Another Round of MFP Payments?

There's been discussion this week, and a promise by the President, that farmers will receive more money to compensate for losses due to the trade war with China.

That's well and good, but I'm not sure of the nitty-gritty.  Let me backtrack:

For the first MFP I initially thought USDA was tapping Section 32 funds.  Did a bit of research on that possibility.  (Roughly, Section 32 provides authority for USDA to use a portion of certain tariff revenues for certain aid to agriculture.  It dates back to the New Deal days.)  But that turned out to be a mistake of mine.  Instead USDA tapped CCC's borrowing authority, which also dates back to the New Deal.  CCC has authority to borrow up to $30 billion from the Treasury and spent it to aid agriculture in certain ways..

I've tried, half-heartedly, to find out how much borrowing authority CCC has left.  When it's tapped out, CCC has to stop its operations until Congress passes legislation to replenish the authority.  (I'm skating on the edge of my comprehension of these matters, but I do have a clear memory of a time when CCC ran out of authority just before we were to make deficiency payments, notably because my screwup cost the taxpayers a few million dollars. (A story for another day.)

Bottom line, I didn't find the answer. 

What 5G Can Do for: Dairy

Technology Review has a short post on a test of 5G and cows, in Britain.  Cows wear 5G collars which transmit biometric data and open gates to milking parlors.

(I'm not clear why 4G wouldn't work for this, but connecting fancy technology and cows has a certain reader appeal. )

The Return of Foreign Policy Issues

For the first two years most foreign policy issues didn't rouse much domestic concern.  That may be changing these days, between Trump's trade issues and the rising tension with Iran.  Looking at it from a political perspective, which Democratic candidate benefits? 

I'd suggest Biden does.  None of the other candidates have much background in foreign policy, but Biden has 8 years worth. Definitely the younger candidates are at a disadvantage.  Pete may speak seven languages (he'd might be only the second most multi-lingual president--I've seen a reference that J.Q. Adams spoke more, though that's not supported by wikipedia, though it does show a surprising number of presidents who were multi-lingual) but that won't count for much.

Another Error by a Harvard Professor

Making slow progress through "These Truths" by Jill Lepore. See my previous post.

On page 172 she writes of Jefferson: "As late as 1815 he was boasting that, as a result of the embargo, 'carding machines in every neighborhood, spinning machines in large families and wheels in the small, are too radically established to ever be relinquished.'  That year, cotton and slave plantations in the American South were shipping seventeen million bales of cotton to England...."

That's flat wrong.  We've never exported that much cotton, never grown that much cotton.  The statement is sourced to Sven Beckert's history.  https://www.sailsinc.org/durfee/earl2.pdf

I'm having fun with this, so I've added "Harvard" to my lables.

Driverless Cars: Setting the Bar Too High

Technology Review has a discussion of three factors impeding the adoption of driverless cars:

• safety--cars being safer than human drivers (who don't drink or text)
• useful--cars that aren't slow because too cautious, perhaps requiring regulatory changes.
• affordable.

To me it seems they're setting the bar too high.  Going back to the Innovator's Dilemma new technologies evolve by finding a niche from which they can expand gradually, making use of the learning curve to reduce costs so existing technology can be undersold and to become useful in new ways.  I think that applies here, as I've said before:

• a geezer like me isn't as safe a driver as the average person, even though we know enough not to drink or text.
• a geezer like me is already a cautious driver, so making a driverless car that abides by the speed limits is not disrupting the norm (for us).
• a geezer like me values driveability higher, highly enough to pay a premium to preserve the ability

Those Who Ignore History: the F-35 and the TFX

The F-35 is our latest and greatest(?) fighter.  Apparently the lessons learned from its development will cause DOD to go a different direction for the next one.

As a layman I understand the key feature of the F-35 is its use by both the Air Force and the Navy.  After all, both need fighters so why not build one to serve both needs?

It's dream we've had before, most notably in the 60's, with the TFX program..  Back then Robert McNamara was blamed for the decision to go for commonality. The TFX was very controversial and, in my memory, it was never deemed a success, though judging by the wikipedia article it was more useful for longer than I remembered.

The lesson I took away from the TFX episode was twofold:

• it's hard to do a project that meets the needs of two different organizations
• be cautious when trying to do innovation top down.

The continuing mystery is why I forgot those lessons when applied to projects trying to eliminate USDA silos, like ASCS and SCS.

[Update:  see this GovExec piece on the next fighter after the F-35.]

Rural Fatties

My mother would be sad at the news that world-wide obesity is more of a problem in rural areas than urban ones.  Her basic belief was in the superior virtue of rural people and the better life in rural areas.

