How much should be spent on marketing?

[classicalliberal]

That is exactly right, the net revenue, or net margin/net profit however you want to call it. Even with the high input costs, the margins per acre for new crop production in the spring and summer was the best ever. Anyone who locked in spring and summer grain prices and waited to buy thier inputs (which would be speculation) would be making a fortune right now. I wouldn't recommend that approach however.

[classicalliberal]

Ignateif sucks!!!!!

[TOM4CWB]

C.P.;

'Tom i think you should give up trying to understand economics.'

As someone who worked and lived through the 80's... I have a very good recall of what happened.

Being 'humble'... is the key to any business... many folks on the farm... DID not make it. BANKRUPT. FCC finished them.

Say what you like... C.P., I am not the smartest... and the many blessings our farm has received are appreciated greatly...

Therefore I will try to do my best... to help those who ask... with this ole Conservative dirt farmer's logic!

Sorry you don't like it...!

[parsley]

If your mamma's purse is even half as heavy as Tom$CWB's mamma's purse is, then go ahead and scold Tom4CWB about economics. lol Pars

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley,

The interesting part about 'economics'... is that value created through 'prosperity' is a matter of 'investing' in people and the future.

Productivity will create wealth on the long haul... no matter where it occurs.

Theft will unravel the productivity of past generations assets... which makes the analysis of the US incentive spending tougher to judge.

If currency is used to create constructive infrastructure... with long term value and productivity... then it is a smart investment when oil/construction material prices are low.

Where a society breaks down... is when folks lay back and say they 'have it made'... coast on past productivity... and steal from others to 'enjoy taking it easy'. Innovation that produces prosperity... conserves resources and increases efficiencies... is 'wealth' and the 'currency' of our next generation.

The 'gift that keeps on giving'... and true 'value'... is realised when we honour our next generation... by constructively working to make their lives better!

That has been the true value/heritage my mother/father have given me... and if we are intelligent... what we will pass along to our children!

This truly is; 'Faith', 'Hope', and 'Love'!

[cottonpicken]

Falsehoods must be attacked and destroyed with extreme predjudice.

And if the size of a pocket book influences your descsion making process thats your clinically insane problem.

[parsley]

Perhaps Tom4CWB does know a little bit about economics,and markets, and marketing, and when to sell, and timing, and how much to sell, and how to price.
Just maybe that is why mamma's purse becomes heavy. Hard concept isn't it?

In the meantime, there are some folks who think they have a monopoly on linking research time, with facts, with conclusions, and ending up with THE only answer.

And experience. Yup. Y2Kers abounded. Goricals are currently stampeding.

Wisdom. It figures in the mix. Elusive word. Often linked with courtesy. Sigh. Pars

ps
One thing I know about Tom4CWB is that he is not a mean person. Read that sentence again.

[parsley]

And by the way, what I was saying was not what you decided I wrote, so I'll reverse your words so you'll think it was your idea, and post my thought again:

Good descision making processess can influence the size (how heavy) of Mamma's pocket book.
Pars

[cottonpicken]

And i know how pleasant you are to people who have opposite cwb views.

If Tom wants to post an article thats FULL of b.s and then try and defend it he had better be ready for a strong handed rebuttal.

If anybody posts ridiculous stuff that is not true it should be shot down by people who know better,so other people dont start to believe the lie.

Think of hitlers germany here.

If that labels me mean in your eyes,so be it.

I mistaking thought everyone had excepted the economic shit storm as reality,but i was proven wrong on that point.

In the next year or so when you accept the new reality you might want to do a little research and see what the guys that seen it coming are now saying.

And if you see a pennyless bum on the street named Dan Gardner.give him the finger and say"cottonpicken sends his regards".

[TOM4CWB]

C.P.;


Time will tell... she has no favorites...!

Truth... Wisdom... Understanding!

"A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother..."

C.P.; I hope we do honour our mother and father... for in doing so... the true prosperity/heritage of our family/community is created...

[gustgd]

On my families farm we have just signed up for Cargills market sense program it is relatively expensive at $4.00 a qualifying acre(futures traded crops ie: canola but not lentils). But for that you get a pretty good web based costing program that helps you determines your costs of production and helps you map out some cash flow strategies and other benefits.
You also get a very in depth newsletter two times a month and a personal marketing guy. To walk you through all the diferent options of futures trading
$4.00 an acre is not much in the scheme of things but we must push them to provide a much better return than that " It better not be a wash"

I think it was Eisenhower who said
"Plans are useless it is the act of planning that is essential."

[gustgd]

I would also point out that for the last two years we were enrolled in their Farm Sense program. but were not happy with the results.
They have had a lot of staff turnover and we got missed a few times. But I believe that they have turned things around and are working hard at retaining clients.
If it does not work out we will find something else and move along hopefully wiser for the experience.

