The New Face of Farming

Farming is open to anyone with the ability to sustain 7 digit losses  year after year. It's called "lifestyle farming" in this Bloomberg article.

(I remember when IBM had its PC printer operation in Lexington KY (later sold to Lexmark), and farms were being subdivided into 5-acre farmettes, raising questions about handling of tobacco quotas.  Or consider the new money in the UK in the 19th century who bought country estates because of the prestige attached to the land. )

Time to Put Teeth in Records Acts?

A serious query: does deleting tweets violate the Presidential Records Act? https://t.co/z3NqVVYUlv

— Andrew Rudalevige (@rudalev) November 12, 2019

The responses say "yes" but there's no enforcement mechanism.   As it turns out, the Presidential REcords Act refers to amendments to the Federal Records Act, most recently  in 2014 to include electronic records on non-official accounts. Specifically: "The last provision forbids officers and employees of the executive branch from using personal email accounts for government business, unless the employee copies all emails to either the originating officer or employee's government email, or to an official government record system to be recorded and archived"

I'd love to see the Archivist of the US given police authority.  (My ex-bureaucratic persona speaking.)

It's Okay to Call Me "Boomer"

I'm at the age where it's nice to be considered as younger than I am.  So go ahead, say: "ok boomer".

Wake Up, Professional Transcription Service.

There's no excuse for continuing to use pica or elite type fonts in the 21st century.

The impeachment inquiry transcripts.

Parable of the Forms

As an ex-bureaucrat I'm always interested in forms.  Here's the link to an academic paper entitled "The Parable of the Forms". The author is trying, I think, to address some issues of legal procedure by translating them into the language of a university bureaucracy.  I was struck by some parallels in USDA history.

Very briefly, when the New Deal created the farm programs in the 1930's it seems each field crop had its own program and, sometimes, its own bureaucracy.  In addition, there were siloed initiatives for conservation, housing, rural regeneration etc.

Over the years there were a number of reorganizations of these basic elements.  Also, over the years and underway when I came on board was a drive to generalize the crop programs.  When I started we had wheat and feed grains, upland cotton, ELS cotton, producer rice, and farm rice. Over time the programs were changed so by the time I retired we just had "program crops" and "ELS cotton", but then we'd added oilseeds, and a number of other categories.

The paper's author argues there's an ebb and flow to the forms issue, and to his legal issue: sometimes focused on the differences in situations and sometimes on the commonalities.  Perhaps there's a similar dynamic with programs.  Or perhaps I'm full of it.

You Know You're Getting Old When...

your fingers don't automatically find the correct keys on the home row of the keyboard.

Voting Today: One of the Fears of Some Trump Supporters

My wife and I just got back from voting in VA. Polls seemed busy, although it was a longer ballot than our June primary election so that might have skewed my impression.

Some photos taken from by the exit of the elementary school room (cafeteria) .

[Updated: who knew that Google photos can make a panorama for you without your asking:

The original photos below]

:

I could have made a pan around the room but that's not something I've learned yet.  I didn't notice the flags around the room at first.  Counted over 30, perhaps more hidden from me in the third picture.  I assume they represent the countries of origin of the students, which explains my reference in tthe title to the fears of Trump supporters.

I suppose in some sense many of the kids have a "dual loyalty".  My ancestors have been in country for 134-300 years or so.  Because I know where they immigrated from I've a bit more interest in Ireland/Ulster/Scotland and Germany than in other countries.  I've also a bit more interest in Vietnam where I served and in China where my aunt and uncle were in the YMCA than in other countries. That interest no doubt can affect my position on issues relating to the countries, as will the much closer ties of the students in this school to their countries.  But the bottomline is they're in the process of assimilating, of absorbing American culture even as the school recognies origins.

BTW, the ballot today had instructions in four languages: English, Spanish, Vietnames, and I think Chinese ideograms.

Farm Progreams: Insurance or Social Program?

I've likely written something on this before, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

There are multiple ways, "frameworks", for looking at farm programs:

• as a social program. In this view payments should go to farmers based on their need, what they have to have to continue farming.
• as a reform program.  In this view payments should reward farmers for doing "good" things, like sustainable practices, etc.
• as an insurance program.  In this view payments should be like insurance, where the size of the payment is proportional to the size of the enterprise.  That is, when you buy homeowners insurance, the amount of coverage is tied to the value of the house.  The same when you buy collision/comprehensive coverage for a car.

It's usual, particularly among liberals, to use the first two frameworks. 

Eizenstat on Reparations

Interesting take on reparation from Stu Eizenstat based on his experience with reparations to Jews.

Soaking the Rich--What's Triviial, What's Possible

I had an early response to Megan McArdle this morning--without doing a lot of work to reconstruct: she wrote that soaking billionaires as Sen. Warren now proposes as part of her financing of Medicare for All would contribute a "trivial" amount; I responded her definition of "trivial" must be different than mine.  Apparently (because I still don't understand Twitter fully) that became part of a bigger discussion.  Coming back to the exchange this afternoon, the points seem to be that billionaires may have between $2 and $3 trillion in wealth, and taxing them as Warren proposes would produce around 4 percent of the total cost. 

Meanwhile Kevin Drum has done a preliminary analysis of the proposal here.  It's a convenient summary but very preliminary.  Anyhow, over 10 years he shows total costs as $52 trillion, the contribution of a 6 percent tax on billionaires as $1 trillion.  That means a contribution of 2 percent of total, which would, I agree, qualify as "trivial".  (IMO 4 percent is a tad above "trivial".)

I should make it clear I'm as ambivalent about soaking the rich as I am about many things.  I've seen the reservations of many on the right, particularly about the difficulties in collection (bureaucratic efficiency is always a big consideration with me.)  But disregarding those issues, here's how I think of it today:

• I'm told I can withdraw 4 percent of my savings (TSP, IRA) each year and likely maintain my capital.  Anything over 4 percent is likely to cause to me to exhaust my savings.
• Based on that, it seems reasonable to hit billionaires with a 4 percent yearly tax--their fortunes wouldn't diminish, on average, and any especially productive or lucky entrepreneurs could increase them.
• Going over 4 percent is killing the goose--you can be decreasing inequality, which is good IMO, but you need to plan to get an alternative revenue source (or finding savings) for the long run.

My opinions are subject to change, particularly as Drum updates his analysis.