“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.” — John F. Kennedy.

He might be our most underrated president.

I don't think he was, at least based on what he actually did in life.

He only barely beat Nixon in 1960, caused Cuban crisis through his own making by bad defense policy in the middle east, gridlocked congress.

His people turned him into a legend after he was killed.

LBJ did the real work in implementing the ideas JFK wanted (but couldn't implement). Yes JFK's death may have made some of this more possible but how much can you credit someone for dying when it wasn't even for a particular cause (other than anticommunism maybe).

You may be able to tell I've read too much Robert Caro.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/jfk-accomplished-lit...

> based on what he actually did in life.

Don't forget about Mimi Alford.

Not to mention Joseph Kennedy was one greasy mo-fo.

I mean LBJ was super corrupt. But he was effective.

The meat packing monopoly ties the hands of many cattle farmers.

Meat packing is a natural oligopoly, which could be disrupted any time by someone with enough bucks to do it. That's capitalism. Either live with the parasites or be ok with more intervention.

Negotiating against someone with more power than you leads to bad deals.

Or simply indexing them to inflation in some way.