Furthering International Understanding

Here's an interesting post from an ex-pat Brit in France about bureaucrats (er, civil servants) in France. The whole site's not bad either.

Our Neighbors to the North Get a New Farm Program

Google Alerts is a good way to track stuff (actually, it's a good way to overwhelm yourself when you're curious). But Canadian farm programs are interesting, not only the different methods they use to administer them, but the different process for developing them. In a parliamentary system, the executive seems to have more power. This piece announces the program for 2008+:

The business risk management programs that replace CAIS include:

- AgriInvest, a program where both producers and governments contribute to a producers' savings account that will allow producers to easily predict the government's contribution and have the flexibility to withdraw funds to help address declines in income or to make investments to improve farm profitability.

- AgriStability, a program that provides support when a producer experiences a decline in farm income of more than 15 percent.

- AgriRecovery, a disaster relief framework which provides a coordinated process for federal, provincial and territorial governments to respond rapidly when disasters strike, filling gaps not covered by existing programs.

- AgriInsurance, an existing program which includes insurance against production losses for specified perils (weather, pests, disease) is being expanded to include more commodities.

Closing Offices Reaches Indiana

Another piece on the effort to close FSA offices, this time in Indiana. These plans have dribbled out over the spring. Is that intentional, to diffuse the impact and lessen the likelihood of politicians getting together, or, more likely, accidental and an artifact of bureaucracy?

U.S. Won't Be Majority Minority II

I posted on this a few days ago. Today Freakonomics refers to an article, and an acronym, reinforcing my point. Mayor Bloomberg of NYC is called a "W.A.S.H."--white, anglo saxon, hebrew. The article referred to, in the Forward, describes how Bloomberg isn't really "Jewish" in the usual way in NYC. It's almost like some blacks describing Barack Obama as not really "black" (or the present and former mayors of D.C. who certainly aren't the usual "black" politician). Of course, this is all dealing in stereotypes, in pictures that we carry around in our heads).

Basically what happens is as we come to know people, we start understanding the differences, the individuality. That usually leads to more mingling, fewer minorities and more individuals.c

Electronic Money and Money [Updated]

Today's Times has an article on toll roads. In the old days, you had to stop every 5-10 miles to deposit quarters when driving the New Jersey Turnpike (which I did once or twice, going from Fort Belvoir home). Today, the EZ Pass system (for anyone not used to the Boston-DC megaplex, it's an electronic system of scanners tied to one's credit card--you can roll through at 35 mph legally, 65 for all the speed freaks). The idea of the article is that people hardly notice the fees; the result of which is, according to an economist, toll road authorities have jacked their tolls. This raises concerns--the taxes are unseen and perhaps hit poorer families harder than rich.

Now in the real old days, we didn't spend money on roads. Country folk had to work x number of days on the roads (we're talking early and middle nineteenth century here), using their own equipment and animals to improve them. In effect, it was a non-monetary economy, one that was almost gone by the time I was born 100 years later.

It also occurs to me that now our toll pays for two things: the roads we travel on and the time and aggravation we save by not having to pay money tolls. The richer we get, the more we value our time. Time is one thing that, by and large, the poor have as much of as the rich.

[Update] Piece in the Post this morning about credit cards--they make it so easy to spend money and go into debt. So liberals will complain about credit cards and conservatives will complain about EZ-Pass. Both innovations reduce the friction in the system, with good and bad consequences.

Farm Bill

Sounds from this Wiesemeyer excerpt as if the House Ag committee is operating strategically--extend the 2002 farm bill with some sweeteners to keep the ag folks happy, and force the green types (organic, fruit and vegetable, slow food, etc.) to come up with the extra money under pay as you go.

Letters to the Editor II

I blogged yesterday about letters to the editor and rules. I received a prompt (and polite) response from Prof. Boudreaux (the politeness surprised because I was just a little snarky). I'm not convinced by his reasoning, but he didn't give me permission to quote so I'll go on to the broader issue.

The Post sports pages now carry material from blogs. I've never looked at the sports blogs, but it appears they're rapidly blurring the line between print and electronic media. In this respect, sports is well ahead of the news desk. I suggest the Post look into a similar process on the news side--certainly there has to be material worthy of being raised to the prominence of the print pages.

Such an advance still doesn't answer the bottomline question--where do you write? The odds against getting a letter published are very high, but the reward in circulation is great. It's a trade off--a 100 percent chance of publishing where almost no one reads or a .0001 percent chance of publishing where 1000000 people read (made up figures).

Of course, if the Post would merely kick rejected letters to a web site, the problem might be alleviated.

GMU Economist Flouts Post Rules??

Just started to send a letter to the editor of the Washington Post on the Fairfax education article, but then I read their rules:

Letters must be fewer than 250 words long and exclusive to The Washington Post; they may not have been submitted or posted to, or published by any other media or web outlet. They must include the writer's home address, e-mail address, and home and business telephone numbers. Anonymous letters will not be considered, nor does The Post permit the use of pseudonyms.

Just after seeing that, I read this post at Cafe Hayek, written by the head of the George Mason University Department of Economics:

"Here's a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post in response to this report on Congress's refusal to renew the President's fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements.

Dear Editor:It is unfortunate that Congress refuses to renew the President's fast-track trade authority ("End Nears for Era of Presidential Trade Authority," June 30)..." (I've truncated the letter).

So we have these options:

• Professor Boudreaux doesn't read the Post rules.
• He reads them but doesn't follow them. Or rather, because the Post doesn't say: "don't send us anything you use on a web site" he figures it's up to the Post to enforce their rules.
• He has talked to the Post and found out that the rules don't really apply to him or they don't apply to blog posts, or they don't apply as long as you write the letter before you post to the blog.

Anyhow, since I've already posted on the education article, and because my Presbyterian minister forebears are looking over my shoulder, the Post editor is getting one less letter. :-( However, I may ask the omsbudman for clarification.

Bad News in Fairfax County

A Post article reports on high school graduation rates. Almost 20 percent of Fairfax county teenagers do not graduate from high school. Actually, that statement is wrong, if I read correctly. 20 percent of Fairfax county freshmen do not graduate from high school, so those youngsters who were outside of the system entirely do not count. (And I mean that in about three different ways: not considered in the calculate, may be mathematically illiterate, and are excluded from our concern as a society.)

According to published data, 91 percent of Fairfax residents over 25 have high school degrees (or GED's). So Fairfax is importing more educated people and exporting less educated people. Whether this is a reflection of the statistical principle of "regression to the mean" or of class differences, I don't like it.

Flash--Scientists Discover Original Sin

From the Telegraph:

Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected.

Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life.

Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old.