TFW You Find a Harvard Professor Wrong

Jill Lepore is a Harvard historian, New Yorker writer, and prolific author. 

Her most recent book, These Truths,, is an ambitious attempt at a one-volume history of the US. (I wrote she is prolific, so prolific that she has another book out this year.)

I've just completed her section on the Constitutional Convention, in which I found the error.  Discussing the conflict over the treatment of slaves, as persons deserving representation or as property supporting taxation, she writes: "The convention was very nearly at an impasse, broken only by a deal involving the Northwest Territory--a Northwest Ordinance...[prohibiting slavery north of the Ohio and not south] This measure passed on July 13.  Four days later, the convention adopted...the Connecticut Compromise [the 3/5 count for both representation and taxation]."

What's wrong here?  All the facts are right, so maybe "wrong" is too strong.  But the implication, and I suggest the meaning people will take from the passage, is that the Constitutional Convention passed the Northwest Ordinance.  Not so--Congress operating under the Articles of Confederation enacted the Ordinance. Because both bodies were meeting in Philadelphia the passage of the Ordinance may have been relevant to the proceedings in the convention, 

What Happens If We Win--the CRA

Commented in a twitter thread today or yesterday about what would happen if a Democrat wins the Presidency next year.  Part of the discussion was to the effect that the new administration would reverse a lot of the Trump administrations regulatory actions.  The impression was that it would relatively easy.

Not true, at least for those regulations which were killed by Congress using its authority under the Congressional Review Act.  The reason is the wording of the act--once a regulation is killed by Congress the agency is prohibited from issuing a substantially similar regulation, forever.  The out is that Congress can authorize the agency to regulate again. 

The problem I see for a new Democratic administration is presumably such a Congressional authorization would require 60 votes in the Senate to be brought to the floor for passage (assuming the legislative filibuster is still available.   For some regulations such authority might be included in a budget reconciliation act, but others wouldn't.

The alternative for a new administration is to kill the  legislative filibuster, at least with respect to CRA actions.

The bigger problem, of which CRA is only part, is a decrease in stability of laws and regulations.  If citizens can assume that laws/regulations are permanent, they can act on that basis.  If they assume the next administration of the party in opposition will undo what the current party has done, there's less stability, less certainty.

Progress Being Made?

Back in the 50's and 60's whites were fighting to keep their neighborhoods white.  "White flight" was the predominant tactic, but rougher ones were used against the first one or two black families.

I'm often otpmistic, sometimes too much so, but I read this NY Times article  as saying those days are mostly behind us.  That's good.  Some thought we'd never get here.

I can read articles on gentrification as the market working as it did in white flight.  To do this I need to suggest that many whites fleeing from a block where blacks were buying were concerned more with their pocketbook than race.  The working of the market meant that if someone feared blacks, they would sell their house at a discount, especially if their fears were exploited, as they usually were, by the unscrupulous realtors.  One below-market sale could persuade market-oriented owners that to preserve their wealth they needed to sell, which of course started to destroy the value of their homes.

I think it's true that often the switching from all-white to all-black blocks meant property values ended up going way down, partly because people over-extended themselves, because they had to take in renters and subdivide the structure, and because they didn't have the money for maintenance.

Gentrification works through the market as well.  The first white pioneer who has no problems with blacks finds a bargain.  The owner, who may be black, sells at a profit, at least compared to prior years. So both white home buyers and existing home owners can see financial gains over what they had before gentrification started.  However, as property values increase taxes increase and the owners can have problems keeping their property.

It seems to me the key variable in inner-city blocks being gentrified is: who owns the property?  Do we think the owners are mostly the heirs of those who originally bought from the white flight?  Or are they the heirs of the exploiters, white and black, who profited by the white flight? Or has the property changed hands multiple times?  If the heirs of the original buyers there's a chance that what they lost by the block turning black is being made up through gains in value as gentrification increases.  More likely the score card over time shows red ink for blacks, black ink for whites.

My thoughts have now dimmed my pleasure at the message of the article, but we've still progressed  from 1968.

As a Country, We're Idiots

In 1953 I was 12 and there were roughly 150 million in the country.  Now I'm 78 and there are something over 300 million in the country.  The IRS today has roughly the same number of auditors as in 1953. See this ProPublica piece.  In real dollars our GDP has increased six times since 1953.

Changing Standards: Tight Versus Loose

I think I've mentioned this book before.  It ties into my post of yesterday.  My memory is the writer believes there can be systematic differences in how tightly or loosely societies adhere to social norms.  To apply it to our history:

• my memory is in the 40's-60's white middle and upper class Americans adhered quite tightly to a certain set of social norms, and as a counterpoint, we looked askance at those who didn't fit that description, either not being white middle class or not adhering to the norms.
• over the next years that changed, partly the norms changed, partly the tolerance for non-conformity broadened.
• more recently we've become more concerned about non-adherence to the norms, less tolerant of the less tolerant among the white middle and upper classes, still tolerant of those excluded from that universe. 

