Not a Good Morning for Farmers in the Post

Two articles in the Washington Post: the toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie is blamed on runoffs of fertilizer and manure; the increase in "intersexed fish" in the Chesapeake over the years is blamed on runoffs of fertilizer and manure.  (An interseced

Is This Really True? Football

"Nowadays if you're 6' 3" and 280 pounds, you're too big for most skill positions and too small to play line."  Via Marginal Revolution, from a graphic showing changes in weight and height over the years.

Duplicative Payments and Management's Use of People and Money

GAO has a report on duplicative payments by USDA farm agencies. Basically, they found a lot of overlap (producers getting benefits from multiple programs) but not a whole lot of duplication (producers getting benefits from multiple programs for the identical cause, such as loss of production). They did recommend data matching in cases where duplication is possible, but RMA and FSA pushed back, arguing lack of resources. 

Bottom line: even though the taxpayer would gain if they identified the duplication (because the cost would be less than the money to be refunded, assuming there was 100 percent collection) it doesn't make sense to managers.  Assuming managers are good and rational, they see a bigger bang for the personnel and IR bucks in other areas.  The answer is to allow the agencies to keep  part of their collections, but that's not something likely to happen.

Harshaw's Corollary of Parkinson's Law

According to Parkinson's Law:

"work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"

Or, as generalized since Mr. Parkinson first described it,

"The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource"

In this light, I've Harshaw's corollary: 

 "books expand to overfill available bookshelves"

Of course, this is time-limited--books are a vanishing breed. 

Harshaw's Rule of Appropriations

Based on earmarks, block grants, and general experience, I venture to say:

"the more general the appropriation, the more likely to be; the more specific the appropriation the safer from cuts"*

* unless and until the sole Congressional sponsor leaves Congress.

For example, if Congress inserts a particular line item to buy a weapon, a plane or tank, that's pretty immune from being cut; if they appropriate $10 billion for training, that's going to be cut.

The American Food Is Meat

America may or may not have been born a Christian nation, but it was surely born a meat-eating nation.  Consider this quote from a German who lived in Pennsylvania around 1750:

Even in the humblest and poorest houses in this country there is no meal without meat, and no one eats the bread without butter or cheese

It's from a short book he wrote upon returning to Germany. Here's some highlights

The "Halo" Effect

Some recent research found that umpires give pitchers who've been named to one or more All Star teams a bigger strike zone than journeymen.  I seem to recall some other research which backed the conventional wisdom: in the NBA the big names, the all-stars, get the breaks on referee's calls--charging, blocking, traveling, etc.

Let's call this the "halo effect".  I wonder whether it's the converse of racism? The great and good can do no wrong, the small and mean can do no right?  When actually living is just putting one foot after another, sometimes misstepping, sometimes not.

A Reality Check for the Food Movement?

Mark Bittman says French cuisine has gone to les chiens.  Years ago some French farmer achieved fame by attacking a McDonalds.  And French government policy has been to subsidize the smaller farmer. The fact that these measures don't seem to have worked should tell the food movement something about the difficulty of moving beyond a niche catering to the better off.  Should but won't.

How Soon We Forget, Even Ag Ec Profs

From Farm Policy, discussing the ending of direct payments:

“‘The fundamental political problem that direct payments ran into is a question of fairness,’ said Carl Zulauf, an agricultural economist at Ohio State University. ‘Is it fair farmers were receiving these payments when income was at record or near-record levels? We as a country decided that was not something we felt comfortable with.’”

The article [in the Toledo Blade] stated that, “Direct payments were included in the 1996 Farm Bill as a temporary safeguard against bad years, but eventually became permanent. The subsidies drew heavy fire recently as farm income rose to record levels. Mr. Zulauf said as long as farmers met the basic qualifications, direct payments were made regardless of need. In the new system, payments will only be made when certain market conditions exist — either revenue declines or low market prices for grain and other commodities.

Of course, as everyone knows, at least those of a certain age, direct payments replaced deficiency payments in 1996 as the Republicans' means of phasing out farm programs, except it didn't work.

Our Great Democratic ex-President

Jimmy Carter and his center have, with others, almost eradicated guinea worm.

Note that education and clean water were the keys.