The Problem of Gig Workers, Farm Workers

Strikes me that the infamous "gig workers" and farm workers share some problems, though their situations are different. (Before I proceed, apparently there's at least confusion or  doubt over how significant the sign economy is.)

As I understand gig workers, they may be working for larger companies, like Uber or Lyft, or for smaller ones.  Farm workers, except in the case of the large fruit and vegetable outfits, are usually working for smaller employers.

In both cases, the worker is unlikely to get fringe benefits--health and disability insurance, minimum wage protection, etc.  The problem for farmers is the paperwork burden.  The problem for the workers is the power situation--almost impossible to organize.

I wonder if a state-mandated broker setup might work. 

On Reading Adam Tooze's "Crashed"

I'm currently reading Adam Tooze's "Crashed, How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World". The Amazon blurb is:"An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European and American financial systems."--The New York Times Book Review."

That's the aspect of the book I'd highlight--I've read Bernanke, Paulson, and Geithner's books on the crisis, but they give a US -centric view of the Great Recession and its aftermath.  So Tooze provides a more complete picture. 

He's not a great stylist, and I was disappointed by the Introduction, but he does the narrative well, and the book grows on you.  Some of the discussions are over my head.  Lots of the financial details go by too fast for me to deeply understand, but I get enough out of it.  Tooze is critical of decisions made by many of the leaders,  but I think fairly so. I recommend it.

But all that's not why I'm moved to post about it.

Tooze reminds me of the turmoil and tension of those days, the uncertainty over how things would turn out.  And that brings me back to today, and our current President.

Bottom line: we should thank our stars and stripes that Obama was president then and not Trump.  It's impossible to imagine the damage he would have done.

On the other hand, the existence of the crisis and perhaps the mistakes made in handling it and the aftermath might well have been a necessary condition for Trump's victory in 2016.  A question to consider in the future.

Boundaries Are Important, as Are Perspectives

From the Foothill Agrarian blog:

"From a predation perspective, our lambing season comes at a time when the coyotes and mountain lions don’t have many dietary options. From a dog’s perspective, lambing season offers all sorts of gastronomic and maternal delights. Our dogs love to clean up afterbirth! We’ve had young female dogs that decided they should care for newborn lambs - their maternal instincts drive them to steal lambs from the ewes. Both predilections can create problems. Ideally, we need a dog that is attentive but respectful of lambing ewes. We need a dog that gives a ewe her space while lambing, but that keeps the predators at bay."

Super Delegates and 2020

Seems as if the Democrats change their rules for nominating much more often than the Republicans.

Back in the 50's the nomination was a combination of primaries and favorite sons and smoke-filled rooms.  The 1968 convention with the Mississippi controversy over seating the black Democratic delegation resulted in changing to dominance by primaries.  Then in the early 80's the pendulum swung back by creating the super-delegates to provide more "adult" guidance to the party.  Now, after 2016, the pendulum has swung again towards primaries.

It's interesting to me, as a supporter of Amy Klobuchar, to note she does a lot better in accumulating endorsements from party figures than she has done in polling.  That leads me to speculate that the switch away from super delegates may wind up depriving her of the nomination.

How Some on the Right Befoul Our History

The Post had a collection of short pieces (2-3 paragraphs) today from different writers entitled Nine Things to Celebrate This Fourth of July.

Hugh Hewitt arouses my ire by excerpting and linking to an old essay on the "Price They Paid", recounting the sacrifices made by the signers of the Declaration.  I'm mad because it's been debunked  (in 2005) by snopes.com.  Some of the facts are correct, but the interpretation is off.  The signers didn't suffer because they signed the Declaration as the essay claims; they suffered because the Revolution was a time of danger and hardship.

The essay represents to me the sort of right wing mythologizing which undermines patriotism and the value of history.  It's popular because anyone who reads it says OMG and feels awestruck.  But it's not true. 

Democrat Predictions

I see Nate Silver predicting Biden, Warren and Harris as equally likely to win the nomination, with Sanders behind them.  Jonathan Berrnstein doesn't think Sanders is that likely.

As of today I'd take the field against those four, but I'd be willing to lose my money.

Stretching History

From a Dylan Mathews interview with Edgar Villaneuva on his book on the dominance of whites in philanthropy:

"Many families and many institutions that have amassed wealth have done so on the backs of people of color and indigenous people. One example I often share is my first job in philanthropy was in North Carolina, and it was all tobacco money. My office was on a plantation.
The R.J. Reynolds family had amassed all this wealth through the tobacco industry. Clearly, slave labor was a major part of that and helped to build this family’s fortune.  [Emphasis added.] There are multiple Reynolds foundations that now exist. I think that [money] should be given in a way that sort of centers and prioritizes giving in communities of color that helped amass that wealth.

