Activist: "Farmers are millionaires sitting on land worth a fortune. They can afford the inheritance tax."
Farmer: "How much did I earn last year?"
Activist: "I don't know. A lot, surely."
Farmer: "Twenty-two thousand. Before the tractor broke."
Activist: "But the land's worth millions."
Farmer: "On paper. I can't eat the field or spend it. The only way to turn it into money is to sell it, and then I'm not a farmer, I'm a bloke who used to have a farm."
Activist: "So sell a corner of it."
Farmer: "A corner doesn't work as a farm. You can't run a suckler herd on the bit that's left after the taxman's had his slice. You sell one field, then the next bill comes, then another field. It ends one way."
Activist: "The land only costs that much because you won't sell it."
Farmer: "It costs that much because a hedge fund three counties over wants it for carbon credits and a footballer wants it for the view. Neither of them has ever calved a cow at three in the morning. They set the price. I get the bill."
Activist: "It's still an asset."
Farmer: "It's a workplace that happens to be expensive. You've decided the value of the shop is the same as the wage of the shopkeeper. Come back in February and watch me not be a millionaire in the rain."
@oshiimid@ky_statesman That would be about 35M of them. They are immune to logic. Then, there is at least 60M that have absolutely no clue what is going on. And, they all vote, convinced they are more morally and intellectually superior to everyone else. We are fucked every 4 years.