What's Wrong with the IG's and GAO?

That's the question I take away from reading Megan McArdle's post on the IG report on the Obamacare website software fiasco.

She says:

You can take this report as a searing indictment of the agency and its contracting personnel. I took something rather different away from reading it:

1. The architects of the law were incredibly naïve.
2. Federal contracting rules are crazy.

I agree with her assessment, but I'd argue that both things reflect the mindset of inspectors general and GAO. They like to see the rules, the paper documents, and to compare what happens to what's on paper.  In many years of looking at GAO reports on USDA/FSA activities I don't remember much direct criticism of political appointees or of Congress. IMHO rhose are more often the source of problems than the career bureaucrats.  (Of course, I'd say that, and of course the auditors aren't going to point the finger at the political types.)

Cage-Free Eggs and the End of the Nest Egg

McDonald's made news by promising to move to cage-free eggs within 10 years.

I did a Google image search and I'm damned if I can see any eggs or nests, just a bunch of happy hens.   But I want to know--where are the eggs?

In my youth we started the chicks in brooder houses, gradually allowing them to free range. When the pullets started laying they'd usually lay in the corners of the brooder houses, but not always.  They seemed to follow the leader--sometimes you'd find a nest along the fence row where some had laid several eggs.

Once we cleared the old hens out, and cleaned the hen house, we'd move the best pullets into the house.  There they had a bank of nests--3 or 4 rows high, with a walkway behind the nest.  The front was hinged, so you could easily access the nest.  The nest itself would have a "nestegg", meant to signal to the hen that this is where to lay the egg.  It usually worked--very occasionally a hen would lay an egg in a corner of the area.

Found this Youtube video, from a manufacturer of colony cages, approved by the EU.

It appears from the last link that the hens lay their eggs on the wire bottom of the cage, periodically a bar riding on top of the wire moves the eggs to a collection conveyor belt at the front of the cage, and the conveyor belt conveys the eggs to the processing area.  Apparently nesteggs aren't essential.

I wonder--the pictures I've seen have been brown eggs. Brown eggs are prettier than white, though the nutrition is about equal. So are the pictures just showing pretty eggs, or have white Leghorn hens, the breed we raised, become unpopular?

Sherrod Settles Lawsuit

According to this post at The Rural Blog.

The Paradox of Median Income

From the White House Blog, median income for family households rose in 2014, median income for nonfamily households rose in 2014, and median income for all households fell in 2014.

True fact.


How is that possible?  It's the Simpson paradox. 

I wonder how much of the stagnation in median household income over the past years is accounted for by the increase in nonfamily households?

Drezner on Surgeons

"I love my father [a surgeon] dearly, but if he ever were appointed czar, I would have no choice but to lead the partisan resistance."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/16/ben-carson-miracle-surgeon/

Historical Ironies: War on Poverty and the South

As I remember the War on Poverty, it started with people (like Robert Kennedy and LBJ) paying attention to West Virginia and Mississippi,  finding examples of extreme hunger among the rural poor and the elderly.  Then there was a famous book on the subject, was it called Poverty in America--no, it was "The Other America" by Michael Harrington.

So LBJ picked up the War on Poverty as part of his Great Society.  Medicaid and Medicare were part of it, probably the most enduring part, but food stamps, which had been revived as a pilot program under Kennedy also got expanded.

LBJ famously said that the Civil Rights Aid had delivered the South to the Republicans. (A quote which may be too good to be true* but certainly represents reasonable fears at the time.)

What I want to note is that the results of the War on Poverty, plus other factors, like spending money on defense and space, the expansion of air conditioning, etc. have been good for the South.  This map shows that the biggest share of improvements in poverty since 1960 has been in the South.  Perhaps most important for the South has been the reduction of the civil rights issue: race relations are no longer a Southern problem, they're a national problem.

Sequestration Will Hit Farm Program Payments

According to UofIll extension, sequestration may reduce payments by around 7 percent.

Frankly I'm surprised sequestration has lasted this long.  Gramm-Rudman-Hollings in the 1980's lasted for about 3 years, but only really bit one year--like 4.6 percent reductions.  

RIP: Wheat in Saudi Arabia

According to this Vox piece, Saudi Arabia has gone from the sixth largest exporter of wheat to zero bushels, period, in 30 years or so.

Funny Paragraph for Bears

Joel Achenbach on Yosemite and advice given on handling bears [i.e, walk in groups of three]

Except this is all absurd. For starters, three is not a natural human grouping. Two is a natural human grouping. Maybe you could persuade a child to be the third in your party, but I’m not sure how that makes sense in Grizzly Country. Unless the child was a kind of designated offering to the monster.

As a student of John McPhee, Joel writes well and can be funny, though this also proves that liberals love the country.

German Countryside Versus US

From a Vox/Grist piece on high speed rail:

"On Amtrak’s Northeast corridor route, you can spend seven hours traveling from Boston to Washington, DC, without ever passing a farm. Each city’s suburbs bleed into the next. When leaving Berlin, on the other hand, in less than half an hour you’re whisked from the capital’s center to cornfields..."