The only problem with the statement is this: R.J. Reynolds was, according to wikipedia, born in 1850 and formed his company in 1875. 

It's sloppy work and tends to cast doubt on the book.

Soybeans and the Trade War

From an ERS report on the soybean trade among Brazil, China, and the US.

https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2019/06/ers-report-interdependence-of-china-united-states-and-brazil-in-soybean-trade/

Space Is Getting Crowded

Technology Review counts up the upcoming Mars missions. I'm aware of EU and US missions in the past, but who knew these nations would go to Mars:

• Russia!
• China!!
• UAE!!!

Purchasing Fertilizer in 1880

Turns out the 1880 Agricultural Census schedule recorded the cost of fertilizer purchased for the farm.

I'm not sure what fertilizers were available then--guano certainly.. The US had passed the Guano Islands Act in 1852.  The wikipedia article on guano suggests perhaps saltpeter was replacing it.

My Perception Gap (Flawed Test)

I just took the "Perception Gap Quiz". which has been in the news recently.  It's very brief, and my result is flawed because I've read about the results and adjusted my responses accordingly.   My gap was -9%, when the average Dems is 19%.  I gave the Republicans too much credit in judging Trump to be a flawed person and in worrying about climate change.

I suspect even if I hadn't read about the quiz before, I likely would have had a smaller perception gap than the average Democrat.  I do scan the Washington Times website each morning, though I rarely click through to the story, and I follow the Powerline Blog, staffed by four conservatives, and the Althouse blog.  Althouse may have voted for Obama in the past and hide her 2016 choice, but she tends to be right of center.  And my background growing up means I can be more understanding of Trump voters, at least if I'm reminded to be understanding.  (My knee-jerk reactions may differ.)

A Peach Is a Sometime Thing

Ate a peach this afternoon, perhaps the fourth one I've bought this summer. 

It was not a peach; the flesh wasn't yellow but had a reddish cast; although the peach had lost moisture so the skin was loose the flesh didn't taste ripe.  All in all it was a far cry from the peaches I remember from growing up.  I suspect because a ripe peach is a sometime thing the breeders have been hard at work, trying to extend the shelf life in the store, laudably trying to reduce the waste of food involved in trying to sell peaches in grocery stores.  But in doing so they've change peaches for ever.

The peach of my childhood was ripe for a couple days at most.  Who knew that the peach of my childhood would vanish forever at the hands of earnest scientists trying for improvement?

"Militias"

Which groups of armed men get to be called "militias" and which don't?  Could the Black Panthers have called themselves a "militia"? 

The Wave of the Future

NYTimes reports on refugees from Africa coming to Portland, ME.  Part of the reason for their selection of Portland is prior immigrants have settled there and say it's safe and welcoming.  This is the sort of "chain" immigration pattern which has long been a feature of American life.

When you look at the world today, the countries with the highest birth rates and youngest populations are in Africa. Afghanistan looks to be the first non-African country in the ranking, and it's 23rd.  What that means to me is that Africa will be the primary source of migrants over the next few decades.  The migrants may go to Europe and the Middle East based on geography (although I saw a discussion of the Nigerian community in China today) but a good number are likely to come to the U.S., since we already have the connections, the first links in the chain.

I wouldn't be surprised in 20 years or so the children of today's Hispanic and Asian immigrants find African immigrants to be a threat. Maybe I'll live that long.

Economist Discovers Social Norms

The issue Scott Irwin, an economist, is considering is how farmers decide(d) either to plant corn late or to go with prevented planting.  The earlier tweets in this thread all considered rational calculations of return, but this tweet is his final thought:

13. Last, but not least, I don't think we can discount the social norm of not leaving ground bare here in the Corn Belt. I can't tell you how many emails and messages I have gotten from farmers considering PP who were absolutely in personal anguish about doing so.

— Scott Irwin (@ScottIrwinUI) June 24, 2019

I view myself as a rational human being, but over my life I've often not acted as such.  I'm not sure whether social norms, habit, or psychology were at work

Reparations as Honey Pot

Under some designs of reparations we might see a "honeypot" effect.  I wanted to write "honeypot", but I find by google that's used in computing for a trap for hackers. What I mean is the effect where something of value is free, or easily accessible, thereby attracting all sorts of con-men who exploit it. We see in the Oklahoma land-rush.

