Food Co-ops

Stephanie Pierce blogs at Ethicurean about food co-ops she and her husband saw driving across America. Some good generalizations there, but I think she misses the most important element to a good co-op: finding a structure and a niche which ensures survival over the medium term. There were lots of producer and consumer co-ops in the 1920's and 30's, and again in the 1960's, but history tells us most of them failed or were bought out. A single smart, persistent, hard working person can initiate a co-op, attracting enough others to make it work for a while, but it's very hard to institutionalize that into a continuing organization which can outlive the founder (or her enthusiasm).

Polish Agriculture

From Grist and Erik Hoffner:

That's what I'd read in the New York Times this spring, in a story which reported that interest in buying local is thin, and the market for organic is even thinner. And this is largely what I saw there -- people preferred to buy vegetables from Germany, and farms I visited were wondering what their market would be in the future. Ironically, most of these farms were already organic because of the prohibitive cost of chemical amendments, but hadn't bothered with the paperwork. Most small farmers don't sell at all, but consume what they grow -- pure subsistence.

In my high school biology class, many years ago, we were taught something that's now discredited: "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"--meaning the development of the individual retraces the steps by which the phylum developed, hence the presence of gills at one stage of the fetal development. I wonder whether that's sort of true for economies--an agricultural economy which the Michael Pollan's of the world regard as ideal must necessarily transform into an industrialized agriculture before, perhaps, and this remains to be seen, developing post-industrial crunchy green characteristics.

How Legislation Is Implemented II

Government Executive has a long post about the problems of implementing the "bailout": problems of designing the problem, getting the expertise, handling ethical and conflict-of-interest problems, oversight, enforcement, and the looming transition.

Best Blog Post Title in a While

Is here.

How Legislation Is Implemented

This post picks up the story of implementation--in this case the Biomass Crop Assistance Program included in the farm bill. It's not on a fast-track--requiring both an environmental impact assessment and regulations to be developed, likely it will take 18 months or so to implement.

The unknown not cited in the article is staffing. Someone in USDA has to be assigned to write the regs and do the assessments, or someone has to be hired (assuming the funding covers administrative costs). Hiring takes a long while, up to 6 months while moving someone from job A to job X often means getting a turkey. (Big boss says: I need a body from your staff to work on BCAP, small boss: says Jane Doe isn't busy now, I'll give her to you. Left unsaid, the reason Jane Doe isn't busy is that she tends to screw up what she does unless closely supervised. And because Big boss knows nothing about BCAP, and cares less, she's not going to give Jane much guidance..)

Some unsolicited advice for lobbyists: once you get a program in the law, you need to have a sponsor within the bureaucracy with the interest in the program and the clout to be sure it gets capable bureaucrats assigned to it. Alternatively, you can take to dropping by the office regularly to help the poor sucker (i.e., Jane Doe) figure out what needs to be done.

I'm Feeling Mean

Greg Mankiw, the Harvard economist, posted last week about the odds on which economist would win the Nobel. You'd think, if economists were wise, this is surely a field where their predictions would be good. To the contrary, Paul Krugman wasn't even mentioned.


As one gets old, one loses faith in all sorts of authority figures.



[yes, I realize I'm using bad logic in my second sentence.]

The Latest News from 1783

Via Manan Ahmed at Cliopatria, a recommendation to view the Onion.

I agree, a must-read for any one with an interest in our history.

"Energy Experts"?

"Energy experts believe prices could go even lower."

A line from an article on oil prices dropping below $78. Seems as if only yesterdaythey were predicting higher prices.

Has the Ag Bubble Popped?

That's Tom Philpott's question, which he answers "yes".

10/10 or a Day in DC

On Friday, October 10, the sun was shining, the skies were clear, the air was fresh, even in DC. Reminiscent of 9/11, even though a month later, and 7 years of course.

In the District of Columbia on that day: a Vietnam veteran copped out from making his first visit to the Vietnam memorial, a cousin of a decorated World War II soldier was mightily impressed by the WWII memorial, surviving members of Bomber Group 401 were honored at a ceremony, including music by an Air Force brass group, two tourists passed by the District of Columbia memorial for "The World War" (built in the optimism of the 1920's), the widow of a Navy veteran of the Korean War era was not affected by the Korean War memorial. Uptown at the World Bank the finance ministers were meeting on the crisis, but the Federal Reserve Bank headquarters looked serene and remote in the sunshine, the statue of Albert Einstein near the sidewalk was invisible.

