4 ms·

Why shouldn't CEOs of multibillion-dollar companies earn more than farmers Every farmer. 3 people vs 2,129.

• davidw 11y ago
  There are 2129 farmers in Iowa? I have to say that wasn't very clear.
  • mmanfrin 11y ago
    The 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'.
    • davidw 11y ago
      Ok, but are those the poorest farmers in Iowa? All of them? Sampled at random? Yeah, I know, pedantic, but it takes something away from the point for me.
    • tromp 11y ago
      Also note it doesn't say "2,129 Iowa farmers combined"
  • jws 11y ago
    Heavens 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 ago
  Except 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...
  • tjr 11y ago
    Perhaps the cartoonist was fired, not for offending someone, but for lack of mathematical rigor?