We also see, again in Oklahoma, as described by Daivd Grann's book, Killers of the Flower Moon., an National Book Award finalist. Briefly, oil was discovered on the Osage Native American reservation in the 1910's, enriching the members of the tribe.  Immediately the new wealth attracted a wide variety of people seeking to exploit this new resource:

• merchants selling luxuries at exploitative prices.
• "guardians" appointed to manage the money of "incompetent Indians". 
• murder

Unfortunately in cases where government action or inaction creates opportunity for illicit gain, we don't lay the traps in advance; we try to recover after the fact.

AFIDA Reports and Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land

I posted earlier this year on the issue of foreigners buying agricultural land.  At that time I found an obsolete link to FSA AFIDA reports (last updated in 2012).

The other day I saw a hysterical tweet on the same subject, with Tamar Haspel (a good writer on food issues) countering.

This morning for no reason I decided to Google AFIDA and found the active list of FSA AFIDA reports. The last report on this one is for 2016.

It starts with:

Foreign individuals and entities reported holding an interest in 28.3 million acres of U.S. agricultural land as of December 31, 2016. This is 2.2 percent of all privately held U.S. agricultural land and approximately 1 percent of all land in the United States (see fig. 1 for State-level detail).

The Resurgence of Whole Milk?

I've been buying 2 percent milk at the grocery for decades.  In recent years, as I've noted before, the amount of cooler space devoted to milk of different fat levels has decreased.  When I picked up milk the other day I realized the amount of space devoted to 2 percent milk was down, and the proportion devoted to whole milk was up.

I'm vaguely aware of some research supporting the consumption of whole milk.  Googling found this piece, along with others with titles pointing both ways.

Meanwhile I see this post. showing the dairy industry pushing for whole milk in schools.

About Joe Biden and Dealmaking

I'm not sure of the relationship between Biden and Southern Democratic senators back in the 1970's and 80's.

What I do believe is that an effective President must be willing to make deals with anyone.  In this connection I want to recall one of my all-time favorite movies: Kelly's Heroes and Crapgame.

At the climax of the movie Don Rickles, as Crapgame, tells Telly Savalas, the wise old sergeant to make a deal.  What kind of deal?  A deal deal.   The deal is made, and the Americans and the Germans split the gold in the bank.  (You have to see the whole picture to understand the plot.)

Seriously, in my mind LBJ was the most effective president of my lifetime, and he was a dealmaker. I only regret he couldn't find his way to make the deal with the Chinese that Nixon did.

The point is, a deal usually brings together people whose interests conflict to some degree.  I go to buy a car, I want the best car for the lowest price, the deal wants the highest price for the cars she has in stock.  If we meet in the middle, we find the minimax, a deal which represents the best possible outcome for us both, even if it doesn't satisfy our maximum desires. 

Bottom line:  it bothers me to see Democratic candidates setting up barriers to dealmaking.  Hopefully it's all or mostly political positioning, not to be taken seriously.

How Soon I Forget--Reparations

I'd forgotten I'd actually posted my views on reparations this spring. I haven't changed my mind since, just forgot I'd written it.

I do have more thoughts on the difficulty of administering such a program, which I might get to in the future.  I have to say the history of the Pigford suit doesn't increase my confidence in the ability of the government to run such a program

I also have some reservations about Coates' Atlantic article in 2014 which raised the profile of the issue, which I might get to.

There's also a question: if we can design a program which would effectively raise the wealth of blacks, what basis would we have to deny other minorities access to such a program? Or even poor whites?

Black Swans and Just Plain Errors

I just revised my post of yesterday to observe that it's difficult to predict the future. 

Obviously the tendency is to project trends of the present into the future: in 1960 South Korea is a dependency of the US, in 2020 South Korea will be a dependency of the US; in 1950 the Red Chinese were a horde of indistinguishable people wearing Mao jackets; in 2020 the Chinese will continue to have no individuality and dress alike; in 1950 Japan makes cheap children's toys (still remember a metal airplane toy which made a noise when you pushed it along the floor; in 2020 Japan will still be behind the curve of technology.

Mr. Taleb of "Black Swan" fame has a theory of why we fail; a theory I forget the content of.  It's possible we just err.  Or it's possible we like the comfort of the known and dislike Rumsfeld's "unknown unknows".

It would be an error, I think, to assume that President Trump is doomed to be as unpopular on election day 2020 as he is today.  Things may happen, or they may not. 