Also, National Park workers were busy keeping the gardens by the Tidal Basin looking good, even this late in the year, joggers jogged, an eagle landed on the fence on the Mall keeping tourists off grass that needs rejuvenation, tourists from all parts of the world took pictures of the monuments, and of each other taking pictures of each other. The Jefferson Memorial was very visible, the White House not. The cafeteria at the American Indian museum served very good pumpkin and acorn soup and a succotash far removed from the succotash found 50 years ago in early frozen food sections of groceries. A veteran of the Utah beach landings talked about his service (with the 9th Division) in WWII and Korea, his spine-tingling experience of a night visit to the Korean war memorial, and about his 20+ years researching genealogy.

A street evangelist, aided by loudspeakers, urged blacks to accept salvation and to reject whites (I think, the noise was rather overwhelming). An "Irish pub" served Guinness, and several males full of beer and testerone, and perhaps angst over the 1000 point down and up of the Dow. A man, young to an old codger but feeling the passage of time, talked of his interest in genealogy, the delights in mapping family trees and instigating family reunions. The Metro down escalators were static, but didn't hinder the rush of bureaucrats and other workers heading home for a long holiday weekend, celebrating the "discovery" of America by one Columbus, who wasn't greeted with pumpkin soup by the natives, who had discovered America 100 centuries or more before.

Finally, two tired people made their way to home and hotel.

Mainline Stores Versus "Fringe"

In this piece, a defense of supermarkets as opposed to food through "fringe" stores (not necessarily niche stores, but 7-11's, drug stores, etc. She mentions the decline in mobility among our aged (as well as sometimes a loss of interest in cooking and food) and the trend towards "agglomeration", which I noticed on my recent trip.

Bad Times for Agriculture Ahead?

Just getting back into blogging and have many posts on other blogs to catch up on. But I'm anticipating problems for agriculture: the dollar is stronger against the euro and pound, so I'm assuming it's stronger against the currency of grain importing countries. And stories such as this, about grain piling up in ports because the credit markets are frozen, are worrisome. And a general slowdown in economic growth means a cutback in meat consumption. So I'm expecting sharply lower grain prices, meaning bankruptcies as farmers who committed to land purchases at high prices or rentals at high rates, can't make ends meet. In other words, a rerun of the 80's, but from a base of fewer farmers.

I'll be interested to see what John Phipps thinks.

[Updated: This Brownfield post reports an economist's guess as to the impact of a world-wide recession on farm prices.]

Words from France

I recommend the Dirk Beauregard pieces I've "shared" (some day I'll figure out what that means and whether I can do more with it).

Here's one I found interesting--the strategies he used to teach English to french law students (full disclosure: I didn't do well enough in college french to pass the language requirement, had to retake.) I admire the ability to do the sort of thing he describes.

And this one contains this passage, which is fascinating for what it says about the society:

All papers in France are distributed by the state-run, Paris-based company "les messageries Parisiennes" - the company distributes every paper and magazine that exists throughout France, this means that all national newspapers, however big or small are guaranteed a fair national circulation. They will get to ever corner of the nation, from Paris right through to the smallest mountain village. Nice idea. However, when the messageries go on strike, no one in France gets a newspaper.

And this one discusses the experiences of French and English in WWII (based on his in-laws and ancestors' stories).

But read or skim all his posts--he's eclectic, if incapable of spelling correctly.

Voter Registration Fraud and Voting Fraud? [Updated]

The Reps are pushing stories that ACORN has indulged in vote fraud (google "Acorn vote fraud". Some seem to be well-founded, at least those where indictments have been filed. I'd note a difference between "voter registration" fraud and "voting fraud" and make a couple comments, though:

• I'm assuming ACORN pays people to register voters. So they have an "agency" problem--if their agent gets paid on the basis of names and addresses of new voters, there's an obvious temptation to sign up people who are already registered, are ineligible, or whatever. So fraud is relatively easy. (It's a familiar problem--how do you evaluate performance?) To avoid this fraud, we need to open the voter lists so ACORN or whoever can match supposed new voters against existing voters and ineligible people and only pay agents based on valid new adds.
• The "fraud" of fraudulent registration is relatively harmless in itself. It simply means the voter turnout percentages appear lower than they should be. Granted it could enable "vote fraud", but I haven't noticed stories to that effect.
  
• The serious fraud would be either multiple voting by a single person or voting in a district where they aren't supposed to. I would propose a simple remedy for multiple voting: as in Iraq, stain people's fingers when they vote.