[TOM4CWB]

OK Cottonpicken... I call your bluff!

My prediction for 2009... without a major war in the middle east over Israel: (Russia/Iran/Syria vs. US NATO/Israel)

If it is not an apocalyptic war... we will do better than my prediction...

Less than 10% UNEMPLOYMENT in the US/Canada on Dec. 31/09.

Central Bank Interest rates below 5%

Less than 5% economic retraction (N.A. Zone)in 2009;

Inflation below 4%;

The US $ does not loose more than 25% AGAINST THE EURO...

AND;

THE RUSSIANS AND CHINESE are in much more pain than North American trade zone.


Background:

"Not quite the 1930s
Ezra Levant, National Post, Published: Saturday, January 03, 2009

So we're in for another Great Depression, are we? Don't believe it.

Now that the epic U. S. presidential race is over, a caffeinated press corps is in withdrawal, so hyperventilating about a new Depression is their new fix. Just to pick one newspaper at random, Toronto's Globe and Mail used the phrase "Great Depression" over 300 times in December alone -- or about a dozen times each edition. And that's restrained compared to U. S. cable news shows.

It's not just bored reporters exhibiting their twin traits of hyperbole and economic illiteracy. There's a dose of wishful thinking at work, too. When the U. S. stock market started to tumble last fall, European commentators -- who had yet to have their own stock markets pulled into the undertow -- cackled with glee that it marked the end of U. S. economic supremacy. Igor Panarin, the dean of Russia's academy for diplomats, even opined that America would disintegrate into six different countries, with the mid-West falling under Canadian "influence."

Even to U. S. pundits, a failing economy is a useful story -- it's the mainstream media's preferred choice for George W. Bush's presidential legacy, as opposed to liberating and pacifying Iraq. And for Barack Obama, who once gave a speech suggesting his presidency would mark the "moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal," lowering messianic expectations of him, by exaggerating the economic troubles he's inheriting, is a political priority.

Of course, there are real problems in the U. S. economy, the most significant of which is the subprime mortgage fiasco. Hundreds of billions of dollars of "ninja" mortgages have been issued -- "no income, no job, no assets," with no down payment. That worked well enough when real estate prices kept going up -- which also allowed the ninjas to keep refinancing their homes at higher values. When the bubble finally burst, U. S. banks were left holding overpriced homes. That's a real problem for the financial industry, which has since had its worthless assets backstopped by taxpayers. And the U. S. real estate bubble, while small compared to that in Europe, has been popped. But a Great Depression?

True, unemployment in the United States is ticking up, approaching 7%, and some economists think the figure might crest at 8%. For the millions of people this affects, that's bad news -- but it's hardly comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s, when more than 25% were unemployed, over 50% in some regions. If 8% unemployment is considered a Great Depression, then Canada has been in a Great Depression for most of the last 30 years.

The IMF predicts that U. S. GDP will dip by 0.7% in 2009. Again, not good news. But a Great Depression? The U. S. economy shrank 12% in 1930, another 16% in 1931, a whopping 23% in 1932 and another 4% in 1933. That's a Great Depression. A 0.7% dip is America taking its foot off the gas for a moment.

Speaking of cars, the apocalyptic cries of the auto industry represent an opportunistic piling-on. The decline of North American auto makers isn't a sudden crisis. It's the free market doing what it should: penalizing companies that pay domestic auto-workers six-figure incomes to do what Japanese automakers do for five figures. Canada's Big Three have 27,000 unionized autoworkers building cars -- and 40,000 more retirees collecting pensions. That's why they're in trouble.

The Great Depression just isn't here. In fact, the recession we do have is already remedying itself. The decline in the cost of oil, from a high of US$147 a barrel to US$40, represents a massive stimulus to oil-consuming countries such as the United States; and though it takes the sparkle off Canada's oil patch, that sector was doing just fine with oil in the US$30s, where it was until 2004. (On the other hand, countries such as Russia and Venezuela, where oil exports account for 50% of the government's revenues, and Iran, where they make up 80%, are in for big recessions. That's actually good news -- it'll be tougher for them to finance their rogue foreign-policy schemes.)

Canada will do just fine. We're entering 2009 with nearly the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, with lower debt, no structural deficit and an enormous stimulus in the form of tax cuts already working through the economy. The real threat is fear-mongering politicians looking to grow government, and opportunistic businesses happy for a new excuse to ask for handouts.

- Ezra Levant blogs at ezralevant.com."

[cottonpicken]

Good luck with that.
You should short some gold,make a pile of money and make me eat crow a year from now.

[TOM4CWB]

C.P.;

We are grain farmers... not gold miners!

All the best on your spec's... I hope you/your family are having fun doing it!

In the end... family/community is what counts!