This Kind of War

This Kind of War is by T.R.Fehrenbach.  The Kindle version was on special the other day, so I bought it.  The Korean War was the first war I experienced, through the newspapers, the newsreels, and magazine articles.  The book was written in 1963, long enough after the war's end for some perspective, long enough ago to offer some insights.  (Fehrenbach was an officer in the 2nd Division, a unit which features prominently in the book, but he doesn't cite his experience explicitly.) I've read something about the war since, especially a bio of the general commanding the 1st Marine Division focused on the battle of the Chosin Reservoir.

He alternates between a focus on individual battles and individuals and a broad general picture of the war.  It's still recommended by figures like Sen. McCain and Gen. Mattis.

Some things which struck me:

• the learning curves of the various militaries involved. The North Koreans, Chinese, South Koreans and US all came into the war with different backgrounds; the first three were able to learn  from the experience while the US was handicapped by the rotation policy.
• the writer's surprise at the ability of Japan to rehabilitate American equipment, a reminder of how far Japan has come since my boyhood when they made cheap toys.
• serious omens for our experience in Vietnam.
• [updated: the author's prediction South Korea would forever be a basket case dependent on US, although that's more definitive than his actual words--a reminder of how limited our vision of the future can be]

NYTimes Articles

Today the Times had one article on projections of world population.  The projection for max population is lower than before because of falling birth rates.

The Times also had an article on research into new crops, which said it was very important because of the "rapidly growing population." 

I find it a bit inconsistent.

What was interesting in the second article was scientists finding ways to plant and harvest multiple times during the year, up to 6 plant/harvest cycles for wheat.  That permits more rapid development of  new varieties.  Norm Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, was a pioneer in this, moving to Mexico where he could do two crops of wheat a year. 

The Effect of (Some) Government Programs

From the Rural Blog's post on tobacco, specifically moves raising the minimum age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21:

"The [tobacco] industry has shrunk since the federal program of production quotas and price supports ended in 2004, and consolidated into larger farms. Pratt estimated the number of burley growers has plummeted from 175,000 to 3,000. And that has reduced the political influence of the crop that once had a powerful hold on Congress and state legislatures."

In other words, in 15 years the number of farmers has dropped to 2 percent of its starting level.

Side comments:  there's still the meme on the left that farm programs help the big guys, which drastically oversimplifies by lumping all farm programs together.

Gains in Government Productivity?

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution has a series of posts on the increased cost of higher education and health services in the US over the past years.  On first reading they're convincing. 

Briefly it's Baumol's  disease--it's hard to raise productivity in service industries because it requires people's time--the time for musicians to play a live performance, a doctor to examine a patient, a surgeon to do an operation, etc.

So how about government?  That's a question I'll try to get back to.

Now and Then: Watergate Remembered--Profanity

While I've never set up a label "Watergate", I find I have referred to it several times in the context of Trump's actions.

One thing which hurt President Nixon was the revelation of the contents of the tapes.  What he said harmed his cause;eventually it sunk it when the "smoking gun" tape showing he planned the coverup. Another aspect diminished his reputation and support: profanity.

Remember in 1973-4 standards were crumbling under the determined attack of the baby boomers.  By standards I mean definitions of "propriety".  (A google ngram for the word shows its usage had been fairly steady for 40 years or so, but dipped significantly in the 70's.)  Nixon represented the people who still believed in propriety, who upheld standards of decorum, who were stiff in public.

So it was a shock to his supporters to find he actually swore in private.  And it's revealing that in the transcripts, his words were replaced by "expletive deleted".

Those were the days.

No Impeachment in Second Term

Query: imagining the worst, if President Trump wins reelection there's no way to impeach him?

The argument would be that all his faults were known to the voters in 2020 (which is what Fred Hiatt argued in the Post recently, except with reference to 2016). 

I think it's possible that something could happen after 2020, or some revelation about events before then (recordings of him conspiring with Putin or taking money from Russia during 2016 perhaps) which might change the situation, but you'd have to regard any impeachment as very unlikely.

What that means for people like me who support Pelosi's stand on impeachment is we have to work even harder to defeat Trump in 2020.  The people who support impeachment can logically, if mistakenly in my opinion, say they have two bites at the apple--impeach and if the Senate doesn't convict defeat him in 2020.

Animal Identification and Traceability

Years ago, two administrations ago, Walt Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm was active in a fight against an animal identification scheme.  The opposition echoed some of the standard American memes: anti-big government, pro-local, anti-technology,anti-big boys, pro . They were successful in killing the birth to dead ID plans, called NAIS.

