Ungrateful Farmer!

[cowman]

Bob Speller says he has spent $500 million dollars on the BSE crisis. Ralph Klein says he has spent $400 million. Shirley is going to stand beside us through this thing! Brent Hurlburt(High River auction mart) says thank God we live in a province that has a Ralph Klein looking out for us!
And here I sit...an ungrateful farmer!
Mind you I haven't seen one red cent of all that government largesse and I don't really see that Ralph or Shirley have done much except make a lot of noise. Maybe I need to be sent to "re-education" camp or something so I can appreciate all the glorious things my masters have done for me? Get on that old Tory bandwagon sort of thing?

[frustrated1]

I'd like that re-education camp myself. One that would teach me how to fill out these forms so that I can get on the govt payout myself. Apparently neither myself nor my accountant can do that right. So far alls I've got is the bills from him. 'course, like a fool, I've been straight up in reporting inventories and crop insurance and the likes. That's part of the "problem". The biggest part is disqualifying myself with diversifying. The neighbours get the new iron and the time to use thier toys, I get squat and feed the cows.

Anyone out there run a camp entitled "loopholes r us"?

[kato]

Yup..there is such a place. It's known as Camp Sponsorship. I don't think they are taking any new members, though.

[cowman]

My point was this: Paul, Bob, Shirley and Ralph keep telling me how much they are doing for me and how much more they are going to do for me! Enough with the promises and talking...send the check!!!
I don't need to hear anymore BS! I need to see some action!
I realize all this BS looks good in the papers and it is very nice that the packers/feedlots are getting some help but send me some money! The bills need to be paid!

[frustrated1]

Good luck cowman. That's what I've been harping at all along,let me see some cash too. Even the programs in existince seem to be stacked against some of us. The guy that figures out the loophole will be praised and paid for screwing the system. The rest of us may or may not get a pittance. For all the hoopla about this cull program in the last three months, not much has happened. Originally were the cheques not supposed to be flowing mid December?Maybe this new CAIS program will save me from mortgaging yet another quarter of land? Ralph is right, band aids are not the long term solution but if 90% of us are bled dry by time there is a solution, did it matter?

[cowman]

I don't know what to tell you about the CAIS program, frustrated. I still have to get on that one! My accountant phones me up and gives me hell for not getting the info in. She is a regular little Hitler!
What can you do? I did get my portion of NISA... still waiting on the governments portion! Trying to get all my tax garbage organized so I can go and spend an afternoon of agony with said accountant! I don't do this sort of stuff well, I'm afraid!
I think after this year I will let the boy do all this crap...he likes this stuff and is always giving me hell for being sloppy and not recording everything! Man I hate this bean counting stuff!

[kato]

Went to a meeting about the CAIS program last week. It made a bit of sense, especially for 2003..mainly because you will know before you cut them a cheque whether or not you are getting anything back.

Biggest problem is that they haven't finished inventing the thing yet. They don't know all the rules yet, and seem very vague on some details.

I'd like to find out what the inventory values are, so I can try and figure the thing out. They seem to be a state secret so far.

As for the cull program, it's not going to be a lot of cash anyway. Not enough to actually make a big difference. Pay off a couple of bills, but that's about it.

[cowman]

I read all the info about CAIS and have a pretty fair idea how it works. I'm still a little shaky about the inventory thing. My accountant told me it was done on an accrual basis but then I read here that cows that were worth $1200 on Jan. 1,2003 are still worth $1200 on Dec.31, 2003? I wonder if the bank would buy that? I thought accrual meant REAL market value not fantasy?
Oh well whatever it takes to screw us out of a payout I guess?

[frustrated1]

Bingo! If these cows are worth so much, maybe our illustrious leaders would like to make some money? They can have the whole damn herd at $1000head, makes for easy figuring what they pay me. They make a couple hundred bucks a head to haul them wherever this nirvana is, everybody's a winner! Let's take that logic to the bean counter that valued these suckers and see if they jump at the chance to make some quick dollars.

[almoy]

I was told by CAIS that the cows would be valued at the end of the year price (which they haven't set yet) but we aren't allowed to use the the higher price for the start of the year. Therefore it isn't going to show the drop in value during the year.

[rsomer]

Under CAIS as FIDP and AIDA only the change in number of cows are valued at the year end price. If you have ten more cows at the end of 2003 then the beginning then those 10 cows are valued at the year end price of perhaps $800 which reduces your CAIS payout by $8000. Even though the actual value of your cow herd may have dropped by $40,000 or more. Only the feedlots guys win because their inventory is a cash inventory and was sold during the year.
CAIS has a built in problem for cow calf operators who have large non cash inventories of cattle and feed which were never intended for sale but can work to reduce payouts based on the five year olympic average which is calculated soley on cash. Any increases in numbers of cows or bales of feed on hand will reduce your potential CAIS payout in any particular year, yet increases in cows and feed during the previous reference years are ignored creating a built in bias against building up a reference margin.

[almoy]

In 1999 AIDA used a January price and a December price for both crops and cattle inventory. If they allowed that this year it would be show the drop in value of the cattle herds. Maybe the cow/calf operator would finally get some help.

[kato]

That would be nice..I wish they would get off their duffs and let us know what the values are. Then we could get off our duffs and see if we qualify.