or whomever's) ad revenue will be very painful to Iowa Farm News... Anyway, it's clear that Iowa Farm News would never intentionally and will never again speak against a major ad source like Monsanto/DuPont/John Deere, and every other news source has been put on notice. That's the newsworthy item - the illusion that news outlets aren't on a leash.
- HillRat 11y agoMedian farm income in the United States is -$930. Yes, negative dollars. Almost every farmer -- basically the bottom 95% at least -- relies on off-farm household income, and just hopes to make enough farming to keep up with debt service and opex (assuming they didn't go into debt on seed, which can happen).
- GunboatDiplomat 11y agoPerhaps they should consider another line of work. If your bar isn't making money, or your hardware store is failing, no one suggests it's unfair the CEO of Budweiser makes more than many many bars combined, or the President of DeWalt makes hundreds of times more than a hardware store does. Why should it be different for farmers?
- pnathan 11y agoWorth looking at the historical farm policies of different countries. But, for the US in particular, the key concept is agrarian myth. I present two comments and suggest reading Age of Reform by Hofstadter. > There is a general idea that somehow the fate of the United States is somehow bound to the fate of the agricultural community. There is a romantic appeal to the family farm as the symbol of the good life in this country. It stands for democracy in its purest and most classic form. This belief persists despite evidence to the contrary. [0] > The agrarian myth is the belief that the most desirable form of community is found in rural, specifically agrarian, village life. In the agrarian village, fundamental Western values such as a strong work ethic, independence, and integrity are supposedly fostered and passed from one generation to the next. Consequently, declines in the value of agrarian life and agrarian villages are seen as signals of an even larger decline of society itself. For those who believe in the agrarian myth, community type and morality become inseparably connected in the rural agricultural village. All other contemporary manifestations of community are incomplete or counterfeit. [1] [0] http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/36568/1/sp02re01.pdf http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/36568/1/sp02re01.pdf [1] http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/community/n10.xml http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/community/n10.xml
- tropo 11y ago
- mholt 11y agoI'm also from Iowa. The value of farmland is complex, and I'd venture that a farmer is very lucky to be "sitting on millions of dollars of land" if that is indeed the case. (Our farm sold for very well less than a million dollars a few years ago.)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- JabavuAdams 11y agoWhat a ham-handed response! If they had just done nothing, this wouldn't be a story. Now, it's a scandal.
- roywiggins 11y agoI am sympathetic to him, but there is no constitutional right to an unbought press (like he is quoted as alleging). Editorial independence is not enshrined by the Constitution. At all. To clarify, this is obviously a bad thing if it happened like he says, but since the press is free, his employer is allowed to fire him and find someone who will express a different opinion. It's a pretty bonehead decision to fire someone over a nearly completely inoffensive cartoon though...
- iherbig 11y agoI see this sort of defense a lot, and I find it interesting. Some party does something many would find ill-conceived, reprehensible, or in some way greedy. Some other people come out declaring that the action wasn't illegal. It's interesting to me, because often the legality of the situation isn't even in question (edit: as it is in this article).
- stormbrew 11y agoThe defence comes up against the claim of infringed right to free speech, which is right there in the article. It doesn't come out of nowhere.
- iherbig 11y agoI never said it did in this circumstance.
- ambulancechaser 11y agoIn the article, the cartoonist mentions "“When it comes to altering someone’s opinion or someone’s voice for the purpose of wealth, I have a problem with that,” said Friday. “It’s our constitutional right to free speech and our constitutional right to free press.” " The person above you is responding to the claim that this was unconstitutional, which is most certainly is not.
- tghw 11y agoRelevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- skronch 11y agolinking the actual comic in question (since it wasn't immediately obvious in the article): http://www.kcci.com/news/39341462 http://www.kcci.com/news/39341462
- BHSPitMonkey 11y agoMaybe he lost his job because it's just not a good comic. It's seriously just a written statement of fact needlessly wrapped in a drawing of two (identical?) people standing by a fence.
- cloakandswagger 11y agoAgreed. The cartoon isn't funny, subtle or provocative, so I'd fire him on those grounds alone.
- ball_of_lint 11y agoI don't laugh at every Mallard Filmore, but he still shows up in my Sunday paper.
- CM30 11y agoIt's more funny and provocative than most of the comics you see in newspapers, depressing enough. Compared to Mallard Filmore, The Family Circus, etc...