The other day I saw a picture of a cow in a tweer.  The cow had tags in both ears, plus an RFID device hung around her neck.  I expressed some surprise; the owner explained the reasons, including "traceability", which led me to google the term.  That led to this article in Beef Magazine, which brought me up to date.

Apparently the stopgap compromise solution was to identify for those animals crossing state lines the start point and the destination point.  But now they're looking again at a more sophisticated  plan.

Walt Jeffries is no longer actively blogging so I don't know what his take on this is.

Did Trump Shoot Himself in the Foot

I wonder whether President Trump didn't shoot himself in the foot on immigration.  This Post article has this graph of apprehensions., showing the big surge in 2019, going back to the apprehensions in the GWBush administration.

The difference between now and then is Bush saw an influx of people aiming to work; Trump is seeing an influx of families claiming refugee status.  Because claimed refugees surrender to the first US official they see, Trump's wall is a case of fighting the last war.

But why the surge?  I'd blame it on Trump.  He came into office having made a big deal out of immigration and his wall.  For a while the apprehensions ran about the same level as in the Obama era; Obama having made a big deal out of discouraging immigration as well.  But Trump couldn't get support for his wall.  Doing what he is so very good at, he generated lots of publicity by attacking "migrant caravans".  That was counter-productive.

By publicizing migrant caravans Tump informed Central American citizens that they didn't have to pay a coyote to smuggle them into the U.S. and incur the risk of dying in the desert; they could travel as a family and claim refugee status.  That changes the whole cost-benefit calculus.  Trump might as well have advertised--"here's the loophole by which you can live in the U.S. for years, and maybe even become legal." 

Now no doubt if Trump had never mentioned immigration people would have learned to take more advantage of the refugee rules, and there would have been a transition to it as well as an increase in net apprehensions.  But while Trump's bluster about immigration early in his administration may have discouraged some migrants, it's now created a crisis.

Bloomberg on Dairy

I found this Bloomberg article on the dairy industry to be a good overview of recent trends.

A Thought for FSA Personnel

Chris Clayton of Progressive Farmer has tweeted asking USDA for answers on prevented planting.

I  expressed doubts as to whether leadership could make fast, good decisions.  That's not necessarily a criticism of Sec. Perdue and his team--I wouldn't have had great confidence in the capability of any of the leadership teams during my time at agriculture.  It seems to me the prevented planting issue has spun up very quickly, more quickly than I can remember situations in the past.  With MFP1 there was a longish lead up, during which the analysis people could get their acts together and the implementation people in DC and KC could get prepared.  MFP2 is different, although to the extent it covers 2019 production there won't be that much impact.  Where it's key is on the plant/no plant/change crop decision.(

Another factor is FSA doesn't have recent experience with prevented planting.  Back in my early days in the agency the disaster program included PP. Then, as FSA  was phased out of the disaster business in favor of crop insurance, we lost that institutional memory.  The inclusion of PP in crop insurance policies means the implementation process is going to be more complicated than it was in the old days.)

(Can't resist noting that the combination of Trump's trade war and flooding has undercut the idea that crop insurance could mean the end of ad hoc disaster programs.)

Bottom line: FSA personnel in DC trying to implement whatever decisions are made are having a bad few weeks.  FSA personnel in the field are in worse shape: face to face with farmers desperate for information to make their decisions and lacking the direction from DC.   

My sympathy for both groups, but particularly the field.

More on the Disaster Aid Bill and Payment Limitation

From the text of the bill:

"Sec. 103. (a) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), a person or legal entity is not eligible to receive a payment under the Market Facilitation Program established pursuant to the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act (15 U.S.C. 714 et seq.) if the average adjusted gross income of such person or legal entity is greater than $900,000.

(2) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to a person or legal entity if at least 75 percent of the adjusted gross income of such person or legal entity is derived from farming, ranching, or forestry related activities.

(b) In this section, the term “average adjusted gross income” has the meaning given the term defined in section 760.1502 of title 7 Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect July 18, 2018)."

So someone whose gross income combines farm and nonfarm sources has an additional hoop to jump through.  My impression is that FSA enforces the basic AGI limit by passing the appropriate ID to IRS and gets back data (likely just a flag) on whether the $900,000 limit is exceeded or not.  Now they'll have another determination to make, after that.  I'm sure FSA welcomes the additional work (NOT).