Changing Standards

Over my life standards of behavior have changed, a lot.

In my youth both cancer and homosexuality were not fit topics for discussion, cancer being just a bit more acceptable because more prevalent.  One addressed one's elders with Mr. and Mrs..' There were standards of propriety, at least for the white middle and upper classes.  Teenagers were viewed with alarm, as they/we got into Elvis and rock and roll and discovered the privacy of cars.  Everyone, at least every boy, wanted a car.  For any couple in a car the man was driving. College students still faced a hierarchy of classes and at least informal rules on dress.  Campus life still involved panty raids.  Serious students were concerned about nuclear war, though as the 60's started  some got into civil rights movement. And the remnants of "loco parentis"

The boomers started establishing new norms.  The Berkeley Free Speech movement seems in retrospect a turning point.  Notably the movement was still the Silent generation; the very first boomers were just starting college. The Cuban missile crisis was another, and the third was Mississippi Summer. In my memory the 60's meant the undermining and dissolution of old standards of conduct, of hierarchy, of dress, of how people could express their views and obtain some power.

Fast forward to the present.  It seems most of the changes have stuck, have been deemed valid and useful in our society.  What does seem different to me is what the conservatives call "political correctness". I could trace the idea back to the student left, perhaps imitating their parents, who had fierce debates over what ideological stances were proper.  But that was a minority view; more common was live and let live, chill, mellow.  Now however,, many, perhaps most, people believe there is something that's proper, and people should embrace it.

The Four Somes Rule

Musing about reports on educational reform and progress.  My interest dates back to high school when "Why Johnny Can't Read" was a best seller and concern about education shortfalls skyrocketed after Sputnik went up.  More recently Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler, Megan McArdle, and Kevin Drum have often commented on reforms. 

I've come up with the "four somes" rule: some teachers in some institutions using some techniques can effectively teach some pupils.  The implication is some pupils won't learn,some teachers can't teach, some techniques don't work, and some institutions are the pits.  But innovations in one place will work some of the time, but may not apply across the board.

Guantanamo: 1800 for 40?

According to recent reports there are now 40 prisoners left in Guantanamo, an installation which has 1800 personnel.  The way the Times report was worded it sounded like therywere all military and all devoted to the prison but that seems absurd.

If the facts are true, in my opinion we should either do as Obama wanted, move the prisoners to max security prisons in the US which presumably wouldn't require extra personnel at all.  Or, if you don't like that, let's just release the prisoners.  They've been detained for 17 years. 

Wittes on Mueller

"I see a group of people for whom partisan polarization wholly and completely defeated patriotism. I see a group of people so completely convinced that Hillary Clinton was the enemy that they were willing to make common cause with an actual adversary power at a time it was attacking their country to defeat her. To me, it matters whether the conduct violated the law only in the pedestrian sense of determining the available remedies for it—and in guiding whether and how we might have to change our laws to prevent such conduct in the future. 

Ben Wittes on Mueller

Taxes--the Rise of Intermediaries

There have long been tax-preparation services.  H&R Block was an early one.  One of the brothers who founded the firm, Henry Bloch, died recently.  His obituary in the Post says this:

business boomed in the mid-1950s as the Internal Revenue Service began discontinuing its free tax-preparation services, and the Bloch brothers began advertising their discount tax service in a local paper.

Who knew the IRS once did returns for free?  Now of course H&R Block is one of the firms lobbying Congress to be sure that IRS doesn't resume the service,.

Slaves in the North

Discussing with a relative the existence of slavery in the North.

I mentioned the idea/fact that New England settlers sometimes swapped Indian slaves (captured in war, particularly IIRC King Philips War) for black slaves by sending the former to British Caribbean colonies.   

On a  practical if very cynical basis, it makes sense.  Society recognized that when you won a war people were part of the booty.  Women to rape, men to work as slaves if they weren't killed.  (No conventions about treatment of prisoners of war back then.) But the problem with captures in the wars between the colonists and the Native Americans was it was relatively easy for the captives to escape and return to their people.  White colonists often did this, so would Native Americans.  The practical answer was to ship your war captives away to someplace where they were foreigners, where society was foreign.

(I suspect some part of the dynamic accounting for the capture and sale of black slaves to the slave traders was similar.  Keep your captives with you as slaves and they escape; sell them to the European trader who could provide weapons, etc. and it was a win.  Not for the slave.)

