The Petty Frustrations of Old Age

What's bad about getting older:

• finding that after typing a few letters, you didn't get your fingers on the right keys, so "this types as " yjod yu[rd sd "
• it takes seconds to turn the newspaper pages, so you turn from page 2 to page 6.

Your temper gets shorter so you're more enraged by the petty than you should be.

On Assimilation of Immigrants

Tom Brokaw got himself in trouble this weekend by comments on immigration.

When people talk about assimilation of immigrants, I think of two things:

• examples of immigrants to America who have not "assimilated", at least if defined as speaking English and abandoning their language of origin:  the Pennsylvania "Dutch", aka Amish and some related communities, and some Hasidic Jewish communities, along with Native American tribes, Cajuns (I think), etc.  
• Switzerland.  A long time democracy with at least  3 definite language communities.

So my message is relax:  have faith in American soft power and its ability slowly to permeate the norms of people living here, as well as those living elsewhere.

Rules and Regulations: Ms Rao

The Times had an article on the Trump administration problems with the Administrative Procedure Act.  It seems the courts have dinged the administration a number of times for not following the act, not providing for notice and opportunities for public comment on policy changes and not doing good enough analysis of policy alternatives to support the decision.

I didn't have a great regard for the act during my bureaucratic days--it was a pain.  A pain in particular because mostly there was no one to present an opposing view.  Most "regulatory" agencies have two or more sides interested in their decisions: should the agency be strict or lenient in writing regulations.  But ASCS/FSA was giving out money.  While there were groups like CATO or AEI who disputed the whole basis of many/most of the farm programs, they didn't usually involve themselves in the regulations, just trying to make their case to Congress and the administration.  There were issues: most notably payment limitation and sodbuster/swampbuster/conservation compliance where you'd find significant interest, but even those didn't compare to the hot issues before the regulatory agencies.

One thing the article misses is the role of OMB.  Basically the writer says Trump administration appointees to agencies were either ignorant of the requirements of the APA or rushed their process.  That's true enough, but OMB does review regulations through its OIRA. Who is the head of the office? Neomi Rao  Who is Ms Rao--the Trump nominee to sit on the DC Circuit Court, the court which reviews challenges to agency actions.

McConnell's Gift to KY Farmers: Hemp Price Support Loans to Follow?

Mitch McConnell will face the electorate in 2020.  Kentucky has announced 1000+ farmers have been given licenses to grow hemp. That might help Mitch in his primary in 2020 since he's closely identified with getting the approval for hemp. But the farmers are planning to grow 42,000 acres of hemp, which strikes me as possibly threatening a hemp surplus. (To compare, KY may have about 4,000 tobacco farmers and something under 100,000 acres of tobacco.)

(I don't know, but I don't think anyone else does either.  We don't know how big the demand will be, how well the farmers will do in growing hemp, how good the processing facilities will be. The Rural Blog post I link to mentions CBD oil.  I had the impression that CBD oil came from marijuana, not hemp.  I found this assertion though: ">BD is one of 60 chemicals known as cannabinoids that are specific to cannabis plants. The CBD that we use in our CBD hemp oil tinctures is made from industrial hemp, a non-psychoactive derivative of cannabis that contains insignificant traces of THC. Industrial hemp products are legal nationwide and contain less than 0.3% THC.")

So I wonder how long it will be before hemp farmers find the need for and the political clout to get price support loans incorporated in farm legislation?

20 Years of Amazon

Was just logged into my Amazon account and noticed it says I've been a customer since 1998.  The company was founded in 1994, so I was a relatively early customer, but nothing notable.

I remember reading investment advice from some guru of the time.  Essentially he said one way to choose stocks was to buy those you used.  That would have been good advice.  I could have had a fortune now had I invested in Amazon when my first purchase was satisfactory.

But I didn't, never have invested in it, just paid it a bunch of money over the years.

As you get older you know not to dwell on opportunities you missed.  That's life.

FSA Employees Turn Out To Be Essential?

USDA has decided to recall 9500 FSA employees beginning Jan 24 to provide services.  Chris Clayton reported this on twitter and here's an article.

Apparently all field offices will open (not clear on DC and KCMO) and will handle most, but not all, program activities, including MFP applications, the deadline for which has been extended. 

The Interplay of Tech and Behavior

Peter Moskos has an interesting post at his blog.  In New York City if a policeman answers a 911 call for a person who's waiting for an ambulance she has to  enter the person's data into her phone which results in a check of the database for outstanding warrants.  Moskos argues that's wrong and bad: people will associate EMTs with law enforcement and avoid calling for help.

Towards the end he notes a separate issue--in Baltimore every time the police stopped someone, they ran a check for outstanding warrants.  In NYC, they don't.  Moskos traces the difference to a difference in technology: apparently in NYC multiple precincts share a radio band; in Baltimore each precinct has its own band.  So, as an economist would predict, there's rationing of a scarce resource in NYC but not in Baltimore.

Interpreting Human Facial Expressions

I may have written about this before.

Humans are very good at reading other people.  At least scientists say we are, and we're eager to believe it.

For years I was sure that when I grinned, it was rather like Hugh Grant's smile: bashful and attractive, expressing good feelings.

Then I went to therapy.  Early on my therapist blew away my illusions: my smile came across as unpleasantly supercilious.  I came to realize that underlying my smile was nervous tension about how the social interaction.  At least some of the therapy group were unable identify the insecurity beneath the expression.

Bottom line: I don't know how common it is to have such a disjunction between what a person is feeling and what people perceive.

Watergate Reporting and Now

Josh Marshall at TPM has, I believe, noted that reporting on Watergate had its problems.  There were news reports which were correct, there were news reports which were wrong, reports which were incredible at the time and subsequently borne out, and all sorts of variations in between.  Mostly the administration denied the reports, launching ad hominem attacks on both the reporters and the sources.  Some of the denials turned out to be well-founded, but most of the denials and the deniers lost credibility as time went back.

History can teach many lessons; one of which is events move at their own pace and sometimes patience is required to know the outcome.

LBJ's Biggest Mistake: Vietnam or Fortas?

Was in a discussion this morning on Supreme Court confirmations, which caused me to remember one of LBJ's biggest mistakes. Briefly, without checking my facts, Earl Warren decided to retire in 1968 as Chief Justice. 

LBJ decided on a cute doubleplay--promote his attorney and longtime friend, Abe Fortas, from Associate Justice to Chief, and put Texan Homer Thornberry in to replace Fortas.  In my memory, LBJ could likely have gotten a different person confirmed as chief but Fortas was a bridge too far.  Not only was he a liberal justice, but he had always been an adviser to LBJ, something he continued as a Justice.  (Still not publicly known, he had a yearly retainer from Louis Wolfson, a wheeler-dealer of dubious reputation who had been convicted in 1967.) 

In 1968 LBJ had lost most of the clout he used to have, and people (senators) were tired of him.  So Fortas was not confirmed, meaning no vacancy for Thornberry to fill.  The next year Fortas was forced to resign over the Wolfson retainer, meaning Nixon could nominate and get confirmed the Minnesota Twins: Burger (as Chief) and Blackmun.

The bottom line: had LBJ paid more attention to ethics, he never would have appointed Fortas and continued using him as an adviser. And with better judgment he would have replaced Warren with a moderately liberal justice. Although Blackmun evolved into a liberal justice likely comparable to anyone LBJ would have nominated, a more liberal Chief Justice would have changed the composition of the Supreme Court for decades. 

As I think about it, our defeat in Vietnam seems to have been less consequential than we thought it would be in the 60's and 70's, while the changes in SCOTUS seem to be more consequential.  Hence my title.