IMHO making voter lists transparent and using finger stains would mean the parties and the people could focus on the issues, and the prosecutors could devote time to other crimes.

[Updated to make my point more clearly.] [Updated again to add a link to TPM's discussion--spun, yes, but the basic point is the same.]

Good To Be Home

After 2900 miles, it's good to be home.

A Thoughtful Thread on Pro-Choice/Pro-Life

Todd Zywicki at Volokh.com instigates a thoughtful thread by asking for narratives where a pro-life position had changed (he hadn't noticed any, but had seen a lot of pro-choice moving to pro-life). The resulting thread is thoughtful, and an example of how people can miss stuff because it doesn't fit preconceptions.

[Updated with link]

Thoughts on Housing

I've previously blogged about the connection I saw between immigration and the housing bubble.

One early morning on the road I got to thinking, always dangerous for a bureaucrat. What are the forces in the housing market?

Suppose some mythical day in the past the US had 150 million households and 150 million housing units, that is, everyone is housed and every house is used. What happens next?

1. Disasters--houses get destroyed by fire, flood, etc. Need replacements.
2. Natural increase--people have babies who grow up and want their own household. Need new housing.
3. Immigration--people come to the US and want housing.
4. Movement--people move to where the jobs are, abandoning housing units in the rural areas, the Plains, etc. Need housing in Vegas.
5. Wealth--John McCain gets rich and decides the family needs another house. And another. And another. And another. And another. [Is the solution for our problems for everyone to follow his example?]
6. Smaller households--people get enough money to establish separate households. Want housing.
7. Part-time households--this may be a misnomer, economists may have a term for it and may even have statistics for it. It's the condo near the college for the helicopter parents to live in while visiting baby. I guess if we treat "wealth" as a factor, this would be included there.
   
8. Moving up--people look at their wallets, at the cost of housing, and the Joneses and want a better house.
9. Sharks--people find they can make money by persuading people to buy and sell--whether it's the mortgage brokers, the financiers, etc.
   

Given these sources of demand, builders build, people buy, and pretty soon you get a bubble going as everyone hears there's easy money to be made, not on Wall Street, not on Main Street, but on Housing. The buying and selling adds a final element: even though houses change hands quickly, the number of sales still (I think) lowers the occupancy rate a tad, so a few more housing units are need.

This list puts my immigration claim into perspective--it's a factor, but not a main factor. Good old-fashioned greed, the desire for more, is the main factor.

Rough Times in Sparta

As I mention in my report on our trip, we're staying 2 days in a very nice Holiday Inn Express in Sparta, IL. The local paper reports the local Chrysler dealer has closed and there's a big cutback (33 percent) in human services because of Illinois government problems.

With the coal mines mostly gone, it seems this area is pinning its economic hopes on recreation. Problem is, lots of areas are doing the same thing. Granted, it's the "idle rich", but even they have limits on how much time they can spend recreating.

Traveling

See my brief post here.
Tomorrow is a much shorter travel day, so may have energy to blog. (If not exhausted by catching up on the hundreds of blog posts in Google Reader.)

Quick Hit on Housing

Joel Achenbach tells the story of a Dale City townhouse, built in 1972, which soared in "value" to $250K, the owner refinanced through Countrywide, and now is in foreclosure, trying to sell for <$100K. Toward the end there's a mention of "thousands" of empty houses as an explanation of why it can't be rented. The surplus of houses means either builders overbuilt as part of the bubble and/or households evaporated as people moved back to their native country [my idee fixe]. Truth is, both probably happened, along with more people living with parents--fewer households being formed. Anyhow, Joel's piece is good, as most of his stuff is.

The Bush We Know and Love: No Academic Economists

Via Politico, a ABC has a quote from the Thursday [corrected] meeting:

"Bush isn't impressed.[by 192 economists opposing the plan] ‘I don't care what somebody on some college campus says,’ Bush says. Instead, he says he trusts Hank Paulson, who, he says, has more than 35 years of experience and access to more information than those academics on Shelby's list."

Advice for Bureaucrats

Nice piece here
I wonder if the bailout meetings have any attendees who read this?

Slower Blogging?

Sometimes one's personal life takes precedence over blogging. Beginning Sunday my cousin and I start a genealogical trip for 2 weeks, so I likely will be blogging less here and perhaps more at Harshaw Family.

Academics Versu Bureaucrats

Technically, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke are bureaucrats. Their concept is getting battered by academic economists. Greg Mankiw has been on both sides, now back at Harvard. His opinion, go with the bureaucrat if they're comfortable.