What's in the Disaster Aid Bill for Farmers

Here's the Senate summary of the contents of the just-passed disaster aid bill (emphasis added, given my post of yesterday).

AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
Farm Disaster Assistance: $3.005 billion is provided for the USDA Office of the Secretary (OSEC) to cover producers’ net exposure to losses stemming from 2018 and 2019 natural disasters. Assistance is also provided to cover blueberry and peach crop losses resulting from freezes and hurricanes in 2017 and producers impacted by Tropical Storm Cindy. USDA would administer funding through the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program (WHIP) under OSEC.

Emergency Forest Restoration Program: $480 million is provided for the Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP) for non-industrial timber restoration.

Emergency Conservation Program: $558 million is provided for the Emergency Conservation program (ECP) for repairs to damaged farmland.

Emergency Watershed Protection Program: $435 million is provided for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program (EWPP) for rural watershed recovery.

Rural Community Facilities: $150 million is provided for Rural Development Community Facilities grants for small rural communities impacted by natural disasters in 2018 and 2019.

 Nutrition Assistance for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI): $25.2 million is provided for disaster nutrition assistance for the CNMIs impacted by typhoons.

Market Facilitation Program AGI Waiver: Language is included to waive the average gross income requirement for producer eligibility under the administration’s Market Facilitation Program. 

Puerto Rico Nutrition Assistance: $600 million is provided to supplement disaster nutrition assistance for Puerto Rico stemming from 2017 hurricanes.

Puerto Rico Nutrition Study: $5 million is included for an independent study, including a survey of participants, on the impact of the additional benefits provided through disaster nutrition assistance.

American Samoa Nutrition Assistance: $18 million is provided for a grant to American Samoa for disaster nutrition assistance.

Hemp Crop Insurance: Language is included to ensure crop insurance coverage for hemp beginning in the 2020 reinsurance year.

Rural population waiver: Language is included to provide eligibility to designated communities impacted by a natural disaster for certain Rural Development programs.

Payment Limitations in the News Again

Been a busy day so I didn't get a chance to follow up on this piece.

What strikes me is the idea that the payments were on a US Treasury database.  I assume it's a result of the more general law requiring transparency on US payments  Wonder how EWG and the farm community will react.

Incredible Stat: Spending on Trump Security Versus Mueller

The end of an Anne Applebaum piece in the Post:

"The British state will spend 18 million pounds (about $22 million) on his security; the U.S. taxpayer will spend many multiples of that sum; hundreds of hours will have been wasted on planning. And all so that one man’s fragile ego can be boosted for another day."

The total cost of the Mueller investigation might be around $34 million.

For a short week's trip the UK may spend up to 2/3 the cost of the Mueller investigation.  Toss in the US costs and we're about even

(Note: the BBC article Applebaum links to is more fuzzy on the estimate than she is.)

Re FBI; Barr Has a Point

Saw in surfing that AG Barr said something to the effect the FBI should not have investigated Trump.

I suspect my fellow liberals and Democrats will be aghast at the idea: no one should be above the law, etc.

But I'm old enough to think he has something of a point.  Apparently the FBI transcripts from their wiretapping of Martin Luther King have just been released, which should serve as a reminder of the power J. Edgar had in his heyday through the suspicion he had files on everyone in DC. 

My point is that investigations are power, and we should have checks and balances applied to the FBI when they investigate possible misdoing by high official, or candidates for high offices.  From what I understand of the background of the FBI investigation into Russian meddling and the involvement of the Trump campaign it was conducted well and had some oversight.  Certainly President Obama was aware of the proceedings and tried to take action.  But that seems to have been based on the judgment of the officials involved, not the operations of any particular legal structure.

To me, the whole Trump-Russian mess raises big questions: what sort of help can/should campaigns accept from noncitizens, from nonresidents, from citizens of friendly nations, from citizens of  possible adversaries, or members of the government of adversaries?  How is that defined in relation to the First Amendment?  To the extent we now have laws against such help, or decide to add them in the future, how should investigations of possible breach of such laws be handled?  We can't leave it to the FBI director--J. Edgar proves that.  We can't leave it to the appointed heads of Justice or the elected head of the government, can we?

Reestablishing Proper Standards of Behavior

A question raised by the Mueller Report is what are acceptable standards of behavior:

• should political actors in the US accept money from noncitizens/nonresident?
• should they accept valuable information from nonresidents?
• should they accept advertising on their behalf paid for by nonresidents?
• should they report attempts provide the above assistance to the FBI?
• should they make public the above assistance?
• should they lie about receiving such assistance?

