My Thoughts on the "Greatest Generation"

A reply to a Wendell Pierce tweet:

Wendell Pierce‏Verified account @WendellPierce 2h2 hours ago

As the media reflects on the passing of the Greatest Generation, they should remember that generation was flawed. It allowed segregation &watched Americans kill others trying to exercise their right to vote.Greatness was their ability to change & live up to their professed values

21 replies120 retweets658 likes

"Bill Harshaw

‏ @BillHarshaw 1h1 hour ago

Replying to @WendellPierce

Flawed, as every generation is flawed: failing to fully correct evils they knew of, and failing to recognize clearly evils their descendants see all too clearly.

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As you can tell, I'm ambivalent, as usual, particularly about making moral judgments on the past.  We're all stuck with the history we inherit.  The best we can expect of anyone, whether individual, generation, or nation, is to do better than their predecessors.

Nieces and Nephews in Farming?

AEI notes the House Ag chair is pushing to allow nieces and nephews to be "persons' for payment limitation purposes:

"In the midst of this week’s negotiations over the farm bill, House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) is pushing to remove any limits on subsidy payments to farms through what has become known as his “nieces and nephews” provision. This provision would increase the number of people eligible to receive up to $125,000 in subsidy payments under one of two major income transfer programs, whether the people in question really participate in the farm business or not.* * *Currently, only two people per each farm business can be eligible for these programs — called Price Loss Coverage and Agricultural Risk Coverage — capping total payments to a farm business to $250,000. However, the “nephews and nieces” provision proposed by the current chair of the House Committee on Agriculture would substantially increase the number of people eligible for a payment. For example, an agribusiness owner with four “nieces and nephews” described as “actively engaged in farming,” because they participate in an annual earning’s conference call, would be allowed to classify those four people as “actively engaged” because of that call. The owners would then be able to increase the subsidy paid to the farm business up to a limit of $1.5 million a year.

Did the Elite Used To Believe in Service?

The current assessments of George H.W. Bush's life often include a statement to the effect that in the past the elite, as exemplified by Bush,, used to believe in service to the nation, in noblesse oblige.  Such statements seem to be accepted unthinkingly, without question.

I'm not so sure there's that much difference between now and the past.  When you look at the business elite, the big shots with the big bucks, there seems to be a mixture of plutocracy and service. For every Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie Foundation created decades ago you can match similar efforts by Gates and Buffett.

Charlie Wilson famously said what's good for the U.S. is good for General Motors, and vice versa.  Our current elite knows better to say that, but I suspect they think it.  Wilson headed DOD under Ike.  Trump has had his own set of rich men, members of the elite albeit rather second level, serving in his administration.

My bottom line is that there's always been a mixture of motivations for public service: some people want new fields to explore (think Sen. Corker), some people want a career in politics moving in and out of government depending on which party is in control, some just fall into it.

[Update:  Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, & Money visits the grave of Joseph Choate, touching on some of the good and bad aspects of the old-time elite beliefs.  Choate's brother founded the Choate private school, now Choate-Rosemary Hall, attended by many elite, including JFK. ]

Catching Up With Sharon Astyk

Years ago I followed the blog of Sharon Astyk.  She was an interesting writer, an environmentalist who pushed peak oil and locavore ideas.  She and her husband and children lived on a small farm where she did her canning, writing books, and held classes on her ideas. I didn't agree with her ideas but found her persona appealing.

Time passed and she gradually dropped the blog and pushing her ideas and devoted more time and energy to foster children.  (I don't know if she ever dealt with the failure of her predictions to eventuate.)

The other day I googled her and found this article: the Astyks have left the farm for an urban setting, taking advantage of a city for rearing foster children with special needs.

Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Business Center

Hadn't seen this before this public notice of redelegations of authority by the secretary of USDA.  Turns out I'm way way late to the game.

This is what is included in the 2019FY budget for the center.

This is the explanation of the center:

"The Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Business Center is a centralized operations office within the FPAC mission area and headed by the Chief Operating Officer (COO), who is also the Executive Vice President of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). The FPAC Business Center is responsible for financial management, budgeting, human resources, information technology, acquisitions/procurement, customer experience, internal controls, risk management, strategic and annual planning, and other similar activities for the FPAC mission area and its component agencies, including the Farm Service Agency (FSA), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Risk Management Agency (RMA). The FPAC Business Center ensures that systems, policies, procedures, and practices are developed that provide a consistent enterprise-wide view to effectively and efficiently deliver programs to FPAC customers, including farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners."

