This of course assumes that a balanced budget (or surplus) is something that even should be aimed for. Certainly one shouldn't go crazy with spending (especially when stimulus isn't needed), but the balanced idea seems to be a strange fiscal fetish that is over-focused upon.
It feels to me like having 144 profit on a 300 acre farm is closer to an accounting / tax choice then true measure of profitability. Another poster mentions writing off all equipment during the first year in that calculation.
It absolutely was an accounting trick, done in the name of TV ratings. This is Jeremy Clarkson - he's a TV personality and things done on his TV shows are not to be taken seriously.
The farm had a grain business, sheep, a farm store for veg and stuff, and grants from government for re-naturing part of the property. I have no idea how Clarkson calculated the 144 profit, but I suspect there was a lot of shenanigans do arrive at that number for effect.
Edit - I'll add that I enjoyed the show. While obviously done for shock value (similar vein as as Top Gear and Grand Tour), it did a reasonable job showing how complicated and expensive running a farm can be.
"Like maybe stay in a prison cell for a few months. Then yea, it's a pretty fun read."
You must know the history of Cervantes and meant the above in reference to his time in prison otherwise this is quite hilarious and profoundly the funniest thing I have read in a long time.
Your entire 'real truth' doesn't even deal with the fact that many people can use substances without addiction, but some people absolutely cannot. So by your truth anyone who becomes an addict is weak.
> many people can use substances without addiction
My stance is that the majority of people regularly using some substance probably sit somewhere on the spectrum of addiction.
Most people just never bother to quit, because it hasn't caused too much of an interference. Or if it has, they say they'll "cut back." Soon enough they're right back where they started.
Addiction can exist in very subtle ways. It creeps up. It's also highly stigmatized, so nobody wants to admit that they're dependent on a substance.
With the exception of caffeine of course. Most people will openly admit their addiction to caffeine.
Yeah I mean addiction has a pretty concrete definition despite your enthusiasm that every use of 'substance' lies on a 'spectrum' and therefore you can't say anything at all about addiction because 'everyones addicted' to something to some degree? c'mon
Yes, I am. As an example, the French public retirement pension system was built after WWII from a multitude of private pensions that were put in place over decades by various unions/corporations/guilds.
Privatizations also happen, it's not an irreversible process, but over a scale of centuries I think the tendency is towards nationalization of utilities. (Though the US is an outlier in how little it nationalizes)
I think it's more the large producers are global companies who have exposure to investors with different goals than smaller companies who have investors essentially looking at them like the lotto.
I'm sorry but environmental litigation is not a simple thing any corporate officer shrugs concern for. They simply try not to know about those things or offload the risk to third party's etc.
