Earliest Hiring of an Attorney in an Administration

The news reports Rahm Emanuel has hired a lawyer. This must be a record--earliest hiring of a personal attorney as a result of a "political scandal". Not a record the political system should be proud of.

Clinton, Obama, and the White House

If memory serves, Bill Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush on many issues. One of the smaller ones was the size of Bush's White House. Supposedly it was too large, too autocratic and subordinated the cabinet members too much. So Bill promised to reduce the size of the White House staff by 25 percent. Carrying out the promise in his first term caused many contortions and much confusion, particularly as he also wanted to set up an economic council (under Rubin) as part of his "it's the economy, stupid".

Cut to 16 years later. Obama made no such promise, even though Dems have made a general attack on the Bush presidency for being too autocratic. As I sit here watching the news, it seems to me, without proof, that Obama is expanding the number and reach of people in his White House office. If true, a couple observations:

• it might be a way to finesse policy differences, by giving each position a seat at the table. That would fit with Obama's perceived pattern of hoping to reconcile differences.
• it is also a step away from "cabinet government", power moving from the departments to the White House.
  
• certainly it is another layer of bureaucracy, posing another challenge to Mr. Emanuel.

Most Farmers Aren't

From the latest ERS pub (page 3): "about 80 percent of total farm household income is derived from off-farm employment" (of course, I'm being too cute with the title--in many households the woman is employed off-farm and the man is farming).

One Problem for Black Landowners

One problem for blacks in maintaining farms is indicated by this Federal Register notice (Hat Tip--Sustainable Ag Coalition):

The Rural Business-Cooperative Service (RBS) announces the availability of approximately $230,000 in funds for fiscal year (FY) 2009 for cooperative agreements to develop and implement pilot programs aimed at: (1) Preventing and alleviating the problems facing African Americans in rural areas that are involved with real estate with clouded title due to unresolved interests of generations of heirs (otherwise known as ‘‘heir properties’’); (2) establishing an outreach/educational program that will assist farmers and homeowners with heir property issues in expanding ownership; and (3) enabling farming heir property owners to develop economically viable agricultural operations and accrue homeownership.

Having clear title is prerequisite to getting financing. I assume the problems behind the clouded title were landowners dying intestate, with the descendants never resolving the title. That's something not likely to show up in history books, or in lawsuits like Pigford. See this piece from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. (Or Google "heir property").

Contrarian: Farm Programs and Small Farms

One piece of conventional wisdom, among the greens and rapidly spreading among the chattering classes, is that farm programs aid big farms. This is wisdom that isn't true. The following are true, at least mostly so:

• "farm programs" aid field crop farmers, not fruit, vegetable, or livestock farms
• "payment limitations" are often evaded, so are not very effective in limiting farm program payments to large farmer
• "farm program payments" often go to landowners who do no physical "farming"
• "farm program payments" are often issued in the names of legal entities, not living persons
• small farmers need help more than large farmers.
  

What you can't say is that "farm programs" distort or change the pecking order of farms for any given commodity. The big corn farms today would be the big corn farms without any programs.

Tobacco Program Aided Small Farmers

The different farm programs are just that: different. So you can't take results from one and apply them to another. But a post mortem on the now defunct tobacco quota program suggests it, at least, helped small farmers. We didn't run parallel tests, but looking at what happened after the program ended is suggestive.

Washington Times has a story on tobacco growing in the U.S as of now. When the program ended, many small farms went out of business, at least out of tobacco, to be replaced by fewer bigger growers. There also may have been an impact on smoking--the price has gone up so smoking has gone down. The program also operated as a price umbrella for developing countries, which could undercut US on price. Now we're exporting more.

No "Cow Tax"

Per EPA via Brownfield.

Clones

Clones aren't in the headlines much anymore. Sara at Down to Earth linked to this institutional video from an ag cloning company to give a glimpse of the people in the business. My reaction: I hadn't realized it had become so routine (at least for horses and cows).

Thoughts on CAFO's

Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO's) are a big topic these days, and will no doubt continue to be. I offer my thoughts:

• the vegetarians point to CAFOs and say they're inherently cruel to animals, so people should eat vegetables. That's an extreme position, but it benefits from being logical and consistent.
  
• animal rights people point to CAFOs and say, as currently operated, they're cruel, so we need legislation/constitutional provisions to provide more room for chickens, etc. Vegetarians can support such measures because it seems a step on the slippery slope to total banning. Possibly some changes, like the Florida and California initiatives, will relieve the public pressure and concern over mistreatment of animals.
  
• good food people say CAFO's create the need to use antibiotics to fight disease and are otherwise dangerous (i.e., a breeding ground for MIRSA in some eyes).
• locavores say CAFO's are not local.
• neighbors say CAFO's pollute the air and water. Most notably, once a farming operation becomes so concentrated the resulting manure can't readily be used as fertilizer on the land, you get into waste lagoons and stream pollution.
  

I assume I wouldn't like a CAFO, having grown on a small dairy/poultry farm. But they result from the logic of economies of scale, which seem to work as well in agriculture as elsewhere. Despite all the efforts of the green community, I'd expect CAFO's to have a history similar to that of other growing industries. Where are the "dark, satanic mills" of yesteryear? Exxon, US Steel, GM, ATT, all had checkered histories in youth, but became more house-broken and acceptable to polite society as they aged, and as activists got government to impose regulations. So too with CAFO's. This domestication process will be aided by the greens:

• CAFO's are a lot more susceptible to environmental regulation. It's a whole lot easier to regulate one 40,000 cow dairy farm than 400 100 cow farms (for one thing, 400 dairies have a lot more votes, as well as being more familiar and more attractive).
  
• CAFO's can probably make more use of new technology. See this link on a $1 mill methane digester at an Oregon dairy. And this Brownfield piece on putting feed lots indoors. Banks will make loans more easily and the government will (until Obama's Secretary takes charge) make EQIP grants.

So, should I live another 20 years, I'd expect to see lots of CAFO's, but I'd also expect to see each one having a full-time job dealing with government regulation.

The Rational Market

Via Marginal Revolution, Virginia Postrel's very interesting discussion of academic experiments with markets. Bubbles are almost inevitable.