The Fruits of the Garden

Got my first planting in the garden in around March 15.  Spent a lot of time last fall trying to get spinach started and thriving.  Now we're being inundated with spinach (fall) and scallions (spring) and the spring lettuce is now big enough to eat the thinings.  

Thinking about my garden got me wondering about the White House garden.  Turns out it's still in operation, and you can tour it, though you've missed the spring one. You can see photos at Instagram, whatever that is, although very few of the photos there show the vegetable garden.  Here's one, though.  I suspect neither Melania nor Barron spend much time there--the regularity of the planting suggests a good Park Service bureaucrat is caring for it.

Thanks for a Beautiful Day

Today was about perfect: sunny, low 80's, low humidity, the trees are green.

The garden is doing well, although we've got a surplus of spinach from the plants which over-wintered and over which I sweated last fall.

I'm in no mood to discuss Trump, or impeachment, or bureaucracy.

Enjoy.

The Proliferation of Popular Culture References

My wife and I subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime and watch regularly.  Maybe I'm just feeling out of it these days, but it seems to me there are more and more popular culture references in what we're watching, more and more of which I don't get.

Sometimes it's musical, which since I've not kept up with popular music since the Beatles it's understandable I'll miss them.  Often it's what critics like to call "homages" or "call-outs" to other programming.  Those I miss as well.

I think it's "Billions", the third season of which we just finished, which made me particularly aware of this.  It's possible it's just the writers of that show who are especially into references to other pieces of popular culture, but it seems more pervasive.  Although there are fewer directors' commentaries these days now that Netflix is shifting from DVD's to streaming, they're another way I become conscious of things I'm missing.

It seems a logical trend in our culture: the more time people spend watching and listening, the more likely creators will cross-reference things.  I suspect the trend also means fewer references to the older sources of reference material: the classics and the Bible. 

The Continuing Effects of the Irish Potato Famine

Stumbled across a piece on the Irish potato famine.  Its effects varied in different parts of the island, hitting particularly hard in the south and west, areas which were much more dependent on the potato and had fewer other resources.

While many died and many left, others moved within Ireland, moving north and east to Belfast and Dublin.  For the former, the writer observed that where Belfast used to be almost entirely Protestant, because of the internal migrants being Catholic it became a more divided place. (I'm not sure whether Catholics also moved to other places in Ulster.)  Those divisions led to the "Troubles" of the last pat of the 20th century, which led to the importance of the peace agreement in British and Irish politics, which led to the Brexit conundrum   Incidentally, it reminds me of the anecdote about the horse who get hung up jumping a fence.

The Dilemma of Trump's Appointees

The Mueller report has shown the tightrope which Trump's appointees must walk, particularly in the case of Don McGahn.  It's a question of how far you go in appeasing your boss, versus compromising your own ethics. 

As an ex-bureaucrat who had some people among my superiors whom I didn't much respect, I've some empathy for the McGahns of the current administration.  That perhaps leads me to undeserved sympathy for AG Barr.  He's gotten criticism for his summary of the Mueller report, spinning the conclusions to be the most favorable to his boss.  That's deserved.  But we need to remember that he did succeed in getting the Mueller report released, although with redactions.  That's not something I would have predicted back when he was nominated.  It's possible he regards the release as serving the public interest, a release important enough to justify his tactics in getting the release past his boss.  (Will Trump start blasting Barr for the release?  Maybe.)

Vertical Integration for Dairy?

A comment in this twitter thread suggested that some form of vertical integration would be coming for the dairy industry, as it has for poultry and hogs.

That makes sense to me.  Dairy is under more and more pressure--the other day I found not 3 but 5 thermos of "milk" at the Starbucks counter--to the usual nonfat, milk, and half and half they'd added soy and another "milk" which I forget now.  

With the divorcing of cows from pasture and the proliferation of robotic milkers the capital cost is only going up.  

And finally there seems to be closer ties between outlets, like Walmart, and their suppliers. 

Maybe another 15 or so years there will be only smaller, "truly organic" dairies feeding a niche market and perhaps encouraging tourists who experience nostalgia, and the big operations with 5 digits worth of cows.  

The Answer Is Google, Always Google

Supposedly intelligent people still aren't current with the modern world.  Two instances:

1. Mr. Kushner tried to find out the name of the Russian ambassador to the US (that's in the Mueller report) in late 2016.  So he called someone who might know.  
2. Scott Adams tweeted out a reward of $100 to the first person who could tell him how to change the footnotes in a Word document from "i, ii, iii..." to "1, 2, 3".