That's my opinion too, based on no economics knowledge but my history in the bureaucracy. Of course, that's also why I backed the Iraq war initially. Sometimes bureaucrats are right, sometimes they have tunnel vision. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

ON Anger

John Phipps has turned against the Paulson bailout plan. He sees it as doomed because of anger at inequality, the resentment of financiers getting big bucks, then being rescued.

For some reason my thoughts turned to the late 60's, when some inner-city blacks were very angry, angry enough to riot and burn down their neighborhoods.

Treat Your Employees Like Dogs

At the cost of forever blowing any reputation I might have as a boss, let me point to this post on Amazon daily, about 10 rules on dealing with dogs. (After each rule the writer explains and amplifies.) Naturally, I thought of employees:

1. A dog is a dog
2. All dogs think in terms of packs
3. Dogs don't understand English
4. Dogs are not spiteful
5. What makes some dogs aggressive
6. Body language is a dogs primary mode of communication
   
7. You can teach an old dog new tricks
8. Bad behaviors may be natural, but they don't have to be normal
9. What is the right way to discipline a dog
10. Do dogs sense the world differently than humans

Her bottom line is essentially: put yourself in the dog's paws and look at the world through the dog's eyes in order to know how to deal with it. Good advice for people, too. Advice usually ignored by the politicians and the public when they deal with their employees--the bureaucrats, who seem to be less than dogs.

More on Obama's Transparency

Nextgov has a piece on Obama's management proposals focusing on transparency, getting reactions from the consultant/contractor community, mostly cautious and somewhat dubious, although one guy obviously saw the most recent polls.

Funny Stuff from Desperate Partisans

One reliable feature of the political season is that people on both sides will get carried away and say the dumbest things. As a Dem, I'll naturally notice the dumb things on the right. This one particularly stands out:

Via Powerline, Tony Blankley says: "[Obama] lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers" (as part of an argument of sinister, or at least unexplored connections between the two). Both were in NYC, according to wikipedia, Obama as a student at Columbia, Ayers wasn't at Columbia, as one might think, but at the Bank Street College, getting an M.Ed. (Ayers went to Columbia apparently after Obama graduated.)

So there's no institutional link between the two during the time they both lived in NYC. And a simple check of wikipedia reveals that NYC has 27,000 people per square mile. Put Obama at the center of a circle with a radius of .25 miles and he has roughly that many people in his neighborhood.

I Don't Need This

From Pollster.com: Most interesting about the current estimates is that if we ignore the classifications and just examine which candidate has a numeric lead, the electoral votes as of today would divide in a perfect 269-269 tie.

Immigration and Housing

Back to my pet idea, the link between housing crisis and immigration. Yesterday's Post had this article:

"The number of immigrants coming to the United States slowed substantially in 2007, with the nation's foreign-born population growing by only 511,000, compared with about a million a year since 2000, according to Census figures released today. "

Say the housing industry was building 400,000 housing units for immigrants since 2000, and selling them, either to immigrants or to landlords who rented them out. All of a sudden, the demand is halved. I believe the housing market is probably inelastic--takes a big change in price to get someone to downsize or upsize. So the change in immigration probably took the pop out of the housing bubble. Once the bubble burst, the Ponzi-style nature of the securitization of debt that the smart boys on Wall Street had engineered made the consequences much worse than they should have been (as they were when the housing bubble burst back in the 80's.)

Dana Says It Better Than I Have

At The Edge of the American West, Dana writes on Pollan' Omnivore's Dilemna. As she notes, many of the health problems of our diet are lower class, while Pollan's suggestions work best for the middle. (Actually I'd say upper middle, since we have no upper class in the U.S., at least none who cook for themselves.)

Obama Is Gore II

Sen. Obama pledges to cut the ranks of middle managers. I've heard that before, from Saint Al Gore.

Forgive my sarcasm, at least he's addressing the performance assessment problem. From a comment I posted:
"If McCain, when he inveighs against waste in DC, would say he would end all problems that rate ineffective on PART it would be a start. If Congress would say the same, it would be a start. Even if OMB is able to impose some order on the executive, it doesn't mean much unless Congress and the appropriations committees buy in. And they don't. Until then, neither McCain nor Obama's promises mean much."

