Economist Discovers Social Norms

The issue Scott Irwin, an economist, is considering is how farmers decide(d) either to plant corn late or to go with prevented planting.  The earlier tweets in this thread all considered rational calculations of return, but this tweet is his final thought:

13. Last, but not least, I don't think we can discount the social norm of not leaving ground bare here in the Corn Belt. I can't tell you how many emails and messages I have gotten from farmers considering PP who were absolutely in personal anguish about doing so.

— Scott Irwin (@ScottIrwinUI) June 24, 2019

I view myself as a rational human being, but over my life I've often not acted as such.  I'm not sure whether social norms, habit, or psychology were at work

Reparations as Honey Pot

Under some designs of reparations we might see a "honeypot" effect.  I wanted to write "honeypot", but I find by google that's used in computing for a trap for hackers. What I mean is the effect where something of value is free, or easily accessible, thereby attracting all sorts of con-men who exploit it. We see in the Oklahoma land-rush.

We also see, again in Oklahoma, as described by Daivd Grann's book, Killers of the Flower Moon., an National Book Award finalist. Briefly, oil was discovered on the Osage Native American reservation in the 1910's, enriching the members of the tribe.  Immediately the new wealth attracted a wide variety of people seeking to exploit this new resource:

• merchants selling luxuries at exploitative prices.
• "guardians" appointed to manage the money of "incompetent Indians". 
• murder

Unfortunately in cases where government action or inaction creates opportunity for illicit gain, we don't lay the traps in advance; we try to recover after the fact.

AFIDA Reports and Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land

I posted earlier this year on the issue of foreigners buying agricultural land.  At that time I found an obsolete link to FSA AFIDA reports (last updated in 2012).

The other day I saw a hysterical tweet on the same subject, with Tamar Haspel (a good writer on food issues) countering.

This morning for no reason I decided to Google AFIDA and found the active list of FSA AFIDA reports. The last report on this one is for 2016.

It starts with:

Foreign individuals and entities reported holding an interest in 28.3 million acres of U.S. agricultural land as of December 31, 2016. This is 2.2 percent of all privately held U.S. agricultural land and approximately 1 percent of all land in the United States (see fig. 1 for State-level detail).

The Resurgence of Whole Milk?

I've been buying 2 percent milk at the grocery for decades.  In recent years, as I've noted before, the amount of cooler space devoted to milk of different fat levels has decreased.  When I picked up milk the other day I realized the amount of space devoted to 2 percent milk was down, and the proportion devoted to whole milk was up.

I'm vaguely aware of some research supporting the consumption of whole milk.  Googling found this piece, along with others with titles pointing both ways.

Meanwhile I see this post. showing the dairy industry pushing for whole milk in schools.

About Joe Biden and Dealmaking

I'm not sure of the relationship between Biden and Southern Democratic senators back in the 1970's and 80's.

What I do believe is that an effective President must be willing to make deals with anyone.  In this connection I want to recall one of my all-time favorite movies: Kelly's Heroes and Crapgame.

At the climax of the movie Don Rickles, as Crapgame, tells Telly Savalas, the wise old sergeant to make a deal.  What kind of deal?  A deal deal.   The deal is made, and the Americans and the Germans split the gold in the bank.  (You have to see the whole picture to understand the plot.)

Seriously, in my mind LBJ was the most effective president of my lifetime, and he was a dealmaker. I only regret he couldn't find his way to make the deal with the Chinese that Nixon did.

The point is, a deal usually brings together people whose interests conflict to some degree.  I go to buy a car, I want the best car for the lowest price, the deal wants the highest price for the cars she has in stock.  If we meet in the middle, we find the minimax, a deal which represents the best possible outcome for us both, even if it doesn't satisfy our maximum desires. 

Bottom line:  it bothers me to see Democratic candidates setting up barriers to dealmaking.  Hopefully it's all or mostly political positioning, not to be taken seriously.

How Soon I Forget--Reparations

I'd forgotten I'd actually posted my views on reparations this spring. I haven't changed my mind since, just forgot I'd written it.

I do have more thoughts on the difficulty of administering such a program, which I might get to in the future.  I have to say the history of the Pigford suit doesn't increase my confidence in the ability of the government to run such a program

I also have some reservations about Coates' Atlantic article in 2014 which raised the profile of the issue, which I might get to.

There's also a question: if we can design a program which would effectively raise the wealth of blacks, what basis would we have to deny other minorities access to such a program? Or even poor whites?

Black Swans and Just Plain Errors

I just revised my post of yesterday to observe that it's difficult to predict the future. 

Obviously the tendency is to project trends of the present into the future: in 1960 South Korea is a dependency of the US, in 2020 South Korea will be a dependency of the US; in 1950 the Red Chinese were a horde of indistinguishable people wearing Mao jackets; in 2020 the Chinese will continue to have no individuality and dress alike; in 1950 Japan makes cheap children's toys (still remember a metal airplane toy which made a noise when you pushed it along the floor; in 2020 Japan will still be behind the curve of technology.

Mr. Taleb of "Black Swan" fame has a theory of why we fail; a theory I forget the content of.  It's possible we just err.  Or it's possible we like the comfort of the known and dislike Rumsfeld's "unknown unknows".

It would be an error, I think, to assume that President Trump is doomed to be as unpopular on election day 2020 as he is today.  Things may happen, or they may not. 

This Kind of War

This Kind of War is by T.R.Fehrenbach.  The Kindle version was on special the other day, so I bought it.  The Korean War was the first war I experienced, through the newspapers, the newsreels, and magazine articles.  The book was written in 1963, long enough after the war's end for some perspective, long enough ago to offer some insights.  (Fehrenbach was an officer in the 2nd Division, a unit which features prominently in the book, but he doesn't cite his experience explicitly.) I've read something about the war since, especially a bio of the general commanding the 1st Marine Division focused on the battle of the Chosin Reservoir.

He alternates between a focus on individual battles and individuals and a broad general picture of the war.  It's still recommended by figures like Sen. McCain and Gen. Mattis.

Some things which struck me:

• the learning curves of the various militaries involved. The North Koreans, Chinese, South Koreans and US all came into the war with different backgrounds; the first three were able to learn  from the experience while the US was handicapped by the rotation policy.
• the writer's surprise at the ability of Japan to rehabilitate American equipment, a reminder of how far Japan has come since my boyhood when they made cheap toys.
• serious omens for our experience in Vietnam.
• [updated: the author's prediction South Korea would forever be a basket case dependent on US, although that's more definitive than his actual words--a reminder of how limited our vision of the future can be]

NYTimes Articles

Today the Times had one article on projections of world population.  The projection for max population is lower than before because of falling birth rates.

The Times also had an article on research into new crops, which said it was very important because of the "rapidly growing population." 

I find it a bit inconsistent.

What was interesting in the second article was scientists finding ways to plant and harvest multiple times during the year, up to 6 plant/harvest cycles for wheat.  That permits more rapid development of  new varieties.  Norm Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, was a pioneer in this, moving to Mexico where he could do two crops of wheat a year. 

The Effect of (Some) Government Programs

From the Rural Blog's post on tobacco, specifically moves raising the minimum age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21:

"The [tobacco] industry has shrunk since the federal program of production quotas and price supports ended in 2004, and consolidated into larger farms. Pratt estimated the number of burley growers has plummeted from 175,000 to 3,000. And that has reduced the political influence of the crop that once had a powerful hold on Congress and state legislatures."

In other words, in 15 years the number of farmers has dropped to 2 percent of its starting level.

Side comments:  there's still the meme on the left that farm programs help the big guys, which drastically oversimplifies by lumping all farm programs together.