It sounds very much like Sec. Glickman's proposal in the late 1990's, a proposal which was killed in Congress.

According to this article on the creation of FPAC from February Bob Stephenson is the head and the initiation of the center is Oct 1.

One of the complications in implementing this is the mixed legal status of NRCS--it's a federal agency working with the Soil and Water Conservations Districts which are established by state law and get funding from states and which have their own organization to lobby Congress.

Seeing Into the Future--Democratic House-Senate Split

Perry Bacon at Fivethirtyeight has a piece on the growth of the progressive wing of the House Democratic party.  While the Blue Dogs have revived a bit, the progressives were strengthened much more by the results of 2018.  This got me to thinking, always dangerous.

Pelosi will be the Speaker, and she'll have to work to keep her caucus united.  Meanwhile, over on the Senate side McConnell will lead a slightly stronger Republican party, which is also more conservative, losing Flake and what's his face from Nevada.  And Schumer's Democrats are facing a tough road in the 2020 elections.  He'll want to protect his incumbents and try to lay the groundwork to challenge the vulnerable Republicans in 2020.

All this reflects the increasing division of the country, as shown in our elections:  the red States went a little redder and the blue and purple areas went more blue, or in institutional terms, the Senate goes conservative and the House goes liberal.

So Pelosi, Schumer, and McConnell will be deeply challenged to get legislation passed, particularly the Dems.

55+ years ago a government professor of mine named Theodore J. Lowi theorized, perhaps not originally with him, that changes in parties didn't happen by the out-party changing their policies but by the in-party dividing and losing focus.  Not sure how that theory stands up to today's politics.

[updated to add second link]

Diversity at the Founding

J. L. Bell in Boston 1776 discusses the deliberations which led to the Great Seal (and Franklin's turkey).  The various proposals included this one, from a Swiss artist who was consulted by the Continental Congress:

 Du Simitière:

For the Seal he proposes. The Arms of the several Nations from whence America has been peopled, as English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, German &c. each in a Shield. On one side of them Liberty, with her Pileus, on the other a Rifler, in his Uniform, with his Rifled Gun in one Hand, and his Tomahauk, in the other. This Dress and these Troops with this Kind of Armour, being peculiar to America…

The Americans involved seem to have favored classical themes and references, but the outsider was struck by our diversity.

USDA Civil Rights Post

The president's nominee to be assistant secretary for civil right faced her Senate Ag committee hearing.

She was head of the EEO office in 1987-90.  I wonder if she was asked about the Pigford suits and settlements at all? 

Cargo Trikes

Who knew that "cargo trikes" are a thing?   I surely didn't, but when you google the phrase there are a number of models to choose from.

What is a "cargo trike"--it's a tricycle with a cargo platform/box behind the driver/pedaler, sometimes with battery assist.

Reminds me of the 3-wheeler motorcycle based buses in Vietnam in the 1960's--could handle 6 people.

Apparently these vehicles are finding a place elsewhere in the world to deliver things in urban areas. There's probably a dichotomy: some would be in areas like New Delhi where the congestion is  great.  The others might be in Europe to displace gas/diesel vehicles from downtown areas, replacing polluting engines with human (mostly) power.

I wonder--is this an example of innovation and technology creating new jobs which don't require advanced education?

Verizon Fios, Ricky Jay, and Mystery Writers

Been having problems which may link to our router, furnished by Verizon as part of our FIOS plan.  So I spent much of the afternoon chatting with a saleswoman, trying to explain that we were happy with our current service (and reconciled to the price) but needed a new router.  She was persistent in trying to upgrade us in different ways. 

It was an interesting experience, which led me to think about information asymmetry.  What I experienced today wasn't exactly an asymmetry in information.  Verizon lists all their options for services, equipment, etc. and the costs for each on their website.  So in theory I had the information I needed available to me. What I didn't have was the time, patience, maybe the brainpower, and definitely the self-confidence to sort through the options and make my decisions. 

Ricky Jay died, and the papers are running his obits.  If I understand magic, which I don't, in theory the audience has the information to see through the act. But the magician gives us so much information, much of it misleading, that we are totally confused.

Mystery writers, at least the classic ones, give the reader all the clues needed to determine "who done it", but so artfully, included with so much dross, most readers will be surprised in the end.

What I'm saying is there's some underlying commonality among the three scenarios.  There's two parties, and one party has the advantage in the relationship because they control how the relationship is structured, particularly by providing a surplus of "information".