What is an Import?

From a NYTimes piece

Indeed, the American-made content of a heart stent, a jet aircraft engine, or any imported item might be 50 percent of its value or more. But in the trade statistics, that distinction is not made; the entire value is listed as an import.

The pattern is evident in personal computers, which generally rely on chips from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices for much of their value. Fully assembled computers showed up as a $25 billion item in last year's import bill; the American contribution showed up separately only in export figures."

Sounds like a case where bureaucratic simplicity results in statistics that don't say quite what they seem to. I guess the export/import figures will still work for the economists--if we export $100 in parts for a PC and import a $125 dollar PC, the foreign country does $25 of work. But it's still a reminder to be very careful of statistics, they're often gathered at boundaries between organizations as a byproduct of other processes. So it's very easy to misinterpret.

Great Bureaucrats in History: Benjamin Franklin

Why old Ben, the quintessential American? Because I'll give him credit for creating the Post Office system. He didn't, actually, but was the dominant figure in its early days. The post office was critical in the evolution of America. Think about the situation in 1700--most transportation was by ship between a port in the colonies and a port in Great Britain. That meant communication between colonies was very limited and there was little chance for them to develop a consciousness of themselves as "American".

By 1760 there were roads (or at least a road) connecting the colonies and reasonable mail service. That mail service required setting up routes, hiring postmasters, setting rules and coordinating the whole effort. That was Franklin.

Besides, he was the most interesting American before Lincoln. Our high schools could spend a semester just discussing Ben, his writings, and works. The author of "Fart Proudly" surely can connect with today's teens.

Bureaucratic Sieves, Rape, Applesauce, and Volokh

Eugene Volokh posted here on the issue of false reports of rape with the conclusion:

"the model does illustrate that it's perfectly possible to believe that (1) only a tiny fraction of women would ever lie about being raped, (2) a huge fraction of rapes are unreported (quite possibly even more than 50%, so that rape may be a highly underreported crime by many women, as well as overreported by a few), and yet (3) a substantial fraction of rape reports to the police are false." [Reason being, and I had to do the calculations myself, is that you're talking about two different bases: one is the large number of all women who are sexually active, a few of whom might falsely cry rape; the other is the much smaller number of women who were raped, a large proportion of whom may be reluctant to face the bureaucratic apparatus that deals with rape. ]

This got me to thinking about bureaucratic sieves. In the fall we would go to a nearby orchard, buy 3 or so bushels of apples, and mom would can applesauce. She'd cook the apples, then force the results through a sieve or strainer. What came through the sieve was applesauce to save, what didn't make it was the seeds, stems, bits of peel.

Or maybe I should think about a bloodier metaphor, perhaps a slaughterhouse. (See a Discover May 05 article on Temple Grandin and the relation of autism to the proper design of a slaughterhouse.) View a slaughterhouse as a bureaucratic machine for taking living breathing reality in all its multitudinous shapes and big brown eyes and converting it into steaks, roasts and hamburger.

My point is that sex and gender are various, interactions between male and female are wonderful and terrible and everything in between, and writers will continue to discuss the ins and outs forever. Now we come to rape, the reporting thereof, the writing of entries in blocks on prescribed forms, the conversion of reality into bureaucratic data points and decision criteria. This is one of the things bureaucracies do, transform reality into something that society can act upon.

Another way to make my point is the report of molestation in the Jackson trial. If Jackson is not convicted, was the report false? If the case had been settled out of court, would the report be true? Suppose the boy had never mentioned any of the alleged acts, but they happened, would it be molestation? Assume Jackson were dirt poor. Would the boy and his mother have gone through the bureaucratic process that led to the current trial? If so, would the alleged crime be the same or different (an innocent boy at the mercy of a multi-millionaire celebrity is a different reality than with a man with neither money, power, or (spiritual) authority)

For the purposes of Volokh's discussion, the available data is probably adequate. I maintain, however, that in the back of one's mind you must remember the process that converts apples into sauce, steers into beef, reality into statistics.