There have been defenses of the Trump campaign arguing that searching for dirt on the opponent is standard campaign procedure.  Is that true, and if it is, should it be?  Where do you draw the lines?

Even as a devoted opponent of Trump's presidency I recognize that, with the First Amendment and the SCOTUS decisions in this area, the answers to these questions may not be what I'd like. But it does seems possible that there could be bipartisan agreement on some standards.

NPR and Furriners Buying Our Land

NPR had a piece on foreigners buying up agricultural land.  It's not clear where the correspondent's data comes from, but I'd suspect it's reports under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act..

I remember when the law was enacted in 1978.  That was when foreigners were rolling in dollars, partly because OPEC had successfully raised the price of oil, Nixon had taken us off the gold standard, and Japan was starting to sell cars (bought my first Toyota in that year) to us.  Those dollars were being used to buy land, causing concerns in the U.S.  That resulted in the act, requiring buyers to report their ownership to ASCS/FSA.

The regulations to implement the act were always questionable--basically it was a stand-alone requirement to report in its own little silo, with no interface to the rest of ASCS functions.  That meant there was no real enforcement, except the good will of the buyers and the conscientiousness of the county office.  But we had no way to ensure the buyers knew the requirement.. And we had no way to get data on sales by foreign buyers.

As a result, when someone looked at the AFIDA database in 2014, they found problems.  I'd have my doubts that it's been fixed since.

In the back of my mind I wanted to integrate AFIDA into the farm records system as we re-engineered it from the System/36 to the new platform.  But it never happened, never became important enough to devote the people to it, and I got fed up and retired.  I strongly suspect in the 20 years since no one involved in the redesign of FSA operations was conscious enough of AFIDA to include it in the redesign.  Such is the fate of silos; they don't have enough significance to attract attention.

I did a search on this blog to see if I'd written on AFIDA before.  I did a couple times in 2008, but using the FSA label.  One post did refer to FSA's AFIDA reports.  They're available here. But the web page hasn'te been updated for 5 years, a fact which supports my overall take on the subject.

Drills of Today and Yesteryear

Conversing with a relative, older than I, this morning.  She remembered the newsreels of the Capitol being lighted up again after the end of WWII (maybe VE day?).  She'd lived in the DC area until about 1943-4.  I asked if she remembered air raid drills--she did, many of them, in fear of German air raids.

My memory for some things is not the best, so I'm sure we had some a-bomb drills in school, but I don't remember a lot of them, or indeed any specific one. Those drills were in fear of a Soviet nuclear attack. 

Today students get active shooter drills, many of them.  Unfortunately the chances of their ever encountering an active shooter, although minuscule, are significantly greater than the chance of a German air raid on DC, but perhaps not as great as a Soviet attack on DC was (except I lived 300 miles from DC).

Drills--the ones I really remember are the penmanship ones, perhaps another drill destined for the wastebasket of history.

MFP II Addenda

Via Farm Policy News further details on MFP II--based on the USDA big shots' discussion.  The key point I take from it:

"Referring to the market facilitation program, Undersecretary Northey indicated that, “So these payments are not designed to be a market loss payment. They are a market facilitation payment. It’s not going to perfectly reflect what some producers feel the loss of these markets have been.”

FWIW I don't know what the words "market facilitation" mean, at least not as applied to the $14.5 billion part of the program. 

MFP II Announced

NY Times writes about trade policy and Trump's trade war, including the announcement of $16 billion in MFP II.

Chris Clayton's article at DTN  has the details on the program, which has three tranches and uses county payment rates among other differences from MFP I.  He also notes Trump's lie about the history of farm income:

"President Trump reiterated, falsely, that farmers have seen a 20-year steady decline of income, despite farm income peaking in 2013. As a key part of the president's rural base, Trump reiterated, "They [farmers] are patriots. They stood up and they were with me. They didn't say 'Oh we shouldn't do this because we're going to have a bad year. They have had 20 bad years if you really look."

The county payment rate will be new and a challenge to implement. [Update: When I wrote this, I was wrong.  I was thinking county/crop payment rates, which I never dealt with back in the day, but the fact is FSA has had experience with them, both through price supports and the new 21st century programs which I don't understand.  However, the idea is one country price for all crop acreage, regardless of the crop planted.  That, I think,  raises new problems.  If all farmers in the county raise crops in the same proportion, it could work.  But that's a big "if".  Say a country produces corn and soybeans 50/50, so the county rate is based on that proportion. But take a farmer who plants only corn, which I'm assuming is less affected by the trade war, she will get a higher rate than she "deserves".  Conversely the farmer who plants only soybeans will be screwed.  (Obviously I'm using extreme examples.)]

