Loren Becker Is Happy

As I've said, I've been lurking in the FSA Facebook group, watching the exchanges of hints, encouragements, etc. as the field offices struggle through CFAP (along with their regular work, all working from home or with restricted access to the offices].

One facet of the implementation effort is the use of Excel worksheets.  Back in the day, Loren Becker worked in KCMO. He became very proficient in Lotus 1-2-3, the dominant spreadsheet software of the day, and strongly urged us to use Lotus to develop test data, modeling what the results of System/36 software programs should be.  FSA isn't doing exactly that, but Loren would be happy, maybe is happy but I don't know, to see the extensive use of spreadsheets.

The Statue of King George III

I'm reminded that the American revolutionaries pulled down the statue of King George III in New York City and, I believe, turned it into bullets.

See this article.

The Tale of Two Graphs?

What's going on with the pandemic in the US?

From the NYTimes page, the graph of the new cases has been reasonably steady for a while, before taking an upturn in the last days.  (Might be the effect of protests, or the effect of reopenings.)

But the graph of deaths has been trending down steadily, and that continues.  So either more testing is finding more of the less serious cases, or the virus is becoming less virulent, or something else.

I'd guess the first,

{Update:I've seen a discussion that the increased testing is more and more of younger people, who aren't as susceptible to covid-19.  It makes sense that generally we focused our limited tests on the worse cases--i.e., assisted living/nursing homes, etc. and now the drive-through testing spots are getting active adults.]

What Should We Have Done?

Based on what we know about the pandemic and Covid-19 now, what should we have done back in time, say on Mar. 1.  Obviously, I think, we should have been ordering supplies, PPE, ventilators, whatever.  But given that we lacked sufficient tests, supplies, and contact tracers, what should we have done?

To me the answer is we should have focused on the areas and facilities which resulted in the most human contact--the dense areas of NY, NJ, MA, etc., the assisted living facilities, the prisons, the meat packing facilities.  For those areas we might have been stuck with the tactics we ended up using, social distancing, lockdowns, quarantines.

For the other areas I think we should have tried to leap to our current Phase II/III strategies, more distancing and lots of contact tracing. 

This two-part strategy might have been a tough sell; in an emergency we like to think everyone is treated the same.  But we've seen the problems in maintaining a uniform strategy across states, and the nation.

Scalia Says a Strong Economy--Not So

The Secretary of Labor, Mr. Scalia, says we have a strong economy. 

He's wrong.  We had a strong economy in January 2020; one which well by many of the usual criteria and under the conditions existing at the beginning of the year.  But those conditions changed; covid-19 emerged and suddenly our economic activity had to deal with a new world, one to which it was poorly adapted. 

We won't have a strong economy until we can adjust to these new conditions.

A Bit of Cynicism

I think a portion, very small perhaps, of the attendance at the protest rallies currently going on is affected by pervasive "cabin fever".  People who have been shutdown because of the pandemic are antsy, and the rallies provide a socially acceptable reason to go out and mingle.

What Will Change After Pandemic and BLM and Election?

I think we may err in expecting a lot of change after 2020 ends. My sketchy thoughts:

• yes, if Biden wins  there will be a lot of change in government, but mostly it will be reversion to the norm.  Even if Biden carries in a solid majority in the Senate, I don't expect changes on order of LBJ's Great Society in 1965-68.  Or even Reagan's changes.  I'd add a qualifier--there may be a lot of changes on the international front, which will force more changes than we can see now.
• full recovery from the pandemic will take years. I'd expect the major changes to be the result of people getting more used to online everything. But otherwise I'd expect reversion to the norm generally.
• the current BLM protests will result in some moderately important changes in law, justice, and policing, but not much more.

The theme here is, I think, the power of old habits and the past.  I hope to live long enough to see how wrong I am.

Pigford's Legacy

Government processes grind slowly away.  And, just because we're old, it doesn't mean you can trust the aged.  Years after the first and second Pigford claim settlements, DOJ brought suit against four sisters in their 70's for defrauding the government and tax evasion.  They arranged for the filing of 192 claims under the Pigford and the Hispanic settlements, getting money under the table from the claimants and conspiring with an attorney and a tax preparer to submit false claims for tax refunds.

I feel sorry for the 192 claimants, who lied on their applications, but who trusted people when they shouldn't have.

R.I.P. Freedom to Farm

Sen. Pat Roberts is retiring.  He was the ranking Republican/Chair of House Agriculture Committee last century.  His big thing was what he called "Freedom to Farm", ending government regulations and programs.  That became the informal title of the 1996 farm bill.

I don't think many farmers believe the reforms worked, either in the early 2000's or now.  Today's Farm Policy has an article on the current state of government help for agriculture.

"A Switch Before Time" Coming?

The Supreme Court famously defanged FDR's court-packing plan by delivering some pro-New Deal decisions--the "switch in time saved nine". 

There has been some discussion of possibly expanding the Supreme Court if the Democrats won the election.  I think it's a non-starter, but some serious people have talked about it. Today's decision on the LGBTQ issue makes me wonder if SCOTUS will tread carefully between now and the election, just in case the polls are right and Dems win big. 

Not a serious thought, but we'll see.