In both cases simply typing the question into Google would have produced the answer in a matter of seconds.

I hope our young are learning this lesson better than their seniors (both of whom could be my children, God forbid).

Score One for Neustadt

One conclusion from the Mueller report is that prof. Neustadt, author of the classic book on Presidential Power, wins again.

His thesis was that presidential power was not automatic, not like starting a car and driving it, but it was a matter of respect and reputation.  Certainly Trump has little of either, hence his attempts at obstruction were foiled by resistance of his subordinates to carrying out his orders.  Nixon had his "Germans", Erlichman and Haldeman, who'd carry out his orders.  Not so Trump.

Paul Coates

I followed  the blog Ta-Nehisi Coates hosted for several years and read his first book, a memoir.  So I found this interview with his father quite interesting, particularly as he's about my age.

Controlled Environment Agriculture

Quartz has this entitled "The Urban Farming Revolution has a fatal flaw. (see the source at the end of this post).

I'm sorely tempted to write "I told you so", since I've been skeptical of vertical farming and similar efforts in cities.   On a fast read it seems the drawbacks are: cost of urban real estate, cost of energy for lighting, low nutritional content of the greens usually grown, and the premium prices charged.  The study was of New York City "controlled environment agriculture" (CEA) farms, which gives me a new term for a label. 

I would think some of the factors are more serious than others.  Roof top farming in NYC might be susceptible to competition from other uses, like leisure  and recreation  I'm not clear how much cheaper and more efficient LED lights can be, but I'm hesitant to rule out further innovation.  The ability and willingness of people to pay premium prices is likely growing.

In a larger sense, CEA is what farmer have been doing since the dawn of agriculture: arrtificially changing the environment  for plants and animals to grow faster, better, more disease free, etc. etc.  Outside the city it looks as if "precision agriculture" (PA) is the approach taken. 

Will the CEA and PA sets of innovation start to merge at some point?  Stay tuned.



Source: Goodman et. al. “Will the urban agricultural revolution be vertical and soilless? A case study of controlled environment agriculture in New York City.” Land Use Policy. 2019.

This piece was originally published on Anthropocene Magazine, a publication of Future Earth dedicated to creating a Human Age we actually want to live in.

Community Effects: Measles Versus Eastern High

The outbreaks of measles have focused attention on community effects.  When a high percentage of the community has been vaccinated, there's herd immunity--the virus can't maintain itself.  So the choices made by individual families affect the whole community.

By chance the Post Sunday had a good article on the choice faced by a white family on Capitol Hill  Their teenage daughter was in an integrated DC intermediate school,but now is facing the decision of which high school to attend.  Does she go to Eastern, the local high school, almost entirely black (like the intermediate school) with known problems and the possibility it's on the upswing, or travel across town to a selective public high school.

On the one hand the daughter gets greater certainty of a good and challenging education with less risk of a bad experience; on the other hand she might be missing a unique experience and, more importantly, she contributes a bit to the community effect.

Recent research on upward mobility has shown the importance of community effects: the better the community by our customary standards (two-parent families, etc.) the better everyone does, particularly the poor. 

I'm not an anti-vaxer, but I think it's true a measles vaccination carries a risk, a very small risk, to the individual. But the risk to the individual is outweighed by the benefits to the community if everyone gets vaccinated, or at least in the neighborhood of 95+ percent.  So I've no problem in saying the individual should be vaccinated, and mandatory vaccination laws are good.  But why would I, and the liberal parents of the daughter in the Post article, hesitate to require her to attend her neighborhood school?  I think the answer is the probable cost to the individual is much higher and the probable benefit to the community, in the absence of many others in the same situation is minimal, meaning the tradeoff is unfair.

While that calculus seems to be convincing, it leaves the $64,000 question of how do we get positive community effects: how do you get a herd, a crowd, all moving in the same positive direction?

On Recognizing Faces

Saw a piece in the Post about people remembering when schools in Arlington integrated. Several interesting points, but I liked this one:

"He chuckled as he recalled his reaction to so many new faces. “The only white kids I knew were the families on TV, like ‘Leave It to Beaver,’ ” he said. “They talk about all black people look alike? It took me months to distinguish one white face from another.”

IMHO facial recognition is a combination of experience and capability--that's my story..  I regard myself as having problems with both, so it's reassuring when I find others have similar problems, confirming my narrative.

Samuelson and Education

He concludes education programs have failed, because they haven't changed the gaps between ethnic  groups.

Logically it's possible that they've been successful, in that in their absence the gap would have widened.  It's possible over 60 years the amount of knowledge to be imparted has increased a bit.  A simile: education is like rowing a boat up a river.  Over the years we may have improved the oars, gotten the rowers more fit, etc., but meanwhile the flow of water down the river has increased, so the boat stays in roughly the same place.

