Bureaucrats Can Please

Prof. Frank writes in the NYTimes in praise of the Ithaca, NY DMV office.

Why Bureaucrats Don't Like Contractors

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries posts about a scandal at Aerospace Corp. Seems they employed on a government contract a Phd from Oxford who really had only a high school diploma, and who didn't work the hours he claimed.  Aerospace didn't have any incentive to police him because they were charging the government more than they were paying the supposed engineer.

$20000 an Acre

Is there anyone who doesn't think this is a bubble? (Someone paid $20,000 an acre for Iowa farmland.) I'll admit it's possible that the bubble's bursting won't be like the early 1980's, but still.  The Kansas City FRB weighs in.

Atlantic on Crop Programs

Gabriel Silverman has an article on the rise of crop insurance in the Atlantic.  I think this is part of the process of educating the chattering classes on this development.  Of course, based on past experience there will still be lots of misinformation floating around. (Like the idea the government subsidizes tobacco. )

Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City

I have this picture from 1966/7 in the suburbs of Saigon.

I

Brad Plumer has a lunch break video of modern day Ho Chi Minh city.

Food Shortages in the U.S.?

Farm Policy carried this quote:

“‘Because we are a nation that hasn’t really experienced food shortages in recent memory, folks forget the role that [farmers] play on a lot of different levels,’ said Mike Torrey, executive vice president of Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau, a lobbying group for the crop insurance industry.”

Got me wondering: when was the last time we had food scarcity in the U.S.? I mean something serious, not just a price spike.  I don't think ever, though maybe back in 1816, when I remember it was the year without a summer. (My memory for long ago times is good.)

My bottom line: the controlling factor is our land and climate.  Whether we have 9 million 40 acre farms or 90,000 4,000 acre farms we're going to have enough food, Mother Nature willing. I think farm programs and crop insurance work mostly to modify the churn, the "creative destruction" which is found in the farm economy.  Despite all the government interventions, at bottom crops are commodities produced and sold in relatively free markets where usually the buyers have lots more market power than the sellers.

Using Measurements on Social Media

This week's report: USDA had 52,122 followers, 1 inquiry, 1 answer. 

I very much like the idea of measuring what you're trying to do. Of course, extending myself to blogging seems have been a bridge just far enough, going to Facebook or Twitter is something I just haven't done.  With no first hand experience, it follow that I'm in a poor position to give advice, not that that stops me.

I'm not sure what Twitter can do for USDA, but it seems to me the metric above suggests trying something different.  If I were dictator for a day, maybe I'd offer a $5000 prize for the county employee who made the most innovative use of Twitter for FSA operations over the course of a year.  Not sure how it would be measured, but I'm sure someone could figure it out.

Doctor: What Would You Choose To Do for Yourself?

According to this post (hat tip Marginal Revolution), doctors don't choose heroic measures at the end of life. I note VA has just announced a database for advance health directives.  That's something I really should do.
[updated with the registry link]

First We Kill All the Lawyers; and Make the World Happier

In two ways: the rest of us have no lawyers to deal with and we lose a bunch of people who are so depressed they bring down the happiness curve for the rest of us. From here--the logic of the research is that lawyers are pessimists, always worrying about what could go wrong.

80,000 Square Yards

The headline on the Treehugger post is: "

Paris to Plant 80,000 Square Yards of Green Roofs and Rooftop Gardens by 2020

That converts to 16.528 acres, which might could provide food for maybe, oh I don't know, 100? gai Parisiennes?

(To give them their due, the actual article doesn't talk about food, but insulation.  But this is a prime example of how to lie with statistics; of course if they'd used square feet the figure would be even more impressive.)