BBC America: No Attention Span At All

Watching the BBC's news at 5:50--interviewing some Brit who's new to American political conventions.  He said, compared to Europe, the rapid-fire Republican convention is made for people with no attention span at all.

Post-Election Prediction

Had a discussion this morning about what will happen after a Romney victory in November.  My interlocutor suggested he would repeal ACA immediately.  This is my response, for what it's worth:

Repeal the health plan root and branch? No. The fiscal cliff will absorb their time and energy. Meanwhile they'll figure out how to handle the good parts, repeal the bad, and still pay for everything. Unless they go the constitutional option on the filibuster, they've got to squeeze ACA repeal into reconciliation, which is going to be difficult. As for the huge tax cuts, no way. They'll be doing good in the fiscal cliff negotiations to extend the Bush cuts, while stopping the FICA cuts. Redoing the tax system as Romney/Ryan propose will take a couple years. And it won't work as drafted--the itemized deductions are too woven into our society. Think of Obama: he promised healthcare and no mandates and climate change legislation and immigration, he got 1 of the 3 with very big changes and he had a big win and a big Senate majority. Romney won't have either, maybe a small Senate majority.

A couple more comments: there's been a to and fro between Marty Feldstein and other Republican economists and Brad DeLong and some Dem-leaning economists about whether the Romney tax plan is possible.  The Tax Policy Institute said it wasn't, Feldstein says it is, DeLong says Feldstein failed elementary math.  IMHO it's all beside the point.  To make it work (i.e., lower tax rates and broaden base) you've got to do what Reagan and Rostenkowski failed to do in 1986, which is to end the deductibility of state and local taxes and mortgage interest.  The problem they had, and the problem Romney will have, is all the realtors in the country, who are very much Republican small business types, support interest deductibility. And all the people who pay high state and local taxes in states which rely on income and property taxes, who again are very much Republican types, support tax deductibility.

My other comment relates to foreign affairs: assume Israel's not bluffing, and Romney's serious about 110 percent support of Israel, we may be seeing a new Middle East war in the first 100  days.  (Of course Obama can't point this out, because he's only 105 percent supportive of Israel.)

We'll see how accurate my predictions are in the 200 days to come.

Do It Right the First Time

My rule is you never do it right the first time (except for landing on the moon). 

Here's further evidence--even when eating leaves is ingrained in your genes you can't do it right.

Meritocracy in Government

Ta-Nehesi Coates blogs about the Chris Hayes book on meritocracy, which I have to read sometime.  I gather part of the thesis is the growth of exams at every stage along the line of bringing up kids--NYC parents even have their pre-K kids tested because getting into the right nursery school leads to the right k-6 school, and so on and so on.  And Hayes says meritocracies become oligarchies--the children of meritocrats become good on tests themselves.

As I commented, the rise of the civil service in 1883 meant a diminishing of the influence of politics, patronage, and fraud, which was mostly good. And the military is pretty meritocratic: everyone starts as an E-1 or O-1, except maybe lawyers, doctors, and ministers. 

Charitable Giving

The state of Utah gives over 10 percent of income to charity.  That's from this interactive website which allows you to search down to ZIP code.

Richest Adherents of Religion

It seems that adherents of Judaism tend to have the most money, but adherents of Hinduism are close behingd. 

A Famous Fed

Tom Shoop at Government Executive notes Neil Armstrong was a federal employee.  I won't claim him as a bureaucrat, though.

Why Do Farmers Deserve Federal Help?

My title is a question which is often asked, particularly by fiscal conservatives and free market types. Why help farmers when we don't help restaurants or dry cleaners or other small businesses which fail.

The simple answer is: they don't deserve Federal help..

But simple is often wrong.

The heart tugging answer is: family farms are the cornerstone of the country.

But that's easy emotion, based on an agrarian myth which doesn't work these days.While most field crops are still grown on family farms, even though the family may be a corporation or partnership, those families are spread rather thinly over the landscape, so rural churches and organizations are at best on life support.  See Prof. Putnam's Bowling Alone.

The historical answer is: because they used to have lots of political power and they still have enough to get legislation passed.

But that answer isn't one of principle, it's one of power: farmers deserve help because they're powerful enough to get it.

So is there an answer which is principled, or at least plausibly principled?

Yes, I think so.  You start with the idea that we're one nation, one society, and part of that means we care for each other.  You add in the contrary principle that we believe in freedom and the market, so people should stand on their own two feet.  The free market principle says we shouldn't keep restaurants from failing (which they do at very high rates) because their success or failure is market-driven.  There are exceptions, of course: when the oil well blew out in the Gulf, BP and we compensated the businesses hurt by the oil spill.  When a hurricane comes through, FEMA will help to rebuild.  Those exceptions serve to clarify the rule: when success or failure is due to the efforts of the individual operating within the constraints of the free market, then no federal help is warranted. So if the failure is from exogenous causes, events outside the system, then one can argue for federal aid. Hence the long history of disaster aid, which gradually has consolidated into crop insuance.

Going further, I can argue for help based on the structure of the market system in which farmers find themselves, or at least found themselves in the past.  As commodity producers with no power to set prices, they were at the mercy of the market.  (Airlines are also commodity producers with no power to set prices individually, but they're so few of them they can signal each other when they're ready to raise prices.  Even so, I understand over its history the airline industry has never made a net profit.) Consequently it was justified for the government to use its power to permit cartels to be formed, as in the "marketing orders" for various fruits and vegetables and the classical production adjustment programs of the last century.

For the last argument, I can question whether, with modern means of information and marketing, hedging the risks, government intervention is still required.  It is true, I think, a disaster like this year's drought will cause oscillations in the supply/demand for field crops next year.

The Northern Sea Route and Global Warming

This article from Iceland reports the arrival of the Chinese icebreaker Xuelong which took the "Northern Sea Route" from China--i.e. going through the Arctic Ocean across the top of Russia.

Searching on "Northern Sea Route" gets this report: "Cargo shipping along the Northern Sea Route is expected to double this year. Nordic Bulk Carriers plan to transport 6-8 shipments of ore from Murmansk to China."

Farmers: Why Vote for Obama?

Perhaps two reasons: to punish Republicans in the House for not moving the farm bill and because Obama seems more favorable to immigration of farm workers than the Republicans.

Not that I'm predicting any Obama victories because of this, though Harry Truman won in part because of farmer opposition to the Republican farm policy proposals.