Fraud in the Farm

Farmers are no better or worse than other humans--that's my position and I'm sticking to it.

What's important, I believe, is structuring institutions so there's "countervailing power"--give anyone some power, you need to find another person whose interest is countering that power.

In the case of agencies, that's typically the inspector general, including the auditors, the fraud hot lines, and the whistleblowers.  I'm not sure those checks and balances are sufficient, but they can work, as in this instance of a tobacco farmer in Kentucky defrauding crop insurance.

MFP II

Farm Policy blog has a post on the announcement of signup for MFP II

If I'm correct, CCC may be getting close to exhausting its borrowing authority by the end of MFP II, requiring Congress to replenish it.

The Down and Dirty Dairy People

My mother always celebrated the goodness of farmers, particularly dairy and poultry farmers. Se would be disappointed at the shenanigans described in this thread.

Alright, today’s the open show and all these cows are ready to compete. Figured now’s as good a time as any to do the sequel to my last thread. This time: A Study in Dairy Infighting. pic.twitter.com/DIzwtNm42o

— 😇💖😈 (@songlin221) July 27, 2019

Electric Airplanes and Electric Motorcycles

This article discusses the developments in electric aircraft.  I had no idea they were being worked on.

Noertker and his team at the Los Angeles-based startup Ampaire are developing first-generation electric aircraft — and they’re far from the only ones. Something on the order of 170 companies have joined what Noertker calls an electric aircraft “arms race.” Several made a splash at the Paris Air Show a couple weeks back. 

I wonder though. Yesterday while I was in the garden a motorcycle roared down Reston Avenue.  I'd assume that doing an electric motorcycle would be very easy compared to an electric airplance.  However, my cynical take is that the roar of the cycle is 90 percent of the value of the vehicle.

So, a modest prediction: development and sales of electric airplanes will advance faster than electric motorcycles.

Will Autonomous Cars Save Parking Spaces in the City?

It's assumed the answer to my question is "yes"--some recent articles arguing for changing zoning requirements in the city to reduce the number of parking spaces required.

I'm not so sure.  As long as people commute from the suburbs to the city for their jobs, it seems to me parking is going to be a problem.  Yes, in some cases I can imagine a Reston commuter to DC getting a car at 7 for a 30 minute drive to DC, the car then returning to Reston to pick up another commuter at 8 for another 30 minute drive.  But then it's going to need to be parked until the evening.  So if the two individuals were each driving solo into the city and parking now, that would reduce the number of parking spots needed.  But that's a special pattern

Granted, you can imagine with autonomous cars and a drive sharing app, we could have much more flexible drive sharing so the number of people in the car rises from 1 to 2 or more on average.  And there likely will be realignment of jobs and homes based on the availability of autonomous cars.

My bottom line: the change requires people to change their habits, meaning it's going to take a while before the impact on parking spaces is felt. 

A Circuitous Route to Farm Survival--Cather, Stephens, and Somerby

Among the books in our house when I was growing up were three or four by Willa Cather, including My Antonia..  I've read it several times, but unlike some people I know, my wife for one, I don't have a great memory for the contents of what I've read.

Bob Somerby has his blog, The Daily Howler, which I follow.  He's often repetitive and usually idiosyncratic, predictably criticizing journalism and liberal pieties, although from a liberal background.  (He was a roommate of Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones at Harvard who has never forgiven some journalists for their criticism of Gore.  Also taught school in Baltimore for years, leading to sharp criticism of educational panaceas and the misuse of statistics.)

Yesterday he wrote a piece picking up on a Brett Stephens op-ed in the Times, in which Stephens uses My Antonia to discuss immigration.  The book is based on Cather's childhood, spent in Nebraska among immigrant families, mostly Czech, with the central character the "Antonia" of the title. It's a rich picture of immigrant and farm life on the Nebraska plains which I recommend. I also recommend both the Stephens piece and the Somerby piece.