Who Gets Chosen as VP?

Scott Adams blogged this:

"VP candidate traditionally boring, watered-down version of POTUS

• Biden was more boring than President Obama
• Now Biden has to select his own VP, that’s even more boring"

I'm afraid he needs a course on American history.  Traditionally the vice presidential candidate is different than the presidential candidate--it's called "balancing the ticket".  There's even a wikipedia page for it.

To go over recent history:

• Trump chose a VP who had extensive DC experience and personally was very different and was from a different region.
• Obama chose a VP who had extensive DC experience and personally was very different (old, white, ebullient, not buttoned up)and was from a different region..
• GWBush chose a VP who had extensive DC experience and personally was very different (older, buttoned up) and was from a different region..
• Clinton chose a VP who was indeed of the same age and region but who had extensive DC experience.
• GHWB chose a VP who presented a fresh face  from a different region.
• Reagan chose a VP who had extensive DC experience and personally was very different and was from a different region.
• Carter chose a VP who had extensive DC experience and was from a different region.
• Nixon chose a VP who was a fresh face and was from a different region.

I think Mr. Adams just went for a cheap attack on Biden. 

Women in Government--the Rate of Social Change

We're coming up on the 100th anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage in the U.S.

My cousin noted that yesterday the voters of Ipswich, MA elected women to fill 3 of the 5 seats on the town's select board, a first for the town.  The Post, I think, had an front page article on the Nevada legislature which is the first in the nation to have a female majority.

I think it's worth reflecting on the 100 years as an indicator of the limits of legislative change.  It's a caution to liberals

A New Market Facilitation Program?

Lots of talk about a new and bigger program to compensate for depressed prices due to Trump's trade war with China.

Will it just be the MFP for 2018 updated for 2019?  Maybe, maybe not.  There's talk of including prevented planting because of the widespread flooding and the very slow progress of corn planting.  We'll see.

[Updated--see Clayton's piece.]

Countervailing Judicial Power

Ezra Klein has a piece on Vos about "countervailing power", a concept from John Kenneth Galbraith. Briefly, he saw "big labor" as countering "big business", and "big government" as an essential balancing player.  So Klein summarizes his argument:

" If the [political] question is framed as socialism or capitalism, it’s difficult to state the obvious: We may need a bit more socialism now, even if that may create a need for more capitalism later.
But if it’s framed as the balance of countervailing powers, that truth becomes more obvious. There is no end state in a liberal democracy. There is only the constant act of balancing and rebalancing. The forces that need to be strengthened today may need to be weakened tomorrow. But first they need to be strengthened today."

I've always liked the Galbraith's concept.  I'm struck by a tweet from Orin Kerr, suggesting that if conservatives become dominant in the judiciary, it will evoke a countervailing response from legal academia.

National Service Concerns

Some discussion these days from Dem candidates about "national service".

I guess I'm generally favorable to the idea, but with reservations, based on my experience with the draft.

The draft was good for:

• getting me out of a rut (different people have different ruts, but I suspect the recent decline in American geographical mobility is partly the result of the ending of the draft).
• exposing me to people from across the country and diverse backgrounds
• challenging me to endure and master new experiences: like basic training, like serving as an instructor.

Those benefits came because the draft was not voluntary.  I'd worry that a non-military national service would not have the diversity nor the challenges.  Once you allow the person to choose, you start to lose some of the necessary difficulty.  Even in the Army, once I was past basic my cohort and co-workers were much more similar to me. 

The other vulnerability of a new national service program would be, I think, the difficulty of finding a purpose to the program's work.   While we draftees disliked the military, we knew it was important and/or significant.  But we were essentially unskilled labor, cannon fodder, and weren't qualified for much more than that.  And we got paid accordingly, so we were cheap.  So what work requires cheap unskilled labor  and is self-evidently important?

If the proponents can come up with an answer to that question, we can then talk about instituting "national service".  Until then, we need more focused things like Job Corps and Americorps.

Powerline and Althouse Wouldn't Qualify as Immigrants

Nor would almost all liberals blogging and tweeting.   See this NY Times calculator.

I scored 18 points, where 30 is required.  (The key, of course, in my case is age, income, and my college major.)

(Updated: I'm referring to the people behind the two blogs I follow which are on the right, although Ann Althouse might quarrel with that categorization.)