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For the Chapter 12s that fail, many of these farm owners will end up working the same lands in the same sorts of jobs. They just won't own the capital anymore,

by kevmo 8y ago

For the Chapter 12s that fail, many of these farm owners will end up working the same lands in the same sorts of jobs. They just won't own the capital anymore, and the surplus value of their labor will accumulate in the factory farming companies. All but the largest organizations are currently struggling in America. This tendency towards monopolies needs to be curbed, it degrades food systems and reduces national resiliency. This is particularly dangerous giving the imminent threat of climate change. Bankruptcy is an area of American law that is ripe for use for restructuring debtor-creditor relations to fight back against these trends. The entire Code, particularly Chapters 7 and 12, could and should do more to assist consumer and farmer debtors.

dmix 8y ago
Sadly most interventions that western governments keep making in the name of the little guy keep benefiting the megacorps, whether by unintended side effects or from flaws in the policy-writing process (ie, countless small political-favours, lobbying, etc). Thomas Sowell wrote a great book about this: https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/046509676X/ https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell... There have been countless policies since the 1950s intended to offset wealth disparity that have backfired and hurt the poor. For example, the rent control and other "tenant friendly" laws in Toronto and NYC in the 1970s resulted in decrepit urban ghettos littered with arsoned apartment buildings, because the only way a landlord could "renovate" was burn down their own building. Just look at pictures of Harlem in late 1970/1980s... It also created a massive disincentive to invest in new low-income property, as the developers knew they'd make less money targeting the poor. So development went towards upper/middle class housing (resulting in an even worse lack of low-income housing in NYC and to a lesser extant Toronto by the 1990s). Modern rent control laws have attempted to factor these "unintended side-effects" but there are a hundred similar examples in that book. It keeps happening and happening with every clever scheme concoted to help the poor. The only winners of the massive growth in the US gov since the 1970s were consistently large firms, who had their competition wiped out or huge barriers of entry created in their markets in the name of 'progress'. And countless well-meaning socially conscious economic policies usually works for a small group while hurting a much larger group in the process, or works at the beginning then as the side-effects build up it becomes a net-negative...where it would have been better off to let the market function as is.

by kevmo 8y ago

dmix 8y ago

Sadly most interventions that western governments keep making in the name of the little guy keep benefiting the megacorps, whether by unintended side effects or from flaws in the policy-writing process (ie, countless small political-favours, lobbying, etc). Thomas Sowell wrote a great book about this: https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/046509676X/ https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell... There have been countless policies since the 1950s intended to offset wealth disparity that have backfired and hurt the poor. For example, the rent control and other "tenant friendly" laws in Toronto and NYC in the 1970s resulted in decrepit urban ghettos littered with arsoned apartment buildings, because the only way a landlord could "renovate" was burn down their own building. Just look at pictures of Harlem in late 1970/1980s... It also created a massive disincentive to invest in new low-income property, as the developers knew they'd make less money targeting the poor. So development went towards upper/middle class housing (resulting in an even worse lack of low-income housing in NYC and to a lesser extant Toronto by the 1990s). Modern rent control laws have attempted to factor these "unintended side-effects" but there are a hundred similar examples in that book. It keeps happening and happening with every clever scheme concoted to help the poor. The only winners of the massive growth in the US gov since the 1970s were consistently large firms, who had their competition wiped out or huge barriers of entry created in their markets in the name of 'progress'. And countless well-meaning socially conscious economic policies usually works for a small group while hurting a much larger group in the process, or works at the beginning then as the side-effects build up it becomes a net-negative...where it would have been better off to let the market function as is.