Corporate Transparency: Canadians Are Ahead of Us

This article shows that at least one Canadian province is going where the US ought to be (and FSA is getting to):  recording the real people behind paper entities.

Do Toads Climb?--One of Life's Mysteries Solved

Was cleaning oak leaves out of one of our window boxes when doing so revealed a stone, rather slivery in appearance.  Strange, I thought, I've only put potting soil in the box in the past so how did a stone get there?

Looked closer and found it wasn't a stone, but a toad, immobile.  That's even stranger, I thought--how the hell did a toad get there as the window box is 8 feet or so off the ground.  Dropped by a bird, maybe, and finding refuge under the leaves?

Anyway, I cleaned out the leaves, realizing the toad would then have no hiding place from hawks or whatever and no cover from the sun, which is getting stronger.  So I got an empty plastic seedling pot and put it on its side in the window box.

An hour later the toad had retreated to the pot, so I could put my hand over the top and carry toad and pot outside and release it.

It turns out toads of various kinds can climb, some are tree toads and some just plain garden toads.

Virginia even has a society devoted to amphibians.

I'm going to say my  "toad" is this guy:

Good for IRS

In the midst of a not very good week, I was pleased by an IRS website.

It turns out that you can get your old tax returns from IRS, or at least the data from them, in case your house burns down or computer file systems crap out on you.  To do so you go to an IRS website which gives you options: online, phone, or mail.  I of course chose on-line and was impressed by the process.  They obviously require data to confirm you're who you say you are, but the process of getting it is easy and well-thought out.  (The only glitch was they weren't able to recognize a smartphone using Google FI--I assume there's a semi-valid reason for that.)  You end up creating an on-line account, which judging by the username which was available isn't all that well patronized.

If I had any ambition left after this week I'd suggest to Sec. Mnuchin that he have Treasury Direct scrap their log-in system, which hasn't changed for years, and have them use the IRS system.

I might write my Congressional delegation telling them I deeply oppose the legislation which would ban the IRS from creating a free online tax system, as reported by ProPublica.  I'm almost tempted to support Sen. Warren for president, since she proposes to beef up IRS. 

Combining Organizations

I tend to think of the outcome of two organizations combining as based on physics, sort of like two objects in space.  An asteroid colliding with the earth doesn't affect the earth's path through space much at all.  Why shouldn't the same be true of two companies, like Perdue and Niman Ranch, which combined a few years ago.

Turns out humans aren't solid brainless objects, at least not always.  John Johnson has an interesting piece on the results of the combination of a big poultry producer and a smaller organic venture.

Have I Lived Too Long

I confess these are two developments I never expected to see:

• a vegan burger from a fast-food chain (as it turns out, more than one such chain). BurgerKing
• a country which buys more electric vehicles than conventional.(Norway, which will in a few years, and they have cold weather, too.)

But I hope to live long enough to see even more surprising things. 

Laws Aren't Self-Executing

My title is, I think, obviously true.  But just to recap:

• some laws are enforced by a bureaucracy, the police or an executive agency which can invoke legal sanctions, fines or imprisonment after due process.
• some laws are enforced by opposing parties which can file civil suits accusing their opposition of violating a legal provision.
• some "laws" are applied by one part of a bureaucracy against the bureaucrats within it

Most laws rely on voluntary compliance; people incorporate their understanding of law and justice into their consciences and abide by it, until it becomes too inconvenient or their understanding of the situation or of law changes.  That means that the bureaucracies and the civil lawsuits mostly serve as backups, at least in most "advanced" countries.

But that leaves a hole--it's difficult to enforce laws on heads of bureaucracies, the top level who set policy and who therefore supervise those who are charged with enforcing the laws.  

We deal with that hole in two ways in the US: 

1. each agency (i.e. cabinet department) has an inspector general who's independent of the heads of the subordinate units  
2. each agency has Congressional committees and the GAO (which works for Congress) with oversight responsibility.  

That still leaves the big hole at the top of the government: enforcing the President's compliance with laws.  This Just Security article discusses a big one--the Presidentiall Records Act.  The Act is part of the overall structure of rules on government records, none of which get much respect.  NARA can try to enforce the rules on the agencies, but as the article discusses there's no way, outside of politics, to ensure the President follows the rules. 

