The Virtues of Consistency in Managers

I think I've recounted this before, but I'll do it again.  Early in my managerial career I exploded at an employee, using some curse words.  My boss, actually the deputy director of the division, counseled me in a session I've remembered.  (Of course I had to apologize to the employee.)  Also in the division was another branch chief, Lew, a WWII veteran of D-Day (I think his ship was sunk) who was, to stereotype, a volatile Italian-American, and a male chauvinist. (This was 1975 or so.) One of his section chiefs was a young woman, Linda, who was new to management.  I think the conversation happened some months after a reorganization of the division.

Anyhow, the deputy director noted that while putting Lew as Linda's boss seemed counter-intuitive, he thought it was working.  The key factor was that Lew was consistent, so Linda could learn to adapt to his ways.  By contrast, if your manager was unpredictable, erupting occasionally while usually being emotionally withdraw (i.e, like me), it was hard for employees to adapt, to learn what worked and what didn't.

The lesson rang true to me then, and I've found subsequent experience confirming it.  With this in mind, I fear our President-elect will not be a good manager.  His subordinates will get tired of his changes of directions, and start withholding problems/information which might trigger bad decisions.  And that withholding may lead to bigger problems.

We'll see.

A Good Cornellian

Being lazy, I'm stealing from Vox:

"Charles F. Feeney, who made a fortune from duty-free stores and prudent investments in technology companies, last year successfully completed his goal of giving away $8 billion. Over years of giving, he aggressively avoided the spotlight and asked recipients not to publicize the donations. Feeney has kept about $2 million — with an “m,” not a “b” — to continue his modest retirement. What a nice dude. [The New York Times]

 There's something to be said, however, for not hiding one's light under a bushel--publicizing one's donations helps establish a norm that this is the proper thing to do.

CRISPR: Once Again

Here's a piece on various advances in science the use of CRISPR (editing out genes) will enable in 2017 and future years.

I've been doing regular posts noting the rapid advances in using the method.  My first notice was about 20 months ago, when  I noticed it bypassed the usual objections to genetic modification. Maybe it's time for me to keep quiet, rather than trying to impress with my prescience? 

Farm Structure

ERS did a piece on farm structure recently. Here's its graph:



I've used it to counter the common meme that big corporations dominate agriculture.  It's not true, at least with field crops.  But then I started thinking--it's true enough that corporations are big in fruits and vegetables, but why would that be?

I'm guessing the key is that fruits and vegetables must offer much higher gross income per acre than wheat or corn.  If true, it would follow that those acres are much more valuable and therefore take more capital to acquire, leading naturally to the greater use of corporations to assemble the acreage.

Another factor might be the economic structure: field crops likely require less processing than do vegetables. And fruits and vegetables spoil, they can't be stored, at least not unless they're processed by canning, juicing, drying, or freezing. Those factors make it more likely for vertical integration.    We've had vertical integration with poultry and eggs for 50-60 years.  I suspect the fruits and vegetables sector preceded birds.

Lag Times and Lead Times

People who study human behavior in societies need to worry about lag times and lead times.  That comment results from this piece on  the results of legalizing pot in Washington--most studies show little change in teenage pot use.

I'm not convinced, perhaps because I've a vivid memory of a high school teacher warning against the dangers of marijuana, probably in 1958 or so. But over the last 50 years there have been "epidemics" of use/abuse of various substances, most notably the "crack" epidemic in the 1980's.  That seems to have settled down, perhaps because kids saw the adverse impacts of crack addiction and decided to avoid it.  There have been others--the "date drug" scare, for one. 

Such epidemics are, I think, very much like epidemics of physical disease: the flu, SARS, HIV, Ebola.  The initial cases don't show up in summary statistics; there's a lead time for the disease to spread to the point where it will show up.  The necessity of a lead time means there's a lag time in seeing its effects.

So I'm not convinced by a few years experience in one state.

Happy New Year

Welcoming 2017 with anticipation of many blog-worthy things.

The Agency of Subjects of Regulation

"Agency" is a big buzz-word, has been for a number of years.  Typically in liberal and academic circles it means that people have minds and wills of their own, particularly the enslaved, the poor, the marginalized.  But it's also true when bureaucrats try to regulate behavior.  Often the picture in the bureaucrat's mind does not match the reality, or at least the picture in the mind of the person being regulated.  That's a truth often ignored in discussions.

It's particularly nice for a liberal to find this mistake occurring when conservatives/libertarians are the ones designing the regulations.  That's the case in Kansas, where governor Brownback has pushed tax reforms and cuts, intended to prove the old supply-side theory that less regulation and lower taxes will encourage growth and fill the government's coffers.  Jared Bernstein has this quote from a Wall Street Journal article (behind pay wall):

The WSJ piece points out that the number of entities taking advantage of this new loophole [not taxing small business income "passed through" to an individual] turned out to be 70 percent above the state’s projections.
Steve Moore, a key trickler that pushed the plan in Kansas, didn’t see that coming:
“Sometimes it was legitimate, and sometimes it was a gaming of the tax system to pay the zero rate, so that loophole has to be closed,” he said.  “Unless you have some rules about this, people really will shift income and they’ll find ways to legally avoid paying tax, and that was never the intention.”

Luck Turns Against the Old

Based on a sample of one, I believe this is true: the older you get the unluckier you are.

In this statement I'm basically referring to physical luck, to accidents.  I see it in myself--I seem to be having more and more close calls.  For example, the other day I was on the sidewalk of Colts Neck Drive, near the driveway for one of the apartment complexes.  I just started to cross when I saw a car beginning to leave the complex.  Very quickly I calculated I was far enough (5-10') into the driveway that the car would stop and I should keep going.  The next second I found myself walking into the car, which had pulled out quickly without stopping before pulling onto Colts Neck.   (I assume what happened was the driver was looking to the left to check Colts Neck and never looked to the right at all to see me.)

That's the most recent of near accidents I've encountered, in many of which I would have been at fault.

This makes me think--all through my adult life I was lucky (only 3 car accidents, one of which was totally not my fault).  I should have been thankful then; instead I'm fearful now.

Texas Runs on Wind?

Texas under governor Perry has rapidly developed its wind resources, of which it has plenty.

Public Service--Report Amazon Phishing

Received an email announcing either a $50 or $100 credit from Amazon.  Rather obvious phishing.

Forward such emails to stop-spoofing@amazon.com.