The stock market dove this week, as worries about credit, recession and, finally, inflation pulled down all the indexes. The Yonder 40 dropped 2.7 percent in the week. The other indexes tracked by the Daily Yonder (the Dow, NASDAQ and S&P 500) all fell more than two percent for the week. Few individual stocks in […]
Posted inAgriculture
Senate Passes Farm Bill; Reform Amendment Defeated
Growers of rice (right) opposed limits on crop subsidies.Photo: Edward Leger The farm bill passed the U.S. Senate Friday afternoon with a solid vote of 79-14. The $286 billion bill differs from the House version, passed in July, and it could face a veto from the White House. The Senate bill provides a $4.4 billion […]
Posted inRural Voters
Democrats Debate Ag, Energy and Trade
Outside Thursday’s Democratic debate in Johnston, Iowa.Photo: Danny Engesser The Democrats met for the last time before the January 3, 2008, Iowa caucuses. They debated at the behest of the Des Moines Register newspaper. Editor Carolyn Washburn did the questioning Thursday afternoon — and there were a few instances where the candidates talked about issues […]
Posted inEnergy, Rural Economy
Letter from Langdon: The Death of Opportunity
Rock Port, Missouri, has home-grown support for biofuels, but the town has been unable to own a piece of the biofuels boom.Photo: Richard Oswald Being unable to secure the support of a lender, Heartland Biodiesel of Rock Port, Missouri, just over the hill from Langdon, has thrown in the towel. After having raised $20 million […]
Posted inCool Places
The Midwest On Ice
The latest reports out of the Midwest tell us that power is gradually returning to the more than half a million people who had lost power after an ice storm raked the area, beginning early Sunday. Oklahoma was the hardest hit, but Kansas, Missouri and Illinois have also been iced over. There have been 27 […]
Posted inAgriculture, Politics and Government
Speak Your Piece: A Farm Bill for the Rural Middle Class
Map: Economic Research Service Middle America is losing its middle class. A national map of states suffering population loss looks as though a tractor plowed one wide row down the middle of the country from North Dakota straight through northern Texas, with a few furrows into Iowa and Minnesota. When energetic young adults move away, […]
Posted inPolitics and Government
With Flush Times Gone, States Stare at Deficits
Abe Lincoln and the Kansas state capitol dome.Photo: kawwsu29 Both water and trouble run downhill, and so the weak housing market, the subprime loan debacle and slowing retail sales nationally are leading to lower state tax revenues. A growing number of states are finding that they won’t collect as much as forecasters have been predicting. […]