What Happened to Civil Service?

 I'm not referring narrowly to the federal civil service but to the idea of serving the society, often through working for the government as a teacher or bureaucrat.

From a Jay Mathews column on education this morning--discussing a book on how to get into the top colleges, describing the audience for the book: "college applicants who yearn for admission to undergraduate institutions that will make them attractive, when they graduate, to recruiters from private equity, artificial intelligence, management consulting, investment banking and other top-paying professions"

Amish Versus Satmars

 New Yorker has a review of a book on the Satmar, the Hasidic sect with its own town in NY. It starts with this joke, which led me to think about the distinction between the two.  

In an old joke, a secular Jew sits down on a park bench next to a man with a large black hat and a long black coat. The secular Jew turns to the darkly garbed man and says, “What’s the matter with you Hasids? This isn’t the Old Country—it’s the modern world. You people are an embarrassment to the rest of us.” The man turns around and says, “Hasid? I’m Amish.” The secular Jew immediately replies, “It’s so wonderful the way you’ve held on to your traditions!”

For some reason I have warmer feelings about the Amish than the Satmar--why?

• Amish are/were dairy farmers, therefore closer to my heart
• More generally Amish do physical work, while my understanding of the Satmar is that the culture is focused on religious study. 
• Amish have been in US as long or longer than most of my ancestors while Satmar are 20th century.
• Amish are familiar, Satmar are strange.
• Amish seem to have been more withdrawn than the Satmar--to the best of my knowledge the Amish haven't used the power of numbers to seek political power, while the Satmar got their own town/city--we don't have the draft anymore so I don't know whether they'd be conscientious objectors to military service--I think the Amish were CO's. )
• I'm human, and susceptible to tribalism/othering.

Some perspectives from others and here.

 

Trump, the Last Gasp of the Patriarchy?

 There was a sudden burst of women running and winning as Republicans in 2020. Some of them were and are supporters of the former president, but I've the optimistic suggestion: future Republican presidents will appoint significantly more women judges and women administrators--indeed I predict the pattern will be much closer to that of President Obama, if not President Biden.

Changing Rural Population

 Interesting post on Rural Blog about the changing demographics of rural areas.  Briefly, for the first time ever total US population in all rural areas fell but the proportion of Hispanics/people of color increased from 17% to 20.8%.  The county where I grew up, Broome County, NY, saw its white population fall by 7 percent while the nonwhite/Hispanic increased by 60 percent (resulting in a 1 percent net increase).

Looking at the maps, it looks as if the Delta and the black belt saw drops in population, as did WV and KY and counties on the Great Plains. Looking at Fresno, CA, Sherman, KS, and Leflore, MS, counties I visited 30+ years ago, all saw a decrease in white population, Fresno a big increase in Hispanic, Sherman a smaller increase in Hispanic, and Leflore a small decrease.

An Ombudsman for EULAs?

 Marginal Revolution has a post which refers to EULA (end user legal jargon). Seems to me we consumers need an ombudsman with authority over all EULA's--someone who will read them on our behalf, because you know the corporate lawyers who draft them aren't concerned with the consumer at all.

Ideally the ombudsman would be able to do a version of the nutrition facts label on food--something which would summarize the critical facts for consumer.

No Fax Macine

Politico has an interview with Judge Luttig, a former circuit court judge appointed by a Republican, about his involvement in reinforcing VP Pence's position on 1/6. He was resisting an appeal from a friend to do something to help Pence, saying he had no platform from which to speak, and quotes himself as saying:

Oh my gosh, Richard, I don't even have a job, much less an official one. I have no platform from which to speak.” I'm out here in Colorado at 6 in the morning. I don't even have a fax machine.

As it turned out, he did get something out, by learning how to tweet a statement in 18 tweets (he'd just gotten a twitter account a couple weeks before), a statement which the media picked up on.

An Archive of Their Own

 As the early adapters among the silent and boomer generations go to the grave what happens to their digital archives?

As a failed historian I lean towards preserving every record, just because scholars have been able to wring meaning from the documentary evidence of the past, even when it's scant.  

As an active user of a Pc for close to 30 years, I know there's an infinitesimal chance that anything in my digital files would be of value to a future historian.  That's true in abstract, even more true given the lack of organization of the files.

A third factor is the ever-declining cost of storage, which leads to the logic of why not preserve it, because we don't know what future historians will be able to do using AI.

I suspect there's a niche for an archive service for personal digital files. That would differ from the services which archive what's on the internet.

Return to the Movies

 After roughly two years my wife and I returned to the movies today--Belfast.

We enjoyed it: some laughs, a moist eye or two, and an education in Van Morrison.

Judging by the audience covid took out a lot more old men than old women.

I can't say whether it deserves "Best Picture", but it deserves the nomination.

Egalitarianism and Mobility

 Ran across a statement in a discussion of declining social mobility in the US that these days the more equal societies have more social mobility.

