Farm Program Payments

From  here, a nice graph of US farm payments, including MFP and CFAP.

 

Today's Tractors

It's amazing how far out of touch I can get.  Was discussing this morning the likely cost of a modern tractor.  I guessed 6 figures.  My first search turned up this ad for a used John Deere, a 2016 model. Asking price is $300K+.  Further searching showed a lot more progress in guidance and precision than I expected.  Also checked wikipedia and their entries seem somewhat out-of-date.

Broadband Gaps in the Big City?

 Turns out the rural areas aren't the only ones.  This Technology Review explains, in the context of an effort to fill the gaps.

The Two Sides of Low Interest Rates

 In today's NYTimes Paul Krugman has an article arguing for big stimulus spending, partially justified by the very very low interest rates now being charged for the Federal government's borrowing.

In the business section is an article on CALPERS (the California employees pension fund) and its problems with trying to have its 7 percent return on investments.  It's taking on more risk to try to get its returns up.   CALPERS has, or used to have, a reputation for good investment strategies, so if they're having problems you can bet other smaller retirement funds across the country are having more problems.

I don't have any answers, just the observation. 

[Updated--ProPublica has a related piece, also on impact of Fed's actions on retirement savings.'

What's Good in America?

 From Cesar Hidalgo comes a twitter thread describing three things he finds good about America (although he's leaving for more academic opportunity in France).

A tweet:

Today I am leaving the US.
With my family we are exploring a new life in the south of France.
I’ve been in the US for more than 16 years. I earned my citizenship & experienced many ups & downs. But I am grateful. The US was good to me in many ways ...
/1 pic.twitter.com/YRIQrvxbsP

— César A. Hidalgo (@cesifoti) October 17, 2020

My summary of the thread:

• people value quality work (over cost)
• people value entertainment, even in speaking to business audiences
• our bureaucracy is simple!!! 

Let me expand on the last item, since it is so surprising.

He's talking specifically about the running of a small business, and comparing it to the notary-ridden bureaucracy in countries whose legal codes are based on Roman law, not common law. I think it might be related to the De Soto thesis, arguing the need for well-defined and documented property ownership.

Adherence to Principle Creates Different Alliances?

 I follow L. D. Burnett, who is a history professor at Collin College both on twitter and at this blog. Her background might surprise some of her right wing critics.  She's more vocal about her opposition to Trump and his administration than I, which recently caused the Collin president to criticize a tweet of hers. Links are at the end of her post here.

What was different to me was that FIRE jumped in to her defense.  I've been only vaguely aware of FIRE; I knew it opposes speech codes in college, but thought of them as defending conservatives.  Turns out they adhere to principle, even when it involves someone on the left.  As someone who joined the ACLU at the time of Skokie I need to recognize their stand. 

A Rush To Regulate

Eric Lipton at the Times writes about the Trump administration's rush to get their last (I fervently hope) regulations through the process and published in the Federal Register.  It's not a new process, but as the Obama administration learned to its regret the Congressional Review Act puts regs issued now in jeopardy.   I hope the Biden/Harris transition team has studied their history and is ready to apply the same medicine to these regs.

The Importance of Weather and Farming in the Civil War

 John Fea at Way of Improvement posts an interview with Kenneth Noe, author of a book on how weather impacted the Civil War, both directly and through its impact on farming. Seems interesting. Likely a similar book could be written on any war of years, for example the American Revolution. 

The Problems of Hemp

 The Rural Blog has a post on the problems of hemp farmers--no good crop insurance or disaster payments.

We Voted

My wife and I voted today, in Fairfax county's second day of widely available advance voting. A beautiful day, it wasn't too bad to spend 2 hours in line and voting.

 This is about 10 minutes after we got into line.

This is maybe an hour into the day.

This is the Democrats notice to voters--four languages (English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean). Because Fairfax is part of 3 Congressional districts, it got a bit complicated.

As the second day of voting at this site things went reasonably well but I'm glad we waited until day 2.  (Harshaw rule).