Persuasion and other myths...

I have struggled with disappointment for years over my inability to find arguments to persuade farmers and others with logic to share my views on topics from subsidies to inflation to climate change. But new research suggests I was born too late (or early) for this strategy to have much of a chance. In our era, a different belief dynamic is at work.

As I have pointed out before, empirical (observed) evidence - facts, if you will - just don't seem to pack the persuasive power I believe they should.

Presented with this problem a funny thing happened: how good subjects were at math stopped predicting how well they did on the test. Now it was ideology that drove the answers. Liberals were extremely good at solving the problem when doing so proved that gun-control legislation reduced crime. But when presented with the version of the problem that suggested gun control had failed, their math skills stopped mattering. They tended to get the problem wrong no matter how good they were at math. Conservatives exhibited the same pattern — just in reverse.Being better at math didn’t just fail to help partisans converge on the right answer. It actually drove them further apart. Partisans with weak math skills were 25 percentage points likelier to get the answer right when it fit their ideology. Partisans with strong math skills were 45 percentage points likelier to get the answer right when it fit their ideology. The smarter the person is, the dumber politics can make them.Consider how utterly insane that is: being better at math made partisans less likely to solve the problem correctly when solving the problem correctly meant betraying their political instincts. People weren’t reasoning to get the right answer; they were reasoning to get the answer that they wanted to be right.The skin-rash experiment wasn’t the first time Kahan had shown that partisanship has a way of short-circuiting intelligence. In another study, he tested people’s scientific literacy alongside their ideology and then asked about the risks posed by climate change. If the problem was truly that people needed to know more about science to fully appreciate the dangers of a warming climate, then their concern should’ve risen alongside their knowledge. But here, too, the opposite was true: among people who were already skeptical of climate change, scientific literacy made them more skeptical of climate change.This will make sense to anyone who’s ever read the work of a serious climate change denialist. It’s filled with facts and figures, graphs and charts, studies and citations. Much of the data is wrong or irrelevant. But it feels convincing. It’s a terrific performance of scientific inquiry. And climate-change skeptics who immerse themselves in it end up far more confident that global warming is a hoax than people who haven’t spent much time studying the issue. More information, in this context, doesn’t help skeptics discover the best evidence. Instead, it sends them searching for evidence that seems to prove them right. And in the age of the internet, such evidence is never very far away. [More of a must-read]

My problem is exacerbated by being pretty moderate and therefore wishy-washy on many ideological issues.  I don't have nearly as much problem changing my mind on issues, and since I have been shown to be wrong so many times, it's not new to me. But the larger factor is the blessing of friends who cut me some slack.  Not everybody has that these days.

Imagine what would happen to, say, Sean Hannity if he decided tomorrow that climate change was the central threat facing the planet. Initially, his viewers would think he was joking. But soon, they’d begin calling in furiously. Some would organize boycotts of his program. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of professional climate skeptics would begin angrily refuting Hannity’s new crusade. Many of Hannity’s friends in the conservative media world would back away from him, and some would seek advantage by denouncing him. Some of the politicians he respects would be furious at his betrayal of the cause. He would lose friendships, viewers, and money. He could ultimately lose his job. And along the way he would cause himself immense personal pain as he systematically alienated his closest political and professional allies. The world would have to update its understanding of who Sean Hannity is and what he believes, and so too would Sean Hannity. And changing your identity is a psychologically brutal process.Kahan doesn’t find it strange that we react to threatening information by mobilizing our intellectual artillery to destroy it. He thinks it’s strange that we would expect rational people to do anything else. "Nothing any ordinary member of the public personally believes about the existence, causes, or likely consequences of global warming will affect the risk that climate changes poses to her, or to anyone or anything she cares about," Kahan writes. "However, if she forms the wrong position on climate change relative to the one that people with whom she has a close affinity — and on whose high regard and support she depends on in myriad ways in her daily life — she could suffer extremely unpleasant consequences, from shunning to the loss of employment."Kahan calls this theory Identity-Protective Cognition: "As a way of avoiding dissonance and estrangement from valued groups, individuals subconsciously resist factual information that threatens their defining values." Elsewhere, he puts it even more pithily: "What we believe about the facts," he writes, "tells us who we are." And the most important psychological imperative most of us have in a given day is protecting our idea of who we are, and our relationships with the people we trust and love.Anyone who has ever found themselves in an angry argument with their political or social circle will know how threatening it feels. For a lot of people, being "right" just isn’t worth picking a bitter fight with the people they care about. That’s particularly true in a place like Washington, where social circles and professional lives are often organized around people’s politics, and the boundaries of what those tribes believe are getting sharper. [Same]