Somerby has a quote from the book, which reads in part:

"There was a curious social situation in Black Hawk [the local market town] All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the family to go to school..

What I'd point out is it's the 1880's, not now, and farmers are being supported by off-farm income! Most people don't realize that most American farmers do rely on off-farm income today.   Usually, when that's discussed, it's treated as a revelation and an indicator of how bad the farm economy is. But maybe it's time to reconsider.  (BTW, back in the day most FSA clerks (program assistants) were the daughters and/or wives of farmers, or former farmers.)  I think what's going on is the same logic as my father used when he notoriously came home and told my mother she was going to have a flock of chickens (mom held that grudge until she died).  The logic--diversification reduces risk.  That's true whether you're talking investments in stocks and bonds, or agriculture. Hens and dairy have different economic cycles. But an even better diversification is a nice steady income in town, whether it's 1880 or 2019.

Boyd and the 109,000

EWG reports John Boyd's testimony before a House Committee on Financial Services:

"John Boyd is founder and president of the 109,000-member Black Farmers Association. Testifying before the House Committee on Financial Services, Boyd said the Trump tariffs are “a national crisis” for farmers – and that small minority farmers are hurting the most:
It seems as though many have turned a deaf ear to America’s small farmers and black farmers alike. . . . Anytime the government gets involved, when they say it’s going to be a speedy payment to farmers, it’s always last for African American farmers, it’s always last for Latino farmers, for small-scale farmers and for women farmers."

That's the National Black Farmers Association,, not Thomas Burrell's 20,000 member Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association.

Not sure about those membership counts.  Might be as inflated as the Farm Bureau's.

Trump and Bureaucracy

A tweet:

So much of modern administrative law is premised on the “presumption of regularity”—an assumption that, all things being equal, government generally acts in good faith and follows its own rules.

A President with this approach to the law makes it hard to defend that presumption. https://t.co/1WzziYnrFh

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) July 21, 2019

Refugees from the Past: 1956

Media reports that some in the Trump administration want to cut the number of refugees admitted next fiscal year to zero.

I was first conscious of the US and refugees in the 1956.  The Hungarians revolted against their Soviet-supported leader, an uprising eventually put down by Soviet tanks. The result was a surge of refugees coming to the "West" as we called it back then.  There was much sympathy for these fighters for freedom who had suffered, so the US was able to welcome some,including an airlift which evacuated some thousands.. 

This was a precursor to the welcome extended to Cuban refugees after Castro took over, and subsequent episodes where the refugees seemed to be pawns or victims of the Cold War. Of course, back in the 19th century America viewed itself as the refuge for revolutionaries, from the 1798 Irish uprising to the 1848 uprisings particularly in Germany. We were the beacon of freedom.

But the Cold War is over, the beacon seems to be flickering, and our open door for refugees is closing.

(Can't resist a personal note: one contribution of the Hungarian refugees was the soccer-style kicker in the NFL, with Pete Gogolak being the pioneer during the days I was in college.

Marching Season and Remembering the Past

Here's a report on Marching Day in Northern Ireland.

The Protestant Orange Order is able to muster a lot of people, including a 6-mile long parade, ostensibly to celebrate a battle 330+ years ago.  I write "ostensibly" because it's really an assertion of community identity, at least incidentally in opposition to their Catholic neighbors.

Compare that to the remembrance ceremonies of the white South, celebrating the Confederacy of 158 years ago.  I'm sure there are some scattered around, but they aren't significant enough to warrant much attention. Why the difference?

You suggest one is celebrating a victory, the other an ultimate defeat?

That might logically make a difference, but where are the big parades celebrating the Union victory?  The closest we can come is the Juneteenth observances of recent years. And, more importantly, there's no organization dedicated to the celebration, as well as agitating for the cause now.  We had one such organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, but the GAR ended with the last vet, in 1956.

So why do Americans forget the past more easily than those in Northern Ireland? 

I suspect part of the answer is immigration: we've added millions of people who've no live interest in the fight for the union or the abolition of slavery.