Dairy Supply Management Proposal

Sometimes when agricultural surpluses mount, people come up with supply management schemes. That's happening with dairy (which already has a voluntary dairy herd buyout program going), via Agweb:

"The Initiative would have three functions:

• It would set national production levels consistent with national usage
• Each cooperative would be assigned a production base level consistent with their share of national production
• CMI would set target prices at levels that would enable their members to profitably produce milk".

I'm a bit sceptical of these ideas--people tried them before the New deal and the "free rider" problem was too big. But it might work for dairy, at least for a while, if coops can control their members.

Land Tenure in Israel

According to this Treehugger post:

Should land be held as a public asset, or traded as a private commodity? In Israel, where 93% of the country’s land is publicly owned, state ownership of land is anchored in legislation, and even in the Bible. However, a new plan to transfer a massive amount of state land to private ownership is afloat, provoking plenty of opposition among environmentalists.

I'm always curious about land tenure because it seems to structure much of our society, at least in history.

The Perils of Moderation

William Saletan at Slate writes about the middle way amidst the land mines of abortion.

Words of a Blogger

From Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Either way, this past week has crystallized why I write. I am not here to think for people. I'm not here to respect all opinions. Some ideas about the world deserve honest debate and others deserve scorn. Each person must decide for themselves which is which. Even as I am aware of my own limits, I will not hesitate to make the choice. We can't talk our way out of everything.

(After heated discussions on race, and Gates, and ....)

Homesteading Hickory, Goodbye Ron

Ron and family have had their ups and downs homesteading somewhere in the Ozarks, mostly chronicled on this site. I risk reading too much into this, the penultimate post on the site, but the agrarian/locavore lifestyle seems sometimes to be a temporary fix, not something which today's generation is willing to endure/enjoy for a lifetime. People such as Ron and his wife have options, and they can use them. That's good; that's better than being stuck in a rut.

5 Million Dutch Paintings?

That's from a Smithsonian article on shell collecting--the claim Dutch painters of the 17th century produced over 5 million paintings. Apparently the Dutch collected tulips, paintings, and sea shells, paying more for some tulips and shells than for paintings.

The Most Important News of the Day

A small item in the NYTimes reports East Africa now has fiber optic connections to the Middle East and Europe.

PART and the Obama Administrations

Government Executive has an article on performance evaluation of federal agencies, with the hook being the confirmation hearings of Jeffrey Zients, OMB deputy director for management and chief performance officer, who is revising the Bush's PART system. I'm disappointed because there's no indication that Zients is trying to sell Congress on using any system. If the people who hold the purse strings don't use the system, it's mostly a waste of time.

My Investment Earned 23 Percent

From the Post:

"Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said the government received an annualized return of 23 percent on the $10 billion in rescue funds it gave to Goldman Sachs last year."

Of course, this factoid won't get the ink the bailout did.

Reciprocity of Licenses

Yesterday there was a vote in the Senate on whether states should be required to honor the concealed-carry licenses issued by other states. Pro-gun Senators argued one way, pro gun-control Senators argued another way.

If there were a vote in the Senate on whether states should be required to honor the marriage licenses issued by other states, the positions of most would be reversed, as would the argument.

My point?

Principle is fine, but usually politicians use principle only to justify a position.

Humans are not consistent, nor should we expect politicians to be.