- xlm1717 11y agoYou would fire a long-time cartoonist because one cartoon wasn't funny, subtle, or provocative? You have extremely strict standards!
- hoodoof 11y agoDon't cross Monsanto...
- randyrand 11y agoAlso known as, "Dont bite the hand that feeds you"
- Gibbon1 11y agoDifficulty we're drifting back into a world were there is only one hand.
- tanderson92 11y agoThe invisible hand, that lifts all boats, right?
- Maken 11y agoIt's not invisible at all and all it lifts are stock indices.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- slosh 11y agoSomebody get this guy a scanner lol why bother with the news paper? He can just start an email newsletter and get more attention.
- hk__2 11y agoAttention doesn’t pay the bills.
- slackstation 11y agoThere isn't even a semblance of editorial separation anymore. That separation did good things like give people a reasonable expectation that what was presented was more or less unbiased facts. Now more than ever, we don't have that. If one is smart and looking for the truth, you have to cross-check with other sources. One says you might have had to do that always but, now everything is suspect. I don't mean that conspiratorially, I mean I have to think, "Could someone profit from me thinking this is true?" For everything. I wouldn't be surprised if someone manipulated the weather reports slightly to raise sales of coats and umbrellas. It'd be so easy and could make a significant difference. "Your Weather Report is brought to you by Burlington Coat Factory"
- JoshTriplett 11y ago> One says you might have had to do that always but, now everything is suspect. Everything was already suspect. I automatically distrust someone more if they claim a lack of bias, and trust someone slightly more if they explicitly disclose likely sources of bias. Given knowledge of someone's bias, I can weight the information they're providing more appropriately.
- spb 11y agoRelated - this is one of the most-posted links on HN: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- avs733 11y agopaging Barbara Streisand...(yeah its not perfect but its close) Seriously though, at what point do people in leadership positions really internalize the influence and power of digital social networks. Social networks are not new, the have existed and spread information(and opinions)since the dawn of our species. Online versions in some form have existed since the telegraph/phone/usenet/facebook (take your pick). You cannot control the flow or spread of information, and you have almost no control over the framing it is spread with. This is a story about a cartoonist, for farmers, in Iowa being discussed internationally... For christ's sake consider alternate points of view before you act in haste. You can find people of all points of view on the internet, but they seem to be united in opposition to schadenfreude and generalized stupidity/hypocrisy/hamfisted-ness under the guise of 'scandal' and knocking others down a peg. Stop feeding the beast.
- Zelphyr 11y agoIt probably wasn't even anyone that high up in those companies. It was probably some PR guy or gal. But the company spends so much in advertising with the publication that the mere mention of withdrawal of ad dollars was enough to get the owner or editor to back down and fire the cartoonist.
- avs733 11y agoI get that...I feel like the PR guy/gal though should be the exact type to be aware of why reacting like this would be a problem
- bdvholmes 11y agoThere is no cartoon on this page
- nacs 11y agoLink to the cartoon: http://thumbsnap.com/i/V80Bg5ye.jpg?0503 http://thumbsnap.com/i/V80Bg5ye.jpg?0503
- buckbova 11y agoA fun list of CEO compensation from 2015. http://www.equilar.com/reports/17-2-100-largest-company-CEOs-2015.html http://www.equilar.com/reports/17-2-100-largest-company-CEOs... Do the top 3 tech giant CEOs on the list make more than 2192 of you?
- goldbrick 11y agoUnless the average of our 2192-strong sample is > $96,857 (doubt it), yes.
- pklausler 11y agoOne wonders whether the corporate overlord in question also advertises on KCCI, and if more heads will roll.
- basicplus2 11y agoI think this encapsulates exactly what is wrong with the world we live in.. We humans need 1. Food and 2. shelter if the weather is too cold or hot.. everything else is a bonus.. and this shows our systems value the fundamental need of food below everything else, a world turned on its head.
- aurora72 11y agoIf the same cartoon was drawn in Germany, no one would have been fired. A matter of Socialism vs Capitalism.
- ibotty 11y agoSo there is Socialism in the USA? There sure as hell is Capitalism in Germany.
- iisbum 11y agoI'd be interested to know more about the process of getting the cartoon into the paper. Surely if the cartoonist submitted it to the editor of the paper before it was published, shouldn't the editor be the one getting fired?