Amish Will Take Over Furniture?

Maybe I was wrong that the Amish were destined to take over dairy farming in the U.S. This NY Times article describes their push into small business, particularly furniture.

The Amish move into the world of commerce has been more out of necessity than desire. Over the last 16 years, the Amish population in the United States — mostly in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana — has nearly doubled, to 230,000, and the decreasing availability and increasing cost of farmland has forced many of these agrarian families, especially the younger generation, to gravitate to small business as their main source of income.

The businesses, which favor such Amish skills as furniture-making, quilting, construction work and cooking, have been remarkably successful. Despite a lack of even a high school education (the Amish leave school after the eighth grade), hundreds of Amish entrepreneurs have built profitable businesses based on the Amish values of high quality, integrity and hard work.

Prof. Kraybill outlines some of the dangers (at least for those who don't work in family-oriented workshops) for the way of life.

A side note. One of the big limits of the Internet and Google is the fact advertisements aren't captured. One of the striking ads I've seen in the last week is a full page newspaper ad for Amish mantels, complete with pictures showing bearded craftsmen finishing the wood. What it seems to be is an operation that combines a Chinese-built space heater contained inside a wood mantel so the combination looks like a wood fire in a fire place. Of course, 98 percent of the text is given over to the Amish side of the story, only in a couple places is it admitted that the guts of the product are Chinese.

Why a Gas Tax Has Problems

Erin does a post "by the numbers"--note the second item: 45 - miles to the store (it was an 8 hour family trip). While normal Americans have a supermarket around the corner, those who have the privilege of living in the wide-open spaces are dependent on gas. That's why Clinton faced a rebellion among western Dems back in 1993 when he proposed a gas tax.

Fifty Years Ahead of My Time, Public Service Academy

If memory serves, 50 years ago in my speech at high school graduation, I supported the idea of a public service academy, which got some publicity yesterday in the NYTimes. (I think I had read about the French institution, the ENA. After working in the bureaucracy, my opinion is more mixed. The French and British civil services have virtues ours does not. But our country and government is more decentralized than France or Britain, and implementing a European-style civil service would be difficult.

Jimmy Carter tried to take a step in that direction, with the Senior Executive Service. Part of the idea was to create a more professional class of managers who could be moved around and would not spend their careers in a single agency. I don't think it worked. We continue to have problems of inter-agency warfare and conflict--witness the report of the 9/11 commission, witness the Goldwater Act of the mid 80's for DOD, witness the recurring problems in the USDA.

While I'm skeptical that a public service academy would do a whole hell of a lot in improving the quality of our managers, it might help to create an "old-boys network" which could help cross-agency communication and coordination. As a further point, in today's Federal Diary (Wash Post daily column) says federal employees trust their supervisors ' technical ability more than their managerial ability. I, and most other bureaucrats, tend to be skeptical of "managers", people like Leo Panetta coming into CIA, because we think you have to understand the agency and its problems to do a good job managing. I was a good bureaucrat, so I got promoted to be a manager, where I had more faults than I cared to admit. But that's typical of federal bureaucrats, meaning we aren't likely to support a public service academy. But we ought to give it a try.

Power of Economics--Hybrids and Energy, Bad and Good

One of my frustrations with some critics of modern agriculture is their under-estimation of the power of the market. Our current "depression" (as certified by Megan McArdle) reminds us of the effects of wealth, or the lack thereof:

• Bad for greens--the sales of hybrids, according to this,have dropped more than other vehicles. (Why--they're pricier and take years to pay off any savings, particularly when gas is lower than $2)
• Good for greens--via Gristmill this DotEarth graph shows China's contribution to carbon emissions has decreased.
• Bad for conservatives--we're now talking trillion dollar deficits. (I remember when LBJ scored a political coup by keeping the entire budget under $100 billion.)
• Good for conservatives--no one has mentioned it, but the depression means more people will stay in the job force longer, which should have a positive effect on social security.

My point is that bottom-line economics has a sweeping impact on everything.

Obama, the Organic Man?

The Post runs a story about guys who want President Obama to convert the South Lawn to an organic garden.

I'm sorry, but I disagree, for these reasons:

• who's going to do the gardening? Obama is already talking about the need to control expenditures. I want Obama doing President things, not obsessing over the best mulch. Hiring people to do your gardening seems rather elitist to me.
• symbolism is not convincing. How many people followed Bush's example in putting solar panels on the White House? (Do a google of "solar panels white house".) How many are familiar with the actual Clinton/Bush menus (apparently not Alice Waters, according to the former WH chef in the NY Times.)
  
• Presidents as symbolic leaders have their limits. The Obamas decided not to send their children to public schools. Jimmy Carter wore sweaters, and got mocked (even though it's a highly rational step--lower the thermostats and add the layers, but we humans can't take a leader in a sweater).

If you want Obama to be green, let him install a geo-thermal heating/cooler system for the White House.

Happy Days Must Be Here Again

If the writer of the Congressional Budget Office's blog is named "Bob Sunshine".

The Budget and Economic Outlook

from Director's Blog by Bob Sunshine

(I assume he's Orszag's interim replacement.)

Those Ungrateful French

Now blame us for their short attention span: "Nowadays though, thanks to our American cousins and their short shows, French viewers no longer have the patience to watch TV for more than 45 minutes a time." From Mr. Beauregard, mostly on French public TV, with digressions to the family dinner table,etc.

Wendell Berry and Genetic Modification

Wendell Berry is co-author of a NYTimes op-ed today, arguing for a 50-year farm bill. The focus is on erosion, and surprising, at least to me, he comes out in favor of perennialization of major grain crops, like wheat, rice, sunflowers. I see the logic, but I wonder whether some of the organic folks will really like the idea of genetic modification to that extent.

NRCS and FSA

"Also on the horizon is a possible reorganization of USDA. Hagstrom says that Peterson has said he wants to reorganize the department, but that he may be more concerned with the contentious relationship between the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.“He thinks they don’t work together very well. Well, here is a secret: They don’t want to work together very well. They want to remain separate,” Hagstrom says." Agweek

"Farm Service Agency Administrator Teresa Lasseter said streamlining the agency will continue under the Obama administration, with fewer offices available to serve ranchers and farmers across the country. Southwestfarmpress

Most Surprising Sentence Today

"So it was that the former secretary of war decided to kill the former secretary of the treasury."

American Lion, by John Meacham, page 178
[No, not Rumsfeld out for John Snow's blood, but Eaton after Ingham--in Andrew Jackson's time politics was for keeps, not the namby-pamby sort of stuff of today.]