Ebbs and Flows--the Tide of Creative Destruction

The NY Times today has an article mostly on the scattering of the New Orleans labor force. However, it notes that some have migrated to New Orleans:

Its Work Force Scattered, New Orleans Wrestles With Job Crisis - New York Times: "Large numbers of workers who lived in New Orleans are now scattered throughout Louisiana or neighboring states, unable to return to flood-damaged houses and leaving hundreds of businesses unable to reopen or operating below capacity. Many are out of contact, or have settled elsewhere to enroll their children in schools.

Some positions are being filled by people from other states looking for new job opportunities in construction or, as in the case of the Five O'Clock Grille, service jobs."

One of my platitudes is that there are always tradeoffs, and it's true here. The farming way of life has changed/been destroyed in many areas, but the loss here is focussed and more visible. But, as in the case of the closing of some military bases, the new may seem better on balance than the old.

Gift That Keeps on Giving, or George Will Misleads

What is the gift that keeps on giving? For social commentators, otherwise known as the chattering class (thanks G. Will), it's the concept of the social ladder. Why? Because it works for both left and right and it's so vague you can make anything of it, as George Will does here

"America's economy is so dynamic that in any five-year period, approximately 45 percent of Americans move from one income quintile to another. Twenty percent move up from the bottom quintile in any 12-month period, and 40 to 50 percent move up over 10 to 20 years."

What are the ambiguities? Let me count the ways:

1. The distinction between "income" and "wealth/assets"--the former is more variable, due to bonuses, separation pay, lottery winnings, commissions, etc. while the latter is more stable and usually more socially significant. (I've seen reports of research that says when you compare black and whites of equal family wealth, differences in test scores evaporate.)
   
2. Using quintiles, or deciles (or whatever) means that every move up is matched by a move down which is why I say it works for both left and right. Mr. Will here uses "up"; in her recent book, Bait and Switch, Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the "down".
3. The difference between individuals and society. The modal individual in our society has an income curve that starts low, based on entry level pay in his or her occupation, then rises to a peak, then falls, rapidly or gradually depending on retirement benefits, etc. If you could visualize society over time, it's rather like seeing a school of fish: some leaping into the air, some in the water, some unseen below the surface, lots of activity and churning.
   

Learning by Doing--Military and FEMA

One of this blog's themes is learning. Here's another example, from today's Times:

Millions Are Still Without Power and in Need of Basic Supplies - New York Times: "Across the state in Naples, just north of where the hurricane made landfall early Monday, ice and water distribution appeared to be going more smoothly. At one station, members of several National Guard units were operating with assembly line precision. By 9 a.m., hundreds of cars, from Mercedes Benzes to jalopies, had lined up on a road leading into the parking lot of Barron Collier High School.

A National Guardsman in camouflage fatigues waved cars forward, and as each rolled up to a squad of soldiers, one sang out, 'Pop the trunk.' Other soldiers stepped forward with cartons of bottled water and plastic bags of ice, putting them in the car, tapping the trunk shut and motioning the driver on. Each delivery was over in seconds.

'We've done this so much over the last two or three years that we're getting pretty good at it,' said Sgt. First Class Tim Harper of the 265th Air Defense Artillery of Sarasota."

Simple but a product of learning. My point here is that you need the bureaucracy to incorporate such lessons. As long as the Guard in Florida is called out regularly, they'll have the institutional memory of how best to organize water/ice deliveries (assuming people have cars and gas). But if there's a gap of years, it will be lost because, I strongly suspect, there's no bureaucracy in place to capture "lessons learned" and put them into circulation and no training mechanism in place to spread experience to other places.

In Defense of Bureaucracy

Though Secretary Powell's former Chief of Staff, Mr. Wilkerson, is receiving press attention for his speech at the New America Foundation which attacks the administration's foreign policy, I'd like to focus on his defense of bureaucracy, as follows:

"but fundamental decisions about foreign policy should not be made in secret.

Let me tell you the practical reason – and here I’m jumping over really into both realms, the practical reasons why that’s true. You have probably all read books on leadership: “The Seven Habits of Successful People,” or whatever. If you as a member of the bureaucracy do not participate in a decision, you are not going to carry that decision out with the alacrity, the efficiency and the effectiveness you would if you have participated. When you cut the bureaucracy out of your decisions and then foist your decisions, more or less out of the blue, on that bureaucracy, you can’t expect that bureaucracy to carry your decision out very well. And furthermore, if you’re not prepared to stop the feuding elements in that bureaucracy as they carry out your decision, you’re courting disaster."

It's certainly true that things go more smoothly if the bureaucracy has weighed the various policy options, sent them up to policymakers, and gets a decision back. That's the way the textbook says it should be done. But smoothness in decisionmaking and execution is not the end-all and be-all of policymaking.

It's true that human nature, and bureaucrats are mostly human, says that participation in a decision means energy in execution (assuming the decision went mostly your way). But a good leader is more than just the head of a bureaucracy. IMHO the leader needs to respect the abilities and needs of the bureaucrats, but know how to maneuver them. In other words, it's the "foist" in the above quote that is key, not the lack of participation. If you don't participate, it's easy to feel unenthusiastic, but a good leader can get acceptance. (Of course, it helps if the decision is right.) If I remember correctly, Lincoln's Cabinet opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and the Marshall Plan didn't come from the bureaucracy. In fact, they had to develop a new bureaucracy for it, which is a lesson in itself.

Perhaps the best metaphor is a lion tamer with lions? Once the bureaucrats smell weakness, they can turn on you, witness the media over the last couple weeks.

Accountability or Stooping Low?

