In Defense of Bureaucracy

The Post has a new history blog, with one of its posts defending bureaucracy.  I think it's a sign of the popularity of the subject that it has no comments.

The Hostas and Caladiums With No Leaves

There's always a tradeoff.

What's the trade off for viewing deer from your living room window?

Having hostas and caladiums with no leaves. :-(

Interesting the way different groups of hostas have been more or less attractive to the deer.  While the deer got most of the hosta leaves in June, they just got the caladium leaves last night.

What Next: Numbered Eggs

This NYTimes article is on a problem with tainted eggs in Europe (pesticide contaminated egg-washing solution).  Among the steps taken:

The Dutch consumer safety authority has published a guide on identifying the tainted eggs through a 10-digit serial number stamped on the shells.

 Unfortunately I was never much good at languages so I can't read the Dutch.  I can sort of see how, if we have machinery which can roll a sticker onto an orange or apple we could also develop machinery which might print a number on the egg with ink that wouldn't penetrate the shell.  Presumably the number is a farm number, not the number of the hen.

The Foxes From My Window

Blogged earlier about the deer from my living room window. We also have foxes, as of today. We've seen single foxes occasionally during the past few years, but today is the first time I've seen three. A rainy day, explaining the drops on the window.

New Tech Shorts Panhandlers

The move to the cashless society means it's a harder life for panhandlers, according to a Post article.

Unfortunately, the people earliest to adopt new tech and move to cashless apps are the people who were most likely in the past to give to panhandlers.  (That's me, not the Post, but it's true, at least in the sense that panhandlers are most likely in urban office areas, reflecting the density of traffic not necessarily the generosity of the individuals.)

An interesting note--sometimes giver and panhandler form social bonds, that's the Post.

Dairy in NZ and US

That Forbes article I referenced earlier? Turns out it's wrong--NZ has experienced a significant decline in farm numbers under their current free-market regime.  See this graph.

I hasten to add that the decline in the U.S. has been more severe over a longer time.  As this Congressional Research Service report summarizes:

"Increased dairy cow output and advances in dairy farm technology and management have led to a sharp reduction in the number of dairy farms (Figure 3). Annual losses averaged 96,000 operations in the late 1960s and 37,000 in the 1970s. In recent years, the annual drop in dairy farm operations has slowed to about 2,000 to 5,000 farms per year. Operations totaled 65,000 on December 31, 2009."

I've not really looked at the comparative size of the dairy farms in the two countries.  In both there's been consolidation, but I don't have the data on how much and the productivity of cows.  It's worth noting that in NZ the total number of cows has increased slightly; in the U.S. the number has decreased by a lot. The dairy industry in the U.S. sells in the domestic market while in NZ they export. I'm sure that makes a difference in discussing dairy support programs, but I don't know how.

8 Years for Adoption of New Technologies

From a review on H-Net:  "After noting the first military use of aircraft in the Italian-Turkish War of 1911..."

Americans Won't Do This Work?

That's the common refrain among business owners and farmers, ranging from Trump's Mar-a-Lago operation to a medium size dairy operation.  Liberals like me tend to buy the statement, because we're usually in favor of immigration, so the statement operates as justification. 

When you think about it, though, it's unusual for liberals to trust Trump or other business owners.  :-)

Why should we think the statement is true, why are immigrants willing to work off-hours and the worst jobs?  I think one reason is found in reference group theory, which is the sociologist's jargon for saying "everything is relative".  Immigrants compare their work and working conditions in the U.S. with what they faced in their home country and find it not so bad.  The American-born compare the same jobs with other jobs, and know they're the worst. 

There's also the relativity of compensation: immigrants will find that the salary and possibly fringe benefits far exceed that of their origin country.  I suspect there's a human tendency to focus on the rewards and not the cost of living.  The American-born will find the salary toward the bottom of the scale. 

There's also the standard of living: an immigrant can see  crowded living conditions in a less-desirable neighborhood as still being a step up from home.  The American-born would likely find the conditions among which some immigrants live as not desirable.

And finally there's the time frame:  the American-born looks at the less desirable job as a dead-ender. The immigrant can view it as a step up for the future, whether it's moving from dishwasher to prep work to sous-chef or simply saving money to buy goods to take back home (see Sam Quinones "Dreamland").

Among those who want to reduce immigration the standard reply to the statement is: "raise your pay."
I think that's wrong, pay being only one of the factors which makes a bad job acceptable to an immigrant.  My advice to those who would reduce immigration is this: look to the military.

The military is a case where they offer bad jobs (I'm talking basic training, which is likely worse than any normal "bad job") and attract people to them.  An E-1 gets about $17,000 a year, before taxes.  How do they attract people?  Basically it's the promotion and the fringe benefits, the retirement and education benefits.  So immigration restrictionists should come up with a program where the government provides good benefits and the possibility of advancement to the crap jobs.  Tell the high school drop out, spend x months doing this job and you'll earn tuition for college, have health insurance, etc. etc.    Is that proposal naive?  Perhaps, but I'd like to see it tried.

USDA Statistics Suck

You'd think having spent my career in USDA I'd have a good grasp of how to navigate the USDA statistics.

You'd be wrong.  Perhaps the problem is increasing senility.  I prefer to believe the problem is that USDA's statistical apparatus is stuck in the middle of the last century, pre-computer.

What's most recently teed me off is dairy (see my previous post).  I'm looking for a relatively simple set of figures: the historical number of dairy farms, 190xx to present; the number of cows, and total production for the same period.  Then I could match trends to the New Zealand figures.

USDA has two main statistical agencies: NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) and ERS (Economic Research Service).  In addition, if you're looking for figures on foreign ag, FAS (Foreign Agricultural Service) might come into play.  If you're looking for some figures on farm programs, FSA comes into play.

Problem is I've yet to figure out how to get these figures.  The NASS data seems tied to censuses. The best I've done is this ERS document

I think the basic problem is the statistical series have developed in close conjunction with users in the colleges and industry, so satisfying the needs of John Doe Public was a low priority.  Back in the days of paper, before the internet, people wouldn't be coming to the agencies just to satisfy their curiosity.

Sharecropping and Sharemilking

I read a Forbes article suggesting the end to farm programs, pointing to New Zealand as an example of that policy.  One of the effects was the claim: "The effects? New Zealand retained 99 percent of its farms."  That raised my contrarian hackles.  In trying to find substantiation I ran across this interesting concept: "sharemilking".  The farmer owns and milks the cows, and moves them from one farm to another on "Gypsy Day".

I assume by separating land ownership and cow ownership the capital requirements are lowered.  I haven't heard of this before, but I suspect there may be such arrangements in the U.S., particularly as part of a succession plan.

As for the Forbes article, while it claims support from an "academic study", in fact the article, while by an academic, is more of a blog post; itself supported by only one article.  I'm suspending judgment on the issue--perhaps I'll get the ambition to do more research.