Farmers of the year: Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi

Fieldays opens tomorrow, so that’s the last I shall see of my wife until some time on Saturday.  Speaking of agribusiness, the Economist reports:

Bruce Springsteen once sang about “going on the town now looking for easy money”. As easy money goes, it is hard to beat farm subsidies. Handouts for American farmers were a tasty $256 billion between 1995 and 2012. The fattest subsidies went to the richest farmers. According to a study by Tom Coburn, a fiscally conservative senator, these have included Mr Springsteen himself, who leases land to an organic farmer. And Jon Bon Jovi, another rocker, paid property taxes of only $100 on an estate where he raises bees. Taxpayers will be glad to know he is no longer “livin’ on a prayer”.

So there above are Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi singing something really sincere about working guys – note Bruce’s rolled-up sleeves, denoting his really sincere multi-millionaire working-guy cred. And there below is Ry Cooder with “Taxes on the Farmer Feed Us All” from his 1972 album  Into the Purple Valley. Also contains Van Dyke Parks on piano, piano-spotters.