Calming the Waters

Erin asked questions this morning. In an attempt to calm waters, let me observe:

• it's not true this is the biggest thing since..[whatever]. Memory is fallible. I can remember Truman seizing the steel companies (and strikes in wartime). And Sputnik. And Bay of Pigs. And riots in the cities. And Nixon taking us off the gold standard, which seemed maybe the end of the world. And the stagflation of the late 70's. And the S&L crisis. Maybe 100 years from now historians will see this month as the biggest pivot point since 1929, but probably not. After all, just over 7 years ago we were saying 9/11 "changed everything". Did it?
• 700 billion is a lot of money, but I'd bet the net cost is lots lower. It's my memory of the S&L, RTC mess that the net loss was much lower than the figures tossed around earlier. [Correction: looked up RTC on wikipedia which led to this report. Bottom line is people were way off in their estimates of the problem and costs. So it's probably correct to say today we are very uncertain of the size of the problem and the cost. Of course, I'm also making the mistake of assuming the S&L parallels the subprime problems, which it doesn't.]
• Everyone has their own axe to grind. Best to let them grind away.
  

Service in the Military

1 year 11 months and 11 days was enough to convince me I was a natural-born civilian (despite being descended from folks Sen. Webb says were "born fighting"). So I've always been ambivalent about the military. Freakonomics has an interesting post on a Heritage study of the nature of today's military, specifically who serves. (Every candidate with kids old enough has a child who served/is serving in Iraq. That seems a long ways away from the 1980's and 90's.)

There's suspicion over the figures voiced both in the post and the comments. I suspect myself that you have to get into the boondocks of the data to really understand.

Unthinkable Thoughts, a 269 Tie?

As if the bailout weren't enough bad news to obsess over, now comes a Washington Times story on the elections--the possibility of Obama and McCain tying. The FDA should have banned the story from distribution as dangerous to one's health and peace of mind.

10-Acres, Again [Updated]

Forgive my interest in this minutiae (to all except bureaucrats and small farmers), House Ag committee has voted to suspend the 10-acre rule (only farmers with over 10 acres in base are eligible for certain programs) for 2 years to: Give us time to decide how to correct the problem for later years.”

By delaying, they're probably complicating the problem, given there's some one-time decisions (as on ACRE) that farmers need to make.

[Updated--cattlenetwork has some more.

"Decision Dominance"

Is threatened by e-mail. Bureaucrats like "decision dominance", just as parents do: "Do what I tell you". Here's the article, via Next Gov.

[Actually, once you read the article, the colonel is mostly concerning about poorly structured emails, too many emails, personal use of emails, etc.)

The Conservatism of Liberals

From Treehugger, a post on genetically modified sorghum in Africa. I can sort of understand opposition to GM that adds resistance to Roundup, or an insecticide, to a plant. Don't agree with it, but can understand it. I've big problems with opposition to modifying sorghum to have more nutrients or to make protein more digestible. Even if such traits do migrate to wild varieties of sorghum, I don't see the downside. Perhaps it would make wild sorghum better able to compete with other plants, because it's more valuable to animals?

A New Definition for "Overseas"

From a NYTimes piece on a newly assertive Indian military, which has its first "overseas" military base (in Tajikistan). I can barely recall the death of Gandhi, certainly remember Nehru. While this evolution doesn't match China's, it's certainly amazing.

A Question I Never Thought to See

"is $7 wheat a crop that will provide positive revenue" [for you, the farmer]--from a farmgate discussion of the outlook for wheat.

Achenbach Visits Manassas Park

Joel Achenbach finds resentment in Manassas Park over bailing out mortgage lenders. I think he missed the immigrant thread, or anti-immigration thread, about which I've blogged earlier.

Ex-Bureaucrat Views the Paulson Bailout

Can't resist commenting on features of the Paulson/Bernanke plan (the text was in both the Post and Times today):

• they were too rushed to think of a snappy title for the legislation, preferably one that forms a snappy acronym. (Gretchen Morgenson uses "TARP"--troubled asset relief program.) That means things were really hectic.
  
• one problem they'll have is in normal times we have a million or two foreclosures a year (too lazy to check the rate, but the point is there's some level of foreclosures that's "normal".) So, do they just take over all securities regardless, knowing they're going to eat the normal stuff, or do they have some way to weed it out. (New bureaucratic programs usually have this sort of problem--it's like paying kids to study, do you stiff the kids who don't need the incentive?)
• the draft legislation makes it not reviewable in court (as has been noted by other bloggers)
• there's no exemption from the Administrative Procedure Act, though I guess the preceding bullet makes this unnecessary. But what it says is there's no legal requirement for transparency (not that Administrative Procedure Act provisions provide that much transparency).
  
