Don't No Economists Know What's Going On

That's my interpretation of this from the CBO directors' blog (a report on how well their predictions compare with OMB and private, Blue chips):

"Comparing CBO’s forecasts with those of the Blue Chip consensus suggests that when the agency’s predictions of the economy’s performance missed by the largest margin, those errors probably reflected problems shared by other forecasters in predicting turning points in the business cycle."

ACRE and FSA

ACRE has been getting a lot of mention in the stuff I follow. Here's an example, at extension.org.

What bothers me, perhaps wrongly, is the degree to which a farmer's decision to participate is being determined by market prices and predictions. I know past participation in production adjustment programs also relied on such calculations. But, maybe because it's new and I don't fully understand it, this seems different. I'm not concerned about the farmers so much as the FSA offices. It seems to me when the ACRE checks go out, or don't go out, there's more potential for farmers to come back at the offices to blame them for their decision. That's always a problem, particularly when the farmer can claim misaction/misinformation, if they still can. (That provision began back in the day when ASCS would tell a farmer to destroy seeded acreage to get with his permitted acreage, or that he was okay as he was, and the info turned out to be wrong.)

The Anti-Pollan

Via Chris Clayton at DTN, here's an article by a Missouri, who takes on Michael Pollan and others. He makes a number of good points, ranging from the corporate ownership of organic outfits versus the family ownership of many "industrial" farms, the use of manure, the problems with cover crops and composting, etc.

What most bothers Blake Hurst is the contrast drawn between the organic farmer, wise in the ways of the soil, and the commercial farmer, a dupe of industry and a pawn of Cargill. He writes defending the sense and the sensibility of the modern, non-organic farmer.

Surprising Factoid on Education

From the 1930 blog (quoting WSJ editor):

"You have mentioned various reasons for the continued progress and prosperity of the US, but you have overlooked the main reason. Last year college students enrolled in the US numbered 1,237,000, exceeding the total of the rest of the world by 287,000. No further comment is necessary."

The White "Community"

I got an email from Jewish Week, the title of which started: "dealing with shame in the Jewish community" (in reference to the arrests of 5 rabbis in the big corruption sweep in New Jersey).

We hear about the Jewish community, the Hispanic/Latino community, the black community, the Hasidic community, the immigrant community, but how about the "white community"?

Also, we used to hear about the Protestant community and the Catholic community, but not much any more. And the Irish community or the Scotch-Irish community rings false.

FSA Disses Organics

Unfortunately, the number of unique acronyms available is limited, so the "FSA" reported here is the UK's Food Standards Agency:

In the most comprehensive study ever to be carried out into the nutritional content of organic food compared to ordinary fare, scientists found no significant difference in vitamins and minerals.

Mirror Images: Public Option, Charter Schools?

I was struck watching a Lehrer discussion of health care with Ezra Klein and someone else by these thought:

Aren't the arguments for and against charter schools vis a vis public education the same as the arguments for and against the public option and national healthcare?

If I understand correctly, the public ed establishment believed that charter schools would undermines public education through unfair advantages while the supporters thought they would compete with public schools and cause them to improve. (Lots more nuance, I know, but that's the core argument.) Now the supporters of a public option believe it will create competition with private health insurance plans and cause them to improve, while the opponents believe the public plan would have unfair advantages which would undermine the private plans.

Most Unexpected Words Today

From a Washington Post piece on Julia Childs' friends reacting to the new movie:

"She loved chicken and hot dogs from Costco," Berman said.

Downward Mobility [Updated]

The Post reports on a Pew study which says black middle class children more often grow up in poorer neighborhoods than do white middle class children and there's a high correlation between one's neighborhood and one's eventual status. That is, black middle class children more often end up as lower class adults than do white middle class children.

It makes sense to me. It may be my preconceptions talking, but I think people who do well are often envied by their relatives and neighbors and expected to share the wealth. I think that's particularly true of blacks, perhaps because the black community has stronger ties although it might simply be the by-product of the distribution of wealth. (Is there such a thing as the "white community"?)

I remember a book by an anthropologist studying a small Caribbean island, entitled "Crab Antics", the thesis of which was the less successful tried to pull down the more successful.

[Added: Watched the first two episodes of The Corner last night. It's the HBO dramatization of a nonfiction book written by David Simon about Baltimore; it led eventually to The Wire. The major characters are the McCulloughs, a black couple who had it made then lost it to crack, and their son, DeAndre who is vacillating between the drug culture and school. We don't see Gary's (the father) fall, just the aftermath but the writer makes it sound as if he was dragged down by his obliging his old friends. I recommend both the book and the TV series.]

Rambling Thoughts on Deference, and Substitute Teachers

One of the threads of discussion on the Gates/Crowley affair is the issue of deference: does one owe deference to a police officer? How about to a learned professor?

Let me wander a moment--I'm personally rather deferential to most authority figures, and I'd be more deferential if I had good manners. But I was brought up to regard parents, elders, teachers, policemen, etc. as figures of authority to whom one deferred. In the Congress there may have been a time where Congresspeople gave great deference to the President, at least where Senators deferred to Presidential nominations. That appears to be dwindling now.

Back in 1770 Americans were brought up to know their betters and to defer to them. But there's always been a revolutionary, anarchic strain in our culture which resists deference, which asserts people are equal or that deference must be earned. I was struck in reading "Renegade", a bio of Obama focused on the Presidential campaign by the description of the pickup basketball games in which he plays: no deference observed, it's pure performance. But in pro basketball, where people have careers, people do get deference, both from their peers and from the referees.

So on the one hand we have the establishment and deference to establishment figures. On the other perhaps Dennis Rodman. Think of Shaq--he's the iconic big man of pro basketball. He expects and gets deference, based on past performance. But he's also an establishment figure. Rodman was a great defender and rebounder, amazingly so given his physique. He got little deference. Some respect, yes, but little deference. And he represented the anarchic strain quite well. And no rookies get respect or deference.

I'll circle back to substitute teachers. I gather things haven't changed much in schools. Consider a run of the mill school where teachers get some respect and deference in the early days of the year. A substitute teacher comes in for the day--he's got to earn his way in. There's just a little bit of deference. Perform and you get more; stumble and you get chaos.

[Added: There's the argument Sgt Crowley didn't offer proper deference to someone who was identified as living at the address, once Prof. Gates had produced ID. That's okay. But I keep remembering the Banita Jacks case in DC--there an officer went to the house, asked Ms. Jacks about her kids, saw three of them, and deferred to her assurance everything was fine. Some months, a year?, later, it's discovered her four kids are dead, and she's on trial for murder. The sergeant is being criticized for excessive deference to an obviously suspicious person.)]

So, is there a proper balance between deference and anarchy? As usual, I go with the Greeks who said everything in moderation.