Vertical Gardens Again

The Economist has a good piece on vertical gardens, which ends thus:

Rooftop farming may not be able to compete with other suppliers in a global market unless people are prepared to pay a premium for fresh, local food, says Mr Head. And it is much less glamorous than the grand vision of crops being produced in soaring green towers of glass. But, for the time being, this more down-to-earth approach is much more realistic than the sci-fi dream of fields in the sky.

Reihan Salam who is often a conservative I can listen to is duped  by Valcent.

How We Pay Teachers

From Ralph Luker's Cliopatria

Looking toward the AHA's annual job market orgy in January, one of our colleagues suggests Colonial Williamsburg's listing as a commentary on the state of our profession. CW wants a doctorate in early American Studies, with experience in museum-related historical research, and expertise in a half dozen or more programming technologies and languages. Must be both a self-starter and a collegial builder of community. Bring all of that to the job and you could hope to make up to $40 K.

Peter Hessler and Rapid Development in China

Been reading Peter Hessler's "Country Driving".  (I strongly recommend his previous books: "River Town" and "Oracle Bones".)  He is or was the New Yorker's correspondent in China, having first lived there as a Peace Corps teacher (River Town).  He's got a sharp eye for detail and for the culture, plus the daring to drive where he's not supposed to, and the ability to get along with people, although according to him in the Chinese countryside and in the new industrial areas people are uniformly welcoming, and friendly, except for the man nicknamed the "Shitkicker".

Anyhow, just read his description of the process of designing a 21,000 sq ft factory building (3 stories, with the dormitory for workers on the third floor) in southern China.  Guess how long it took?

• 3 months
• 3 weeks
• 3 days
• 3 hours
• none of the above

The answer is "none of the above".  Actually took 1 hour and 4 minutes for the two bosses to design it with the builder, the builder committed to providing a bid by the next morning.  3 months is the time it took to build it.

Paragraph of Dec 18

From RecoveringFed: 
"One day, as I was tweeting on the hotel computer, I noticed that on the French computer one does not have to shift to use the exclamation point. I think that says something about the French."

"Bureaucrat", "Civil Servant", "Faceless Bureaucrat"

Back to the Google Ngram again.  The term::

• "civil servant" starts occurring in 1800, in British  English, peaking in the early 1940's then declining.  It starts occurring in the 1880's in American English peaking in the mid 1960's, then declining. It's about 5 times more common in British than American.
• "bureaucrat" starts earlier in British English (around 1840) than in American (late 1860's).  In American the peak is mid 1970's, then a decline.  In British the peak is the early 1990's, then a decline. Usage slightly more common in the U.S. 
• "faceless bureaucrat" is 10 times more common in American English than British, though the pattern over time is roughly the same.

I've had Google alerts for "faceless bureaucrat" and "civil servant" for a few years.  The pattern is for the members of the former British Empire to use "civil servant" quite a bit, and their usage of "bureaucrat" is generally neutral, not pejorative.  The U.S. doesn't use "civil servant" much, and usage of "bureaucrat" usually has an edge.  So the comparisons made available by the Google tool don't surprise me, but I am puzzled by the variations over the last 50 years.

Government Performance and Results Act II

Government Executive reports on Senate passage of an update to the GPRA, sponsored in part by Sen. Warner (has yet to pass the House and may not make it before adjournment). It sounds to me to be fairly reasonable, except as follows.  This paragraph struck me:

When developing or making adjustments to a strategic plan, the agency shall consult periodically with the Congress, including majority and minority views from the appropriate authorizing, appropriations, and oversight committees, and shall solicit and consider the views and suggestions of those entities potentially affected by or interested in such a plan. The agency shall consult with the appropriate committees of Congress at least once every 2 years.

Based on schoolbook theories of government, it would seem that Congress should be initiating reviews of such plans, rather than the agencies initiating the consultation. 

And my big concern is definition: it applies to "agencies", which if I understand means USDA, not NRCS and FSA.  Unfortunately, as Sec. Vilsack has no doubt learned by now, his control and oversight of subordinate agencies in the department is rather limited.  You have a puzzle: how does USDA do a plan which makes sense at the FSA level? 

I should note under the current GPRA FSA and the other components of USDA do their own plans.  Of course, FSA hasn't updated its webpage since July 2007, so one can assume the new administration isn't much relying on the plan to guide the agency.

Telework and Televote

If Federal employees can telework, why can't Senators televote.  (Sen. Wyden is having prostate surgery.)

"Faceless Bureaucrat"

Via Kevin Drum, the Google Ngram Viewer. It's a database of text from Google Books together with software which searches and graphs the occurrence of a phrase. The phrase, "faceless bureaucrat" first appears around 1958.  Usage rises steadily from 1964 to the 1980's, then has been up and down but mostly up since then. I wonder what was driving the usage.  Anyhow, as Kevin says, it's a great time waster and the NY Times says it's been used for a scholarly paper.

Interest Rates and Competition

I shouldn't venture into this subject, but I'm confused.  If I understand, which I probably don't, the Fed continues to make money available to banks at a low cost but the mortgage rate is rising.  How does that happen? Shouldn't the banks be competing to make loans, and therefore keeping rates low?  Or is the home mortgage market subject to frictions and problems which make it not very competitive?

Why You Can't Keep Them Down on the Farm

Roving Bandit quotes a professor on 7 reasons you can't keep people down on the farm (phrased as "reasons urban growth is a reasonable and natural phenomenon". (economies of scale, centrality,diversity cover some of the seven). The same rules mean bigger cities grow bigger.

Meanwhile Megan McArdle had a recent visit to China and an interesting post on rural life, including observations on how the government is trying to slow the rush of people to cities:

Yet even this level of income is achieved by substantial government intervention.  In part to slow the pace of urbanization to a manageable level, in part because they're worried about food security, and in part presumably just because they don't want the farmers to starve, the government offers some pretty hefty subsidies to rural communities.  The crop prices are supported above market levels; the houses, appliances, and someday cars, are acquired with substantial discounts through government programs.  According to our hosts, without those subsidies, it's not clear that there would be anyone left on Chinese farms.  Chinese agriculture is amazingly productive, as I mentioned, but it's also amazingly labor intensive, and tends to be done on a small scale; they can't compete with the massive farms of North and South America.