• Paulson apparently plans to use Treasury Department to run the program, rather than establishing a special corporation/agency. Might be wise, because it avoids a bit of administrative overhead. But regardless, I hope his administrative people right now are working on outfitting offices, etc. One of the biggest obstacles to doing things quickly in government is the housekeeping functions (where do people work, on what, and how do they get paid).

Read the Morgenson piece for more understanding.

A Bureaucrat and SCS

Many of the former county ASCS employees who came to work for me were a bit disdainful of the Soil Conservation Service--I remember one acid remark about SCS employees spending all their time riding around the county in their trucks, leaving the ASCS employee(s) to handle the people who showed up at the office.

But, time mellows even old loyalties, so here's an article on the founding father of SCS, an example of the difference the right person in the right place can make.

On Generations

Very interesting article on generations, by Siva Vaidhyanathan,says the idea of a tech-savvy generation, and even the concept of a "generation", is a myth. (That overstates things, but he's contrarian.) It's refreshing to a codger who just barely mustered the courage finally to buy a cellphone.

(I particularly liked the quote from the woman who talked about learning programming with punch cards--ah, those were the days.)

ASCS Employee Got Around

According to this article. She would have worked for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, before joining the WAAC in WWII, making it to Paris and Germany, before coming back. "“I got home on Sunday afternoon and went back to work on Monday morning,” she said."

Quite a life for a dedicated bureaucrat.

Professional Verus Romantics

I liked this post from Musings of a STonehead. Probably because he finds some romanticism in his customers for weaner pigs who are put off by his professional, if small-scale, approach to his business.

IRS IT Systems

A report from Next Gov on IRS progress with IT systems:

Several issues, however, could pose challenges to the project in the long term. For example, while the goal is for CADE to house all taxpayer information permanently, the system stores the data used to process returns only for the current year. Historical taxpayer account data, such as prior year tax assessments and outstanding tax liabilities, are maintained in a separate database not compatible with CADE's format.

In addition, CADE is approaching maximum capacity in terms of data storage. With the expectation that the taxpayer population will increase significantly, the IRS must decide whether to reduce CADE capabilities, or invest in new technology or alternative resources to satisfy demand, the IG recommended.

Without knowing anything about it, I can give IRS a break on the first issue--"backward compatibility" is always an issue when you do a new system, and not always desirable. Presumably over time the problem will be resolved as the current year's data migrates to the prior year, etc. But the second issue--that's a problem. With costs of storage always dropping, the problem has to be in the software. Granted that you always want more (designing software is like a country boy going to a mall for the first time--you keep seeing more and more possibilities) but after this many years of designing systems we ought to be able to do better estimating.

Milk, Fish, and Derivatives

No, not a menu, just a linking of three stories today.
Milk-
the Chinese continue to struggle with their milk scandal--dairies putting melamine in milk to boost the protein count. Problems of this sort remind of the government milk inspector who used to visit our farm. And also of Thoreau's famous quote on circumstantial evidence: "as when there's a trout in the milk" was good evidence the farmer had been adding water to the milk.

Fish-
the Times reports on a study that: "Giving people ownership rights in marine fisheries can halt or even reverse catastrophic declines in commercial stocks, researchers in California and Hawaii are reporting." Who "gives" the rights? The government.

Derivatives are linked to this week's financial problems.

The point I'd make is government has a role in establishing and enforcing rules, rules of identity (what is milk), rules of property (who owns what right). Our history is government is usually tail-end charley, people discover something new, crisis happens, and sometime later government comes along to establish rules.

Why Farming Is Hard

You have to send your wife out to work to get health insurance benefits, and when you're laid up, you are limited to dial-up access to the Internet. Those aren't quite the hardships our forefathers faced, but they make it hard for farming to compete in the market for the best talent. Why shouldn't the farm kid go to town? (In the old days, sufficiently long ago, the answer was because town was deadly, but not today.)

Animal Cruelty

I'm not sure this works. PETA did undercover work at a livestock farm in Iowa, released the film, and Iowa farmers are fighting back. But it's intrinsically one-sided. PETA can pick and choose what's released. It's also true, as a general rule, what an insider sees in the day-to-day routine is quite different than what the outsider sees. It's a question of context, of routine, of perspective.

The best thing the coalition could do is put on tours of their operations--try to drown the PETA expose in a sea of transparency. But that assumes a routine tour wouldn't upset tender-minded undergraduates.