[deamanto]

I actually have a very specific story on this one from a friend.

In Australia, there's this stereotype of the "hard working Aussie battler farmer" and that we should all support our farmers. My friend's family business was one of these growing a type of nut. It was common for neighbouring farmers to make a good living selling their produce and using it for their own purposes and expect the government to bail them out with something like a tax break.

My friend's business wanted to prepare for water shortages and spent a huge amount of money setting up a dam or storage system of sorts. Lo and behold, a drought came some time after and they were prepared. A lot of other businesses did not prepare for this and instead spent it on other things. My friend mentioned to me that he has no sympathy for those types of people.

Disclaimer: This is a generic statement, I did not pry into the story and there could be a multitude of reasons why one didn't/couldn't prepare for such a thing

[somedangedname]

Yep. I'm from a region that grew sugarcane historically but is moving to tree crops like nuts.

Local 'big name' family is voracious in their consumption of government grants. They're not struggling by any means but they've got application writing down to a fine science.

[Sylveste]

Grants are for claiming. Why leave money on the table? Your competitors won't.

[biztos]

> expect the government to bail them out

…

> A lot of other businesses did not prepare for this

So did the government bail them out?

[deamanto]

I didn't follow up with them on that. But the discussion was initially sparked because we were watching the news and the story was about how hard the farmers are doing due to the drought and were looking for government assistance.