According to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the average size of farm operating loans in the fourth quarter reached record levels. The volume of non-real estate farm debt continued to increase in the fourth quarter of 2018. The increase was driven by growth in operating loans, which reached a […]
A Bloomberg headline caught my attention this morning: U.S. Growth Engine Looks Able to Power Past Stock Market’s Woes. Reporter Christopher Condon noted that although stocks have taken a beating in recent weeks, economists are by and large unconcerned about what broader financial indicators say about prospects for continued growth in the U.S. economy. To put […]
Soybean prices are as low as they’ve been in a decade, and corn prices aren’t any better. Last week I delivered a presentation on the topic of agricultural trade in the Trump Era to farmers in Northeastern Montana, and the theme I hammered was the role uncertainty plays in the markets, and how President Trump’s […]
Farmers deal with a great deal of uncertainty by the very nature of their business. Will it rain? Will prices go up or down? Will pests or diseases destroy my crop? The combined forces of agronomic, meteorological and economic uncertainty are no doubt factors in the declining number of farmers in the U.S., and the […]
Some weeks ago I read a brilliant New York Times Magazine essay on Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis, the retired Marine General tasked with, as the essayist put it, holding the line in President Donald Trump’s “War Cabinet.” I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for stories about great leaders in general, and generals in specific (Patton […]