Professor David Bernstein (Revised Again*))

Professor Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy - commented, back in March, based on a misleading article in the Jewish Week (see this post for the URL and for my discussion of why the article was in error):

"Operating on the theory that the friend of my enemy is my enemy, liberal Christian groups have decided that Israel is the enemy, and that going after Israel is a relatively painless (though, it strikes me, rather ineffective) way to stick it to evangelical Christians and conservative Republicans more generally. Moreover, there is, it seems to me, the implied threat that if traditionally liberal Jewish groups and voters continue to increasingly pursue detente with the right, the American Christian left will join the international left in opposition to Israel. I can't be sure how big a role such considerations are playing in the divestment campaign, but I'm quite certain that I don't recall such overt hostility to Israel from the Christian groups during the Clinton administration. As with the Harvard faculty vote against Larry Summers, this is evidence that the results of the 2004 elections have left many traditionally powerful folks on the left very frustrated, and looking for targets to lash out against."

I think it's fair to say this is an example of how we (humans) tend to grab onto supposed facts that seem to fit our preconceptions. Professor Bernstein is a supporter of Israel and not a supporter of President Clinton or the left. He's also right that the 2004 election frustrated liberals. But he's reaching too far. (The illogic of opposing Israel in order to attack right wing American evangelicals might have been a tipoff the article has major problems.)

The reason that Christian groups were not pushing divestment during the Clinton administration can be stated simply: "Oslo agreement". Following the Oslo agreement, Israel and the PLO were engaged in negotiations through most of the Clinton Administration (see the Dennis Ross memoir). While there were terror attacks, assassinations, and expanding settlements through the 1990's, there was hope until the collapse of negotiations over Arafat's refusal to be a statesman. Even so, the "mainstream churches" were pushing their point of view throughout. (See the ADL publication, "Meeting the Challenge, Church Attitudes Toward the Israeli-Palestine Conflict", dated October, 2002 for lists of the resolutions and letters from the various churches.)

Since the beginning of the second intifada, the level of violence has reached unprecedented levels. From the Israeli viewpoint, it was forced into responding with military force and its responses were measured and limited. Some Protestant groups think otherwise and have increased their engagement with the situation since September 2000. So have some Catholics. Even the ADL sees them as concerned with justice for the weak and oppressed. Of course, Mr. Foxman believes they (referring to the Presbyterians) have swallowed the Palestinian narrative whole, but that's very different than a Machiavellian swipe at the "Left Behind" right.

What bothers me is the harm to dialogue among serious people. We have to be careful not to jump to conclusions, particularly when they fit our prejudices. In the words of Cromwell addressing the Scottish Parliament: "In the bowels of Christ, I beg you to consider you may be wrong."

* I've struggled with this post, and the associated one on the Jewish Weekly article, trying to get the tone and content right, and also handle the links. (Remember, I'm still learning this blogging.) One asset of being a new, unread blog is you can experiment.

Facts, Damn Facts, Disturb My Theory

Based on no expertise (when was that a prerequisite for blogging or for opinionating), I had the theory that childhood events were directly associated with adult success, that play developed skills and the brain and learning was life. Those damn scientists aren't content with the obvious truth, they have to test it. As reported by New Scientist News - Play fighters do not win in later life:

"[the scientist] found that young meerkats [those cute animals who look like cats and act like prairie dogs] who played frequently were no more likely to win play fights, adult fights or become a member of the dominant pair. Furthermore, meerkats showed no sign of improvement with extra play sessions (Animal Behaviour, DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2004.07.013)." So if play doesn't help in adult life, what's its purpose? The piece suggests that it may help in brain development. That would lead to the idea that meerkats with the most developed brains don't have an edge in adult life either. Ouch.

Yelling at Bureaucrats

The hearing on John Bolton raises the question of whether bureaucrats should be yelled at, or, more precisely, should bosses yell at bureaucrats lower in the hierarchy?

As my mother would say, people should always be nice to other people. However, because I once got in trouble for yelling at a subordinate, I've a little sympathy for Bolton. He's also been criticized for sucking up to the powerful (presumably Cheney, since he was known to disagree with Powell) and bullying the weak. That's more serious, but the thing worrying me the most is whether the powerful saw that he was a sycophant--in other words, if Bolton was poor at toadying then it's okay to give him another job. The horrifying thing about Uriah Heep was that people still trusted him. Otherwise, even terrible human beings can be useful.

More Positioning on Payment Limitations

Dan Morgan on the Washington Post Federal Diary does some inside farm politics:

Farm Subsidies May Not Face Limits (washingtonpost.com): "The Bush administration has signaled that it will not pressure Congress to enact limits on government payments to big farmers this year if lawmakers can come up with other ways to cut spending on agricultural programs by $5.4 billion."

