Succesion on the Farm

NYTimes has an op-ed on Trump's trade war, focusing on the emptying of the rural landscape.   His example:

A friend, a small-town Iowa banker who specializes in working with farmers, offered a local example. It’s time for Mom and Dad to retire, get off the farm and move to town. Much of the time, if no heir is interested in continuing the operation, the farm is auctioned to the highest bidder.
This time, one son wanted to take over the farm. But there were other children entitled to their share, so the farm went up for auction.
But now they had to compete with larger farm operations. The son “did the best he could,” said my friend, but a big operation “bid it up more than it was worth, some guy from out of town no one knew — probably from one of the big operations up north. The kid didn’t have a chance. It was heartbreaking.”

It's wrenching, but good planning might have saved the day:  the parents establish a legal entity (not a lawyer but likely a corporation of some ilk) in which all the children share equally, with the son who wants to farm an employee/owner.  Over time, if the operation is profitable the son buys out his siblings, assuming they don't want any link to the farm.

A couple things of note:

• this proposed sequence means converting a "family farm" into a "corporate farm" even though there may not be much change in the day-to-day operation.  Although likely the son who wanted to farm was bearing much of the workload when his parents decided to throw in the towel.
• the "big operation" is unknown, unspecified.  It could well have been a neighbor who has the greater access to capital than the aspiring son has.  It's logical it's a bigger operation: with everything else equal, the bigger operation will have lower per-acre operating costs than the smaller operation
• the succession problem is one reason why the median farmer is old.   

Five Out of Six Elections Lost--Learn From the Past

Joe Scarborough had an op-ed in the Post this morning. He wrote "Republicans would win the White House in six of the next seven presidential elections [after 1964]. I don't think the math works: 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, ?? I count it as five out of six elections (which is even better for his point--that the Republicans recovered fast after the Goldwater disaster).

Naturally, being a nitpicker, I leaped on the statement.  But thinking more broadly, I was reminded of the 1972 election and George McGovern.  To me, and others who supported McGovern such as the Clintons, that was a cautionary lesson.  The lesson: the first rule of politics is you have to win the election.  While I've a good deal of sympathy for many of the proposals now being floated by Democrats, I'll always support that rule.  

USDA in a Best Seller?? Maybe in a Movie?

Improbable as it seems, it's possible, not certain but possible, that USDA will be featured in a best selling book available for its bureaucrats to give as Christmas presents to their family members.

How?

Michael Lewis has a new book coming out in October, described in this NY Times piece.

“The Fifth Risk,” which W.W. Norton will publish in October, paints a dire picture of the chaos and mismanagement in the departments of Energy, Agriculture and Commerce during the transition from President Barack Obama to President Trump. Within these seemingly dull, benign bureaucratic systems, Mr. Lewis encountered devoted public servants struggling with understaffed and neglected agencies while confronting potentially catastrophic risks.

Lewis has a good history of hitting the best seller list.   And several of his books have been made into movies ("The Blind Side", "Money Ball").

I've already added it to my Amazon wish list.

Thoughts on the Trump Bailout

Apparently the Market Facilitation Program payments will be tied to actual production:

• I wonder how the program provisions will interact with other farm programs, particularly the crop insurance policies for whole farm revenue?
• I wonder whether they will apply a payment limitation on the benefits.  Under the legislation authority they're using I don't believe they would have to, but might be criticized if they don't.  I've already seen a query on Twitter about payments to big farmers.
• On the fraud end, it would seem that cross-referencing insurance production data and MCP data would be necessary.  Fortunately FSA and RMA have ironed out all the differences in their databases so that will be a piece of cake (won't it-- :-)

The Post, Farmers, and the Trump Bailout

Via Tamar Haspel on twitter, the Washington Post has a page asking farmers for their input on the Trump bailout program, including contact information so reporters can follow up.  The approach is new to me.  Worth trying IMHO but while the Post's audience may have expanded and diversified with the impact of the internet, I'm not sure how much attention it will attract.

BTW Haspel is maybe the best Post reporter they've had since Ward Sinclair, which is going back a bit. 

Ted Williams

I'm old enough to have followed Ted Williams during the end of his career and then when he was manager of the Washington Nationals. I was a Yankee fan, not the Bosox, though my aunt was an avid follower of that team.

Williams was the greatest hitter ever.  Losing 5 years to the military during his best years means his career statistics are only Hall of Fame worthy, not Greatest of All Time. 

Sport and Video Games

As a followup to my post on the decline of sports in Reston the NYTimes had a piece on "esports" getting together with the IOC.

Haspel on Greenberg's Mistaken Times Op-Ed

Tamar Haspel should be followed by anyone interested in food policy. Here she offers good criticism of a Paul Greenberg op-ed in the Times.

I do want to comment on Greenberg's idea that specialty crops should return to the Midwest from the South and the coast.  The problem I see is that the South and coasts (and Central and South America) have natural advantages for growing fruits and vegetables--specifically their growing seasons are longer and/or opposite to the season in the central U.S.  Transportation, specifically the interstate highway system and air, has obliterated the advantages of growing locally. 

Where I'm at on Trump

The Helsinki summit and its aftermath has caused me to change my perceptions of the Trump administration, somewhat.

For background, let me recall Watergate.  I followed the scandal avidly, being a good liberal Democrat.  But given my preference for Murphy's Law as the best first explanation for mishaps in human society, I gave Nixon a lot of slack for a good while.  It was conceivable that Henry II (who will rid me of this tiresome priest vis a vis Becket) was a good historical reference.  In other words, no  top-down plan being executed, but a messy tangled web of interactions.

This general approach was gradually eroded: John Dean's testimony, the tapes, and the revelation of the tape contents.  So now I believe, that while there were messy elements, Nixon was the impetus and responsible for the coverup,  if not certainly for the initial breakin.

Helsinki caused me to remember this progression and to see the parallels with Trump and Russia.  I don't think there's proof of collusion, but I do think Trump set the climate of an unconventional campaign not concerned with past norms.  As an underdog the campaign was willing to do anything that offered promise--witness Donald Jr's reaction to the offer of dirt.

Without tapes and/or witnesses flipping, I don't think there's a case for impeachment, not a case strong enough to be prosecuted.  The Democrats should only pursue that if it's likely the Senate would convict. 

Thomas Burrell Is Back in the News

Thomas Burrell and his Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association is back in the news. This time the suit is over seeds which didn't perform up to expectations.

I write "back" because he was described, not favorably, in this NYTimes article on the Pigford litigation. An excerpt:

Last October, a court-appointed ombudsman wrote that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people had given money to individuals and organizations in the belief that they were reserving the right to file a claim under the second settlement for black farmers, only to learn later that their names had never been forwarded to the authorities. People familiar with that statement said it was directed in part at Thomas Burrell, a charismatic orator and the head of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, based in Memphis.

Mr. Burrell has traveled the South for years, exhorting black audiences in auditoriums and church halls to file discrimination complaints with his organization’s help, in exchange for a $100 annual membership fee.

In an interview last month, Mr. Burrell said he had dedicated his life to helping black farmers after biased federal loan officers deprived him of his land and ruined his credit. He said his organization had misled no one, and had forwarded the names of all those eligible and willing to file claims.

“I have never advocated anybody file a false claim,” he said.