I wonder if there's math working here.  Consider the US--our top income class has been gaining wealth for some time now.  It used to be the CEO earned 20 times (figure pulled out of the air) what the lowest paid employee in the company did.  Now it's more like 100 times.   Doesn't that make it more unlikely the employee will ever get into the top 20 percent of earnings? 

Who Would Enslave Britons in the Eighteenth Century?

 What threatened Britain in the 18th century that Britons would not be slaves, as in the refrain of Rule, Britannia. The poetry was written by James Thomson, a Scot for whom there's not much other information easily available. 

The year of the poem is 1740 and it turns out the poem was written after the British took Porto Bello in the War of Jenkin's Ear.  Fears of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 might have been a factor, since France and Spain were supporting the Stuart pretender to the throne by 1743. So it's wartime when he's writing, the Brits have a victory, and the poem is both boastful and anxious.

The "slavery" in the poem is rhetorical, not descriptive of anything like chattel slavery.

Basic Training 20 Years Ago, and 56 Years Ago

 Here's a description of Army basic training as of 1999. 

Some things struck me--the expansion from 8 to 10 weeks first of all.  Sounds as if they've used the extra time for more military stuff-I don't remember a full week of field exercises, nor any exposure to machine guns.

 No mention of policing the area. . Policing the area was basically forming a line and picking up cigarette butts. I wonder if that still happens, given the decline in smoking since 1960's? 

KP--glad to see they still make young troops do it.  By the time I got through basic at Fort Dix and went to Ft. Belvoir they had started contracting it out there.

The pay--$380 a week?  We got $80, IIRC.

"A Cage of My Circumstances"

 That's a phrase from Zadie Smith's recent book of essays. She's using it in the context of her body, a female black body.

I like the image.  On the one hand you have the concept of "privilege", which is sort of like a backpack containing an assortment of tools, which is that your history empowers you.  On the other hand you have a cage of circumstances, which is the idea that your history limits you.  Both I think are true.

How Serious Would Ukraine Be

 David Brooks on the Newshour has a rosy picture of post-1945 European history.  He said last night on the Newshour that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be most serious military action since 1945.  

I don't buy it.  Both Russia and the US know they will try to avoid war.  The two nations have learned over the 76 years since WWII they can compete and conflict without going to armed conflict. 

We and the Soviet Union/Russia didn't know that with Berlin in 1948, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968. We didn't know we could avoid conflict, and we believed that conflict would lead to nuclear war.

Ukraine is serious because of Murphy's law and the likelihood of unforeseen events. But I think we've seen worse, though that may just reflect my advancing age.

The Commodity Credit Corporation Piggy Bank

 CCC was set up in the 1930's. One of the reasons was to handle the money for entitlement programs: farm programs which established payment rates for doing or not doing things without an appropriation, a cap.  

When I worked at ASCS there was still a sharp division between CCC and ASCS. CCC decisions were made by the CCC, composed of the administrators of affected agencies and the secretary's office.  There were a couple bureaucrats handling the development of "dockets" for the board, which recorded the rationale for the decision and included the regulations to be published in the Federal Register, Chapter 7, secs. 1400-1499. 

There were bureaucratic implications: if Congress passed a program with authority to use CCC facilities, it meant that the Printing and Distribution Branch could tap CCC funds to print forms and handbooks on an emergency basis and, I believe, bypass the Government Printing Office's time-consuming process. And the expenses weren't charged to ASCS administrative appropriation.

On the equipment side, similar logic applied.  If equipment could be tied to CCC operations, then it was charged to CCC and not ASCS.

As automation came along, first with programmable calculators and then System/36, etc. the IT types were able to use CCC money.

It was in the early 1990's I think that Congress, specifically House Appropriations, woke up to this loophole.  I know SCS people were jealous of ASCS ability to use CCC.  Did someone blow the whistle on ASCS?  Possibly. More likely the USDA IT office complained about ASCS/FSA bypassing them by using CCC. 

Meanwhile the different administrations have found the ability to tap CCC funds for various programs.  By now I've lost track of who has done what.  The most recent announcement is this, pilot projects for climate change.

Bad News on Inflation

 I saw Paul Krugman yesterday on Newshour admitting he'd been wrong about inflation.  Today we got another bad report.

I never wrote this, so take it with some salt, but I believe back in the day, when MMT (modern monetary theory) was the hot topic that I remembered back in the middle 60's when economists believed they had solved the problem of balancing growth and inflation.  They hadn't.

I'm tempted to say that it's a generational thing--humans become overcome by hubris, they push too far and meet trouble and learn to pull back, but as time goes on those with scars die off and the stage is set for another round of hubris.

Age-Appropriate Reading

 I read everything in the house, almost.  There were some volumes from my grandfather's library I passed on--lives of John Calvin and John Knox, Carlyle, and others. Mostly my parents allowed me to read anything. 

I do recall one discussion of whether I was old enough to handle a novelized version of the Donner Party. I don't remember the author--it was a poet/novelist written in the 1930's or so, not listed in the wikipedia article.  Not sure whether mom or dad was more hesitant, nor whether they came down with a decision.  I think it was unresolved, so I went ahead and read the book.  Not sure how old I was, young, pre-teen almost certainly.