I often wonder about our standards, compared to God's (assuming there is a god). The Old Testament God is St. Peter's patron, and a relative of Santa Claus, keeping a list of all one's sins for eternity. That implies that you are accountable for your misdeeds, no matter your age or the situation. Sometimes that's the standards endorsed by conservatives, particularly when liberals are involved. Take this bit from PowerLine, a small part of a discussion of Secretary Rice's return to Birmingham with Jack Straw, British Foreign Minister:

"I noted in the Standard column that the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 had been the handiwork of former members of the Ku Klux Klan -- brothers under the hood to former Ku Klux Klan Grand Kleagle and current Democratic United States Senator Robert Byrd. Byrd of course opposed Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State. "

Byrd has apologized for his Klan membership, though perhaps in a Clintonian manner if my memory serves. In the course of a long (too long) Senate career he's migrated leftward (or maybe Congress has moved to the right) and become much more partisan. There seems to be an inverse relationship: the more pork he's gotten for West Virginia the further from the center he finds it safe to be.

But (many) conservatives don't believe in change, or forgiveness. They don't believe in rehabilitation of prisoners or parole. Some are starting not to believe in a President who says, "when I was young and irresponsible [although older when Byrd when he left the Klan], I was young and irresponsible." Any change is dangerous to these folks, who apparently were born right and never erred, never grew, and never learned.

Personally I find Powerline's linking of Byrd and bombers to be despicable.

More on Thomas C. Schelling and the Madman Theory

I recommend the History News Network for anyone with an interest in history. I blogged before on new Nobelist Thomas Schelling. This piece, Did Thomas C. Schelling Invent the Madman Theory?: by Jeffrey Kimball" discusses his work in the context of the late 50's.

Housing Changes

The Washington Post has a column, It's a Change, Not a Conspiracy, from a black resident of Takoma on the changes he's seen over the years. Recommended, but the bit I'd like to focus on is this:

"In the 16 years that I've lived in Takoma, I've seen three houses that were, arguably, sold out from under black owners who'd been there for decades. Two of the homes had been owned by couples whose children and grandchildren developed problems with drugs and alcohol. By the time the original owners died, the properties were heavily mortgaged. The heirs were forced to let the banks take the houses."

I'd pair this observation with data from New Orleans where the lower Ninth Ward had a very high home ownership rate. We, the mobile, college-educated elite, tend to assume that home-ownership is the result of buying. Thus it's important for the government to subsidize home-ownership, by allowing mortgage interest to be deducted on tax returns. What we forget is lots of homes are acquired by inheritance. Just like lots of farms are acquired by inheritance.

The old phrase about rags to riches to rags in x generations applies. Hurricanes like Katrina and epidemics like crack both result in the loss of status, the loss of inheritance. It's my belief that such things affect the social margins and the lower classes more heavily than the upper classes--there's just less margin of error and reserves available.

USDA Flinches

It didn't take long for the Administration to back off the plan to close FSA offices. See this from House Ag Committe: News from the House Committee on Agriculture: "Goodlatte Supports Delay of FSA Office Closures "

Bureaucrats Resist Change--Wash Post

This is very predictable:

"Farmers are famously resistant to change, and that goes for a recently announced
U.S. Department of Agriculture plan to close as many as 713 of the 2,351
county offices of the Farm Service Agency. "

It's an interesting case study in what some would call pork barrel politics. Some past efforts at closing and rationalizing offices have been successful, some have failed. (One of my former bosses came to DC when the plan was to consolidate state offices in the Northeast. Why do Rhode Island and Delaware need a State office to oversee a couple county offices?) As USDA moves more operations to the Internet and the number of farmers dwindles, the infrastructure needs to adjust accordingly. But from the point of view of the small country towns, the county seats, they both need the good paying federal jobs and whatever traffic the office generates by drawing farmers to the town. See the NASCOE site for a sense of what it looks like from the other side.

This irreconciliable conflict between two goods is one reason I took early retirement.

Assessing the Significance of Attack Data in Iraq--Contrarian

Seems like I'm due to challenge conventional wisdom (warning--this is off the cuff and not based on research):

The media reports that the military reports the average number of attacks per month in Iraq has steadily increased over the years since the end of significant military operations announced by our leader.

But this may not be significant, at least not as significant as it sounds. Counting and reporting is one of the things bureaucracy does. You need a flow of information up the channels to allow decision makers to make good decisions. So the data sounds useful. But changes in the data can reflect a change in reality or a change in the reporting mechanism.

In the early days of the war, DOD did no body counts; that was too much like Nam. My impression is that Rummy and Myers ran away from statistics as fast as possible. But as time has gone on, everyone searches for data, so the attack figure is one that has come to the forefront. My guess is that the military has become more and more concerned about the accuracy of such figures. They're probably also responding to continuous pressure from the media for such information. As the military changes and learns, it inevitably changes the data reported.

Take an example: someone in the lead vehicle in a convoy hears a couple bullets fly over head. That's all, nothing more. I don't know whether that counts as an "attack" today, but I'll bet it didn't count as an attack in July 2003. As a bureaucracy, the military has probably issued instructions on what counts as an attack and probably has a form, hopefully on-line, for reporting details. I don't know when they did that, but my experience is that you refine the instructions. (Did the bullets injure anyone? Was it Iraqi or U.S? Did they cause any property damage?) As time passes, there's also less downside to reporting attacks. Everything gets easier with experience, including reporting. There could also be some perverse incentives at work--don't report attacks, it looks as if the unit is in a quiet area so they may get moved to a hotter area. Report attacks and you may attract more resources. (There was a review of a book over the weekend, possibly in NYTimes--some ex-soldier reporting that his captain ordered an artillery barrage because the captain of a nearby unit had ordered one. ) That's the sort of thinking that leads to inflation of medals.

All this is, I suspect, documented in assessments of our experience in Vietnam. Iraq may not be Vietnam, but some of the dynamics of a (military) bureaucracy never change.