The Not-So-Efficient Free Market System: Alcohol in VA

Our new Virginia governor won office last year based on a campaign of, among other promises, privatizing the system of ABC stores for selling liquor and using the proceeds for transportation.  The Post yesterday had an interesting article on the problems in implementing the promise, including a comparison with the systems in DC and MD.  Turns out VA gets more than 50 percent of the price of a bottle of Jack Daniels, while the other jurisdictions get less than 10 percent. Prices aren't that different, at least at the low and middle end.  So how does the gov get an equivalent yearly return from a private sales system?  Doesn't look as if it's possible.

Of course Virginians are used to Republican politicians making promises they can't fulfill.  (Not that Dems are immune from the syndrome.)

The side-by-side comparison shows IMHO the free market system is not necessarily the best.  Of course, alcohol has special characteristics: most of the products are time-tested.  I suspect if you looked at the Virginia ABC stores they don't do well at keeping up with the fads (like wine coolers, or special vodkas).  But as a child of someone who firmly believed in the merits of Prohibition, I'm not mourning this particular lack in Virginian society.

Clayton Weighs in on the Emanuel Disaster Program, and Pigford

Chris Clayton relates the possible disaster program to make Lincoln happy to the failure to appropriate funds for the Pigford II case.

A Fairfax Green at the Recycle Dropoff

This morning my wife and I drove to the local dropoff point for recyclables, part of our Friday routine which also includes grocery shopping.  The place is set up as an "Y", with the bins for paper products on one arm, the bins for glass and plastic on the other arm, and the junction point is just wide enough for cars to come in, park, reverse, and go out.

When we arrived a young slender woman in a white car had backed up to the paper bins and was disposing of her paper. I parked further in; my wife dumped the paper and I dumped the bottles.  As I glanced in the mirror before backing to turn around, I saw the woman had now backed her car up to the glass/plastic bin and was disposing of her bottles.

The walking distance between her two parking places was no more than 25 yards.

The car was a Prius.

Fructose and Cancer

Respectful Insolence has much more than you'd ever want to know about biochemistry and fructose. He says the recent study on fructose, glucose and cancer cells is interesting, but should have no policy implications as of today.

Lincoln and Disaster

Farm Policy reports others share my doubts over the feasibility and legality of the adminstrative disaster payments proposed by Sen. Lincoln. 

Yesterday’s update added that, “Lincoln responded that it is not unusual for the executive branch to distribute such disaster aid without congressional action. ‘It’s been done before,’ she said. However, House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., told the press this week his staff is skeptical that USDA has a mechanism to fund the program.”

I think she's wrong and Peterson is right.  The only approach I can think of is to use the Commodity Credit Corporation approach, which is probably what Lincoln is thinking of, but it would be a big stretch to use it for Lincoln's proposal. But then, the lawyers in OGC (office of general counsel) have performed miracles before.

Obama In Trouble?

You know you're in political trouble when bureaucrats start worrying about your initiatives in case you're going to lose.

If Open Gov becomes too associated with Obama and he loses 2 years from now, Open Gov may suffer a serious setback. In fact, Open Gov could suffer as soon as the Congressional Midterms.

So what're you going to do about it? Well, it's time you starting thinking about Open Gov Backup Plans.

Maids in College?

I'm flabbergasted. No, not at the thought of some virgins on campus. (Though there was a legend at my university.  The Arts quad had statutes of the two founders seated opposite each other.  Supposedly if a virgin walked across the quad at midnight, the statutes would rise, walk to the center and bow, and then return to their seats.)

But the Post has an article on social networking and sports recruiting, focusing on a top athlete who tweets his visits to campuses and football coaches who follow his tweets.  And this sentence blew my mind:

" He wrote of being impressed that UCLA has maids cleaning dorm rooms"

Whatever happened to kids cleaning their own rooms? And if it's an athletic dormitory, how about coaches enforcing rules.  

Complaints About SURE

I've resolved I'm not trying to understand SURE.  This is the first paragraph from Farm Policy today:

DTN Executive Editor Marcia Zarley Taylor reported yesterday at the Minding Ag’s Business Blog that, “When Congress wrote what rational people would consider the most complex formula yet for farm disaster aid in the 2008 Farm Act, it was supposed to (1) be a fairer system; (2) compensate people who’d experienced whole farm revenue loss, not a yield loss on a single crop as past farm programs did; (3) pay higher rates to those with better crop insurance coverage. In other words, reward farmers who paid the high premiums for higher levels of coverage. But as I reported in a story on DTN today, these principles aren’t working as the Farm Service Agency struggles to administer the 2008 disaster program.

The question is whether the bureaucrats and Congress can work the bugs out before 2012.

New Health Hazard Identified

By Ta-Nehisi Coates:
"Fully half of the life-span gap between African-Americans and whites is due to African-Americans having to endure punditry about "The Blacks." (From a post on the latest Phyllis Schafly quote.)

Flash: Rising Rate of Blindness in the U.S.

From this post:

Far fewer parents describe their children as overweight or obese than we see in the actual population. Specifically, the GQR poll showed even parents who volunteer their children's height and weight underreported whether they also view them as overweight or obese. Similarly, this McClatchy-Ipsos poll shows far fewer reporting a personal obesity issue or one in their own family than is actually true among the population.

The only rational explanation is that Americans are losing their eyesight much more rapidly than anyone realizes.