This was sparked by the discussion of book-banning, particularly Bob Somerby's defense as in this post.

While I've some sympathy for his viewpoint, in my ideal world we'd trust kids, librarians, and teachers to do the right thing.  There's a chance, a small chance, that the wrong person reading the wrong text too early in their life may be adversely affected.  But the chances are small and the adverse effect small as well. 

All of the above discussion relates to voluntary reading, but I think the same logic argues against against mandatory reading and for the ability of kids and parents to opt out of one reading and into another. 

Amazon Base Salary Twice That of Congress

The way I understand this, is that $350,000 is the top salary Amazon can offer to new hires.  That's twice the salary for a member of Congress.

 

Self-Driving Cars

Sunday in the print editions: 

The Post had an essay by Mr. Zipper on self-driving cars, arguing they won't save lives (at least not 94 percent of current fatalities) and won't be good for the environment.

The Times has an opinion piece by Mr. Manjoo praising the Cadillac Escalade, including its self-driving package.

Both writers seem to agree that by making driving less onerous self-driving cars will encourage more driving, more time spent in cars, and therefore hurt the environment.

I'm still looking forward to more advances, though not ready to spring for an Escalade.  But my need and interest in driving seems to be waning, particularly in the context of the pandemic. 

Expropriation/Appropriation of Culture/Ideas

 Reading Johnson's book "The Broken Heart of America"--early on (page 26) he refers to the expropriation of Indian knowledge by the Lewis/Clark expedition.   Somehow it struck me wrong.  Checking the definitions of "expropriation" and "appropriation" it seems their meaning has been concerning property or assets.  

Johnson applies it to intellectual knowledge and intangible assets. To an economist I think the distinction rests on what is "excludable", which intellectual property isn't as a rule. IP is shareable.  It's appropriate to refer to the expropriation of land or the appropriation of personal property, but to my mind not appropriate to expropriation of IP or appropriation of culture. 

That leaves a question of what label to use instead of cultural appropriation--imitation or emulation or copying, perhaps adding an adjective like "superficial". 

A note from a biography of Josiah Wedgwood I'm reading--there's a quotation from an eminent writer in the 1760's pontificating that the classical past (which was being revealed by excavating Pompeii and the tours of Europe by young English men) should be considered the common patrimony of all, so emulation and imitation was fine.

Douthat in the Times

 Ross Douthat had an op-ed which interested me. He argued both conservatives and liberals have divisions, basically along two dimensions: trust in people and trust in expertise.  

Conservatives have over their history distrusted democracy, the mob. That continues today in attempts to limit voting. What's newish is conservative dislike of experts, of science.  Education used to be a conservative force but now both science and education are associated with change.

Liberals have a history of expanding the right to vote, which continues. But since the Progressive era they've developed a belief in educated elites, particularly science and social science.

The tensions on both sides make for instability. 

(The above is what I took from the essay without going back to doublecheck my summary.)

Douthat's analysis works for me as a liberal. I don't agree with some liberal positions, but I maintain my faith in science.

Budget -Wise We're Better Off?

 Congressional Budget Office does estimates of the effects of laws and proposed laws on the economy. Such estimates get media play.  What doesn't get media play is corrections:

In its March 2020 projections for fiscal year 2021, CBO underestimated revenues by 15 percent and overestimated outlays by 4 percent. CBO’s projection of the federal budget deficit in 2021 was more than the actual amount by 3.9 percent of GDP.

AFIDA Holes

 This points to possible problems in how FSA enforces the AFIDA legislation. I once was responsible for that.  I hoped someday to integrate AFIDA reports into the general system for updating land ownership once we got a common geospatial database with SCS.  

I retired before that happened.  It sounds as if it hasn't happened since.  Just another silo.

Farm Efficiency--Big Versus Small

 This post says big farms are more efficient when capital is important; small farms when labor is more important.

It makes intuitive sense: if you're doing small plots with hand tools, the expertise and attention of the tool wielder is important.  If you're doing thousands of acress with equipment worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, the ability of the tractor driver is less important than getting the most use out of the equipment. 

Views of USDA--From Outside and Inside

This report says the federal government doesn't get good marks for its services.  But USDA is one of the highest ranking departments.  Meanwhile I remember seeing the results of a survey of employee satisfaction within different agencies--IIRC USDA scored near the bottom.

Why? I'd suggest part of the answer might be this: farmers served by FSA seem usually to have close relationships with their local office--that was my impression early on in the 1970s and it seems to be continuing now, judging by the Facebook FSA group.  But the local employees seem often to be unhappy with the national office; again I think it was true in the 70s and remains so now. (More accurately I think the employees are ambivalent, so they might easily voice discontent on a survey while being more balanced in a face-to-face. 

Granted FSA is only a small part of USDA but the dynamic might well work for most of the agencies.  My guess anyway.