Outside a few close friends, I really don't have much of a tribe. In fact, you guys reading this are a big part of my community. Being a Methodist helps, as that group is certainly less concerned with orthodoxy. Working by myself on a farm is another stroke of luck since I don't have those links to damage.

I'm not blaming the rest of the world - those are just the ground rules now for policy debate, and after reading about it I have realized I've wasted a lot of breath/words. It's a good thing I enjoy the process, because measured by results, I don't have much to show for decades of lobbing my opinions out there.

I read this article right after it was published and frankly it bummed me out for days, but it also seemed to confirm suspicions already lurking in my mind. Tribalism rules.

The obvious follow on question is why is this true now?

Maybe we are all looking for community and a sense of belonging. We already know that is a key factor in happiness, long-lives and satisfaction. And old communities are struggling. The geographical community of proximity, especially in rural areas is depopulated and bifurcating into large farmers and lots of low-income residents. These two groups don't have much in common.

Our civic, fraternal, and recreational organizations are fading as well. Lions and Elks are endangered species. VFW is literally dying off. Masonic lodges are closing. Bowling leagues are lame. And all the time TV and Internet offer a pseudo-community without leaving home or risking the exact social problems Ezra details above. Even work has at best a more fragile sense of inclusion, as layoffs have made everyone anxious, and lifetime employment a joke from the past.

So any real-time, fact-to-face contacts we do have are extremely important. Why not arrange your beliefs to make sure those connections stay in place? After all, what will you replace them with?

The future has hazards ahead for many of us, as well. It appears white Americans get more conservative as we slip toward a minority. So will moderates and liberals bend to go along?

Near the top of the list, they found, was a deep consciousness of being “white in a country with growing minorities.” One participant described his town as such:

Everybody is white. Everybody is middle class, whether or not they really are. Everybody looks that way. Everybody goes to the same pool. Everybody goes—there’s one library, one post office. Very homogenous.

For most of their lives, these people could ignore the country’s demographic change. But the election of President Obama was a clear sign that things were different.The result was fear and anxiety. A fear, for instance, that comprehensive immigration reform would begin a tidal wave of dependency, as Democrats won their votes with the allure of government programs such as Obamacare. “Every minority group wants to say they have the right to something, and they don’t,” said one Tea Party participant. “There’s so much of the electorate in those groups that Democrats are going to take every time because they’ve been on the rolls of the government their entire lives. They don’t know better,” said another. [More]

These issues are magnified to extremes simply due to smaller numbers in our profession and rural life. The fact that farmers overwhelmingly agree on any number of arguably illogical political issues says far less about reasoning power, and far more about fear of loneliness, perhaps.

This too will pass, I think, for the reasons illuminated toward the end of the article. Convictions grounded in ideology eventually fail to cope with reality that doesn't care. I don't know how those moments will unfold - its been 20 years and people are still adamant rampant inflation is a threat. So that would suggest it won't be overnight epiphanies and conversions.

Maybe we will rebuild new communities I can only try to imagine to give us the social assurance to change our minds in the face of evidence. I know one thing for sure: the first step is to give friends slack to consider a new position. Dancing in the end zone after an undeniable election result, for instance, is not just rude, it is an unkindness that destroys connections we need to be happy and pollutes the atmosphere of social discourse.

I still think it all began with Cassius Clay and the death of the Good Winner, but that's a theory for another time.

Connecting the dots...

The Cheerios announcement is the subject of intense debate right now as farmers try to figure out what it means. Frankly, I think it may signal game over for at least labeling, but I don't think our hysterical predictions of what that will mean are likely.

But more interesting to me is the juxtaposition of two public trends. First, GMO's.

With this move, General Mills is "testing" the market on a brand that is relatively easy to rid of GMOs, says