All Us Geezers Aren't Selfish

Matt Yglesias posts on the offer of Japanese geezers to work at the Fukushima plant struck by the tsunami.

Makes sense to me, though I'm not ready to volunteer quite yet.  Check with me when I'm wheelchair bound.

Overpaid Federal Employees?

The Washington Times headline story this moring is 77000 federal employees make more money than the governors of the states in which they live, based on a Congressional Research Service study requested by Sen. Coburn. Doctors and air traffic controllers were the biggest share of the employees.

It's an ingenious study, and terrible PR for the feds, though I'm not sure that it's any real use.

The Pets of Extras: Nothing Too Small for the All-Seeing Eye

The eye of the House Appropriations committee, that is:  From the report on the agricultural appropriations:

Animal Welfare Act.—It has been brought to the Committee’s attention that APHIS is using vital animal welfare resources to regulate the pets of extras in filmed entertainment. While the Animal Welfare Act’s intent is to establish minimally acceptable standards in the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport, and by dealers, the law was not aimed at regulating companion animals used as extras in the background of movies and television productions.  The Committee urges the agency to use the Secretary’s discretionary authority to seek alternative means of meeting its statutory mandate, including the option of issuing exemptions or master exhibitor licenses to these pet owners.

Payment Limitation Progressing

Chris Clayton reports the House Appropriations committee approved an amendment by Rep. Flake setting a $250,000 payment limitation on certain farm programs.

Tidbits from the committee report:



Cultural Transformation.—USDA is carrying out initiatives such as cultural transformation without a budget request or a specific appropriation for this activity. One of the concerns is the way in which this initiative is spending scarce Federal resources. According to USDA documents, the Department spent $50,000 to train
900 senior leaders on cultural transformation. This appears to be a legitimate expense; however, USDA spent nearly $500,000 on personnel and travel to send 43 employees to one of the most expensive business schools on the East Coast for a week of training. This does not appear to be a wise expenditure of Federal dollars. Furthermore, the Committee does not believe that holding cultural transformation activities on the National Mall is a wise expenditure of funds either. Lastly, the Department has not defined what cultural transformation is, what requirement is attempting to be met, what the goals are, and what measurements are being used in order to determine its effectiveness




State Office Collocation.—The Committee continues to direct that any reallocation of resources related to the collocation of state offices scheduled for 2011 and subsequent years is subject to the Committee’s reprogramming procedures.


FSA IT.—The Committee does not approve reprogramming the $23,600,000 from MIDAS. In providing the fiscal year 2011 funding level, the Committee expected that $49,500,000 would be spent on MIDAS in 2011. The Committee has acknowledged the tenuous stability of the system and directs the agency to provide a briefing to the Committee by June 10, 2011, on this issue.

CCC Funds to FSA.—The Committee has learned that, through the Commodity Credit Corporation, an additional $20 million has been made available to the agency. The Committee directs the agency to report by July 1, 2011, on its plans for the use of those funds.

White House Gardening: Clean Sweeps

Here's a link to the White House garden--apparently it's to be harvested this Friday. And it sounds as if they'll be planting corn, squash and beans (the "three sisters" approach of native Amdericans). It seems the White House is sacrificing a bit of good gardening for their PR.  I say "seems" because I'm reading between the lines. My version of "good gardening" would involve planting as you harvest.  But the PR aspects of the garden means you need to have an "event" to attract the media and justify a video, which seems to lead them to harvest as much as they can at one time and replanting all at once. Presumably the kitchen is serving enough people each week they can use a big harvest, which isn't something the ordinary household could do.

In our own garden, we had one broccoli plant bolt early before we caught it. The rest of the broccoli and the cabbages won't be harvested at the   We've got the tomatoes stuck amongst the lettuce and peas (lots of both).  

The World of Universal Feedback

I was struck by this Nate Silver piece ranking all the major league baseball parks.  It's just part of the new world where we can get feedback on everything, and ranking on everything.  How long will it take for people to start acting on the information?

Some economist, maybe Hayek, observed the market is very good at gathering information, that prices convey reasonably precisely all sorts of information and there's no substitute for it.  That should mean the prices for tickets for the Washington Nationals games should be low, reflecting not only the less than stellar success of the team but also the deficiencies of the ballpark (which may overlap). I doubt the prices do reflect that information.  But the team owners can react to the ratings and improve the ballpark which presumably is much easier to do than improving the team.

More on Supply Side Solutions for Medicare III

Foreign Policy, via Charles Kenny, has a piece on outsourcing medical care to Thailand (lousy pun in Kenny's link)

Suzy Khimm, guest blogging for Ezra Klein, discusses primary care doctors and a NYTimes oped  suggesting making med school education for primary care doctors free.

John Holbo Reverses Things

Via the Corner, a spot of TV talking head with Eric Cantor.

“Everything is on the table,” he said. “As Republicans, we’re not going to go for tax increases. I think the administration gets that. But we’ve also put everything on the table as far as cuts.”

Imagine what the response would be if this were flipped around. Imagine a Democrat emitting the following, as a bold deficit reduction plan: “Everything is on the table … we’re not going to go for spending cuts. I think the Republicans get that. But we’ve also put everything on the table as far as tax hikes.” No one would say such a Bizarro Norquist thing, of course, because no one on the Democratic side is as bizarre as Norquist. But if someone did, it would be perfectly obvious the person saying this thing wasn’t concerned with deficit reduction. The idea that someone unwilling to contemplate spending cuts – anywhere – was a deficit hawk would not pass the laugh test. As Cantor’s statement does not.

Harshaw Observes Memorial Day

As recorded in this.  (The town was named after a Union veteran who became a politician after the war, holding an office in the Wisconsin state government and running afoul of Robert LaFollette.  No known relation to me.)

Personally, I'd like to express Memorial Day wishes to those who were left behind, the mothers and wives who cooked farewell dinners especially.

Palin and Rolling Thunder

As far as I'm concerned, they deserve each other.  As I've said in the past, Rolling Thunder's claims for participation are incredible.  They've gotten a pass over the years because who could challenge veterans with a good cause?  (Although in my mind, the cause of MIA's in Vietnam was always on a par with the birthers and the truthers,) Both deal more with emotion than with truth. Both claim to be patriotic, but I try to be leary of windbags.