The piece goes on to describe the current situation: the Secretary says USDA wants the reduction in payments, how we get there is negotiable; Ken Cook of EWG says "sellout", Sen. Grassley says USDA still supports me on reducing limitations.

Although there's a WTO deadline around July 1 that may come into play, I suspect the real deal comes at the end of the session, when appropriations have to be passed and legislating is done, bringing at least a temporary end to deal cutting. People like Lott and Chambliss can trade their votes on other issues for a compromise on payment limitation.

One thing to watch for real insiders: The President proposed a 5 percent cut in the program. One road to compromise would be to increase the percentage. The issue becomes for the agency in which order to apply the payment limitation, before or after reduction. In other words, if the limit is $300,000 and the gross payment before reduction is $400,000, if you reduce $400 K by 5 percent, it becomes $380,000, which is then reduced to $300,000 by the limitation. If you reduce the payment to the limitation of $300K, then apply the reduction of 5 percent, the net payment is $285,000.

We went through that issue in 1986, when the Gramm-Hollings-Rudman payment reductions applied across the board to civilian programs. It got tricky legally, but the attorneys okayed our applying the reduction after limitation. It's fair, but it's also a nightmare for the accountants. We, and GAO, finally decided in 1986 that our several billion dollars of payments couldn't be t properly accounted for. Just threw up our hands.

Caterpillar and Israel

Turns out there's a whole web site devoted to the issue of Caterpillar and Israel. See here. It seems to have focused on yesterday's stockholders meeting, which turned down down a motion on the issue.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have commented on the issue. This ties to the Presbyterian divestment. (The motion was in part sponsored by Catholic nuns, somewhat undermining the idea that divestment is a strike at the religious right.)

I shouldn't make the comparison, but I vaguely remember during the civil rights movement there was a sheriff in (I think) Albany, Georgia whose tactics contrasted with Bull Connor in Birmingham. Bull used police dogs and maybe water hoses, producing pictures that mobilized support for the movement. In Albany, the sheriff did a "rope a dope" routine (tactic used by Mohammed Ali to wear out an opponent) that frustrated MLKing by not giving him something to use. Obviously Israel's tactic of bulldozing homes, whatever the rationale and justification, is one that its opponents will try to capitalize on. Of course, MLK's are notable by their absence on the Palestinian side.

Any time a government is faced with opposition, there's an issue of tactics on both sides--a subject of perennial interest to me.

Whom Do Girls Like?

Those scientists are at it again, disturbing conventional wisdom.

New Scientist News - Risk-taking boys do not get the girls: "One idea is that risk-takers are advertising their fitness to potential mates by showing off their strength and bravery. This fits with the fact that men in their prime reproductive years take more risks. To test this idea, William Farthing of the University of Maine in Orono surveyed 48 young men and 52 young women on their attitudes to risky scenarios. Men thought women would be impressed by pointless gambles, but women in fact preferred cautious men (Evolution and Human Behaviour, vol 26, p 171)."

The piece suggests that risktaking impresses other males. That would establish a pecking order ,and we all know that women go for successful men.

(Note that at least the summary is chauvinistic--women are so stupid that they're impressed by stupidity coupled with risktaking. At the risk of being chauvinistic myself, perhaps women don't like the idea of cleaning up male messes.)

Your Helpful Bureaucrat??

What is the appropriate division of responsibilities between a bureaucrat and her customer/client? I raise this question because of a news report that IRS was willing to do tax returns for taxpayers, which aroused the ire of Grover Norquist (and presumably H&RBlock). The issue came up in agriculture, as well. At one extreme you could argue that the bureaucrat is a public servant, and should do whatever is needed to serve the public and get the job done, whether it's collecting taxes or making farm payments. At the other, you say that the citizen is a mature responsible adult, who should be capable of doing whatever calculations and completing whatever forms the agency designs.

In the case of ASCS/FSA, the employees in the county offices were the neighbors and friends of the farmers being served. Naturally they tended to hold the hands of the farmers, particularly in the old days when many farmers were not experienced with paperwork. (It was also sexist, farmers being too male to bother with clerical work. It probably also was an occasion for racism and favoritism in general. A bureaucrat would go the extra mile for the person she liked or had empathy with, and be more rigid with those for whom she had no positive feelings.) The problem is if the farmer takes action based on erroneous advice from the bureaucrat. We had a section of law and a whole process to handle such cases.

One of these days I'll look at what the IRS does in such cases.