Women, Cows, and Hens

Just skimmed this summary of research on economic history.  A couple paragraphs:

Given the obviously crucial role of endogeneity issues in this debate, we carefully consider the causal nature of the relationship. More specifically, we exploit relatively exogenous variation of (migration adjusted) lactose tolerance and pasture suitability as instrumental variables for female autonomy.
The idea is that a high lactose tolerance increased the demand for dairy farming, whereas similarly, a high share of land suitable for pasture farming allowed more supply. In dairy farming, women traditionally had a strong role; this allowed them to participate substantially in income generation during the late medieval and early modern period (Voigtländer and Voth, 2013).

My translation: women do better with dairy cows than plowing ground for grain, and if women do better, the overall economy does better.

A similar logic could apply to chickens.  You don't need a lot of strength to manage a flock of hens.  The one advantage dairy has over chickens is it's easier to store dairy products--cheese specifically, than it is eggs.

I suspect this may be over-simplified. I vaguely remember that the development of plows which could handle the soils of northwest Europe, soils which were heavier than the soils of southern Europe, was a big deal, at least in history as it was taught 60 years ago.

Reparations: the Booker Plan

Politico has a piece on Cory Booker's townhall..  On reparations he said:

He said he supports reparations for African-Americans who are descendants of slaves, pointing to his baby bond legislation, which would give newborns savings accounts worth tens of thousands of dollars by the time they’re 18 to address the racial wealth gap. 

How does this fit with my previous discussion?

Tne New Yorker had a discussion of the proposal late last year. Apparently the professor Darity who's been pushing reparations has come up with this plan as more politically feasible than reparations.  Notably the plan apparently applies to all infants, regardless of race, but with the money put into the bonds dependent on the family's income.

From the article:

His plan is not as precisely targeted toward people of color as it might be: because the federal government cannot determine the value of the assets held by any given American family, the amount children receive is determined by their parents’ wages, a scale on which black families tend to appear better off than they actually are. Even so, Booker’s staff has calculated that the average white child would accrue about fifteen thousand dollars through the program, and the average black child would gain twenty-nine thousand dollars—making it the largest asset for most black families.

My point in the previous post was there was a tension between apologizing to blacks and redressing their situation.   Booker's plan might be cost-effective in boosting the prospects of infants in low-income families, but it seems to me to lose the emotional impact of reparations.   

I Warned the Trump Administration

DOD faced tough questions on the Hill over funding and the reallocation of money to Trump's border wall.

It's not good to have your committee giving your top officials a hard time.  It's worse to have your appropriators mad at you.

Yes, I'm saying "I told you so".

On Reparations

I find I've never published a post on reparations.  I'm sure I can find some draft posts, particularly commenting on Ta-Nehisi Coates' Atlantic article on the subject.  But that would be work, and I'm lazy.

So here's a brief summary of my views on a complex subject:

• seems to me reparations can be (1) compensation for damages suffered in the past and (2) a symbolic apology for fault in inflicting damages. The apology may carry over to the idea of reconciliation between parties, where there may or may not be any balance of damages inflicted and suffered between or among the parties. I write "and" because I think both apply, in different proportions in different cases. 
• examples of reparations include the payments made to Japanese-Americans who were confined to concentration camps during WWII, payments made by Germany to Jews who survived the Holocaust, perhaps the Pigford payments to African-American, Hispanic, and female farmers,  Reconciliation proceedings have occurred in Rwanda between Hutsi and Tutsi and in South Africa between black natives and white colonists. And, of course, we can't forget the Pigford payments to African-American farmers and the similar payments to Hispanic, female, and Native American farmers.
• as a former bureaucrat I recoil at the prospect of some poor bureaucrats having to work out the rules and administer any program 

When we're talking about possible reparations to African-Americans based on the damages from slavery and past racial bias, it seems to me we're talking symbolic apologies.  Administratively there's some similarity between a program of reparations and  some policy programs, such as a disaster payments program.  In both cases you're looking at what has already happened to determine eligibility  to implement a policy.  The difference in reparations programs is the amount of time that's passed and therefore the evidence which is available to support a claim for payments.

This differs from prospective programs, where the recipient is going to perform some action, install a conservation practice or divert acreage from production as a quid pro quo for the money.

My own feeling is money proposed to be spent as reparations would be more effective devoted to some prospective programs.  The problem I have is, of course, we don't have good data on what programs are effective.  And proposing spending a trillion dollars on Head Start, free college, etc. etc. instead of a trillion dollars to those who can prove descent from an ancestor who lived in America in 1860, for example, doesn't carry the same symbolic energy.

Let's Be Precise

I see the statement that "Mueller didn't find any evidence of collusion" or words to that effect.  We don't know that. With a layman's knowledge of the law I think there are these possible points on the continuum of incriminating evidence:

• no evidence at all, meaning the investigation was launched without solid cause.  (Might have been bias, might have been false evidence, might have been facts which seemed to point one way but actually pointed another.)
• some evidence, but not enough for the prosecutor in the case to take to trial.  (I'm assuming that different prosecutors will be more or less cautious in what they take to trial, or try to get a plea deal.  I note Jerome Corsi was offered a plea deal, which he turned down.  Were the prosecutors bluffing? )
• enough evidence to take to trial.
• enough evidence to convict, given the prosecutors, defense attorneys, jury and judge in the case.

What the Barr memo says is Mueller couldn't get to the third level.

I also note the Barr memo includes the phrase "Russian government".  I assume that allows for possible difficulty in determining whether person X is an agent of the government, directly or indirectly, or is a "cutout" as we know from films and books is often used in spy thrillers.  I'm not clear, however, what difference it makes: there's a crime to conspire with a foreign government but not with foreign individuals?

Mueller Report--Turtle

I see I've never commented on the Mueller operation, so I can't claim any credit for prescience nor do I have to cover up any mistaken predictions.  Just call me "turtle".

The Barr interpretation of obstruction law fascinates me: apparently you need three things: a crime, acts which obstruct justice, and the intent to obstruct.  As of today it's not clear which of the three (one or more) Barr finds missing or not sufficiently supported by the facts as Mueller's presents them.  It might be the crime, it might be that no one lied to FBI agents (as Flynn did), just lied to the public, or it might be everyone in the Trump campaign and administration is so confused they had no clear intent.

I tend to lean towards the idea that all the people involved were babies, new to the political world, and thus experienced things as babies do, in the words of William James, as "blooming, buzzing, confusion."  Thus their collusion with the Russians was accidental, their attempts to cover up things were out of fear of embarrassment, not prosecution, and thus failed on the intent.

We'll see if that's that picture journalists and historians develop as the Mueller report becomes public and more analysis is done.

USDA FPAC Business Center

Time to look again at the FPAC business center:

From the Budget summary for FSA:

Savings will be achieved through a number of streamlining efforts that will reduce the cost of program delivery, while maintaining customer service. These efforts include Headquarters and Field organizational realignment and strategic reductions in staff years throughout FSA. Additionally, reductions in operating expenses and information technology investments will be made. Finally, increased funding will be provided to expand customer self-service for conservation, farm loans and farm programs through a common web portal. This portal, jointly managed by FSA, RMA, and NRCS, would serve as a launch point for farmers and ranchers to apply for programs and access customer information across the mission area.

And for FPAC:

In October 2017, the FPAC Business Center (FBC) was formed to consolidate back-office functions within the newly formed FPAC mission area. FBC will be responsible for financial management, budgeting, human resources, information technology, acquisitions/procurement, customer experience, internal controls, risk management, strategic and annual planning, and other mission-wide activities in support of the customers and employees of FSA, NRCS, and RMA. The FBC will be established in 2018 via a transfer of funding and personnel from FSA, RMA, and NRCS. The FBC will also provide administrative support for the CCC. Accordingly, the 2019 Budget reduces the direct appropriation for FSA, RMA, and NRCS and provides funding directly to the FBC. In addition, FBC would be funded through transfers from ACIF and Farm Bill conservation programs. In 2019, $272.7 million and 1,750 staff years will be available for the FBC. This includes, $131.5 million and 832 staff years from FSA, $17 million and 82 staff years from RMA, and $124.3 million and 836 staff years from NRCS. FBC will be funded by both mandatory and discretionary funds. [Emphasis added]

It looks to me as if the budget proposes to cut FSA personnel by roughly 1,000 (very quick estimate).

I understand the FPAC Business Center is operational, but I'd think the "will be" I underlined above should have read "has been", shouldn't it? 

I'm surprised NASCOE has had no comment on the Business Center.

Alabama Dairy

According to this Alabama has gone from 3,500 dairy farms 60 years ago to 50 now.

Analogy of the Day: Phipps on Farm Bureau

"To be sure, farmers as a whole are heavily clustered on the political right, although their actual policy preferences are a mix of blatantly leftist protectionism (sugar, dairy) and subsidies (crop insurance) scattered like chocolate chips in a cookie of free-market rhetoric."

Phipps has had qualms about the Farm Bureau and its representation of farmers for years.  (Its claim of 6 million members is inflated by its insurance operation.)  In this article he lays out his case for leaving it. 

Boyd and Equipment Prices

John Boyd continues to get into the national media.  Here's an Atlantic article citing his views on the rising prices of farm equipment.  Again, while southside Virginia isn't close to DC (roughly 200 miles from Reston), it's closer than Ottumwa, Iowa.  Boyd's activity seems to have picked up, as here his group is opposing a bank merger.