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30 years ago today....

D

DeltaRed

Well-known Member
March 4,1984,the 'bank' sold me out.I was 70,000.00 in debt.The line of machinery only brought $11,000.00. 27 years old,I thought my life was over.(the bank later settled for pennies on the dollar)But as 'luck'(karma; God'd blessings) would have it,2 weeks later I was able to buy a tractor and plow(706/#314 rollover plow).Both of wich I still own to this day.I was able to start over by the 'seat of my pants'.Costom work,a 'day job' and other things helped.30 years later,I am still farming by the seat of my pants,doing custom work working out ocasionally.....But I'm STILL farming!'Cash flow''pay as I go';good local merchants,still useing 'junk'........Been thinking about all that today......Reflecting..... Steve
 
Reminds me of an old guy here. He went in to the bank as a young man wanting to borrow money and they turned him down. He told them he'd be standing on Main Street watching,the day they closed that bank. As luck would have it,he was driving a herd of cattle up Main Street when they locked it up during the depression. He hollered and said "I told you so". That old coot at one time held the mortgages on at least 11 houses around here,loaned out money for about everything you could imagine and at one time held the paper on every milk route that was coming in to the local milk plant.
 
I remember those times too well. High interest rates, I had a great banker now retired, worked with me help develop a plan that would work me out of debt. The day I paid it all off we both had tears in our eyes!!! That Type of Banker does not exist anymore
 
Good story of a man that didn"t quit when life punched in the teeth. Love hearing stories like this. Gives me inspiration.
 
Russian grain embargo 22% intrest rates abroken back a late spring with early frost did me in to now im hobby farming 150 acres 10brood cows no debt afew bucks now I just retired from a good union job I liked running construction equipment Two sons 4 grand kids same wife of 45yr God is good
 
In my opinion you weren't the risk, the bank slid you a mickey fin. We all should reflect on the reason bankers live off of other peoples income. A few bankers and credit union employees have community involvement and live in moderation, big banks fail the smell test. (opinion) Jim
 
(quoted from post at 17:22:17 03/04/14) March 4,1984,the 'bank' sold me out.I was 70,000.00 in debt.The line of machinery only brought $11,000.00. 27 years old,I thought my life was over.(the bank later settled for pennies on the dollar)But as 'luck'(karma; God'd blessings) would have it,2 weeks later I was able to buy a tractor and plow(706/#314 rollover plow).Both of wich I still own to this day.I was able to start over by the 'seat of my pants'.Costom work,a 'day job' and other things helped.30 years later,I am still farming by the seat of my pants,doing custom work working out ocasionally.....But I'm STILL farming!'Cash flow''pay as I go';good local merchants,still useing 'junk'........Been thinking about all that today......Reflecting..... Steve
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You're a great inspiration to us all. I admire other farmers using the older equipment. They continue to get the job done. Good luck to you.
 
Been down that road bank forged papers to get farm for neighbor judge said forgery didnt matter same for affidavts lost a lot of money declared bankrupcy.milked cows worked off farm lots of 19 hr days paid every body off including the banks lawyers never had a vacation but still got the farm and the fact i did it.take care and good luck
ps heard banker got rear ended in car wreck karma??
 
(quoted from post at 18:09:06 03/04/14) Just proves that you can pizz them off more by sticking it out and succeeding......
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4 years ago not quite to the day i was born buck naked and not a cent to my name. My parents were poor dairy farmers on a rented place across the pond
The only thing i inherited was an old tinned milk pail and a milk strainer that i gave to a sister when i immigrated to Canada in 80 with wife and 3 little kids and the clothes on our back. a half year later i was being back to just about as poor as i was born and i could not borrow a cent cause i had no credit rating.
i never won a cent in a lottery nor got anything given to me ever.
Today i own a 1800 acre ranch with 250 head of bison and a full line of equipment,All paid for. i don't owe anybody a red cent.
The moral of the story is.
With a vision and hard work and determination and a lttle luck one can still get somewhere in this world.

Just saying
 
Good for you and your wife hanging in there. Times are tough for us now too, but we will come out standing on our feet. Bank ad all over the place to help, but only if you have more money than you need. &%$@#.
 
Those debt figures were pretty common in the 80's. In fact there were a lot of guys with 3 to 5 times that much debt. A couple of year's with dry weather and high interest and you were there. Wasn't hard, it just happened.
 
Well Steve you can hold your head up high!!! There where many that sank in the 1980s. You worked your way out of the trouble and are still going.

We where lucky here in that we could not and did not borrow any money in the late 1970s so we did not get hit too hard by the high interest rates then.

We scrapped together enough money to buy a new IH 1486 in the fall of 1979. I had a lot of custom work lined up. I only kept that tractor 5-6 months and sold it for a little more than I gave for it. I bought a one year old JD 4440 for $30,000 in July of 1980.

In 1984 times where very hard I tried to sell that JD 4440 an could not get a $15,000 bid on it. I had to find off farm income to keep food on the table.

Around here 1984 was the low point. It started getting better after that.

So if your still farming Steve then you have done pretty darn good in my opinion.
 
You can thank Ronnie Reagan for that, when he did away with the farm subsidys everybody that had an ag related job was screwed. Lived through it.
 
Yep, Delta, I sympathize with you!

Been there, done that, in the 80's!

Funny thing is, around here, at least, there's a whole young generation wf whippersnappers that have NO concept of grain prices CRASHING, interest going through the roof, etc., etc.! They have only farmed through the GOOD years.

As tough as it was for you or I to swallow what happened to us, can you imagine how these young guys will accept it when it invariably happens, much less tell their "significant others" that the sixty grand grocery getter pickup or SUV ain't gonna happen, no more!
 
Jimmy Carter implemented the grain embargo, farmers overbought machinery, land, high cash rents, and thought there was no end to prosperity. I had a small town banker that told me a year before the crash to get out of debt and stay out. I listened and watch some of my neighbors lose farms and machinery. The ones that were debt free and hard working survived. It could happen again, things seem to repeat themselves.
 
Happened to my dad a year later when he was 51 years old. He went to a new bank and bought his own machinery back at his auction. Then he dropped dead 10 months later leaving the whole mess to be sorted out by my mom.
 
Teddy,you must not be very old or never farmed much.Most of them I know of were in MILLIONS$$$ and most of them walked away from their debts and are now the biggest farmers around(60-80yrs old) or if they were old enough,they built mega show place homes and lived happily ever after.We lost a lot of ag related business because of them being saddled with the writeoffs.The farmers had better lawyers then the banks-FMHA and other creditors.
 
And 68 years ago today, Sir Winston Churchill, Honorary Citizen Of The United States Of America, made his "Sinews Of Peace" speech in Fulton, MO proclaiming that an "Iron Curtain" had fallen upon Europe. March 5th, 1946. 45 years later, the Soviet Union evaporated and we have one person to thank for that. Ronald Wilson Reagan.
 
(quoted from post at 19:19:08 03/05/14) And 68 years ago today, Sir Winston Churchill, Honorary Citizen Of The United States Of America, made his "Sinews Of Peace" speech in Fulton, MO proclaiming that an "Iron Curtain" had fallen upon Europe. March 5th, 1946. 45 years later, the Soviet Union evaporated and we have one person to thank for that. Ronald Wilson Reagan.
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Amen to that! :) Now, if the present crowd in DC :evil: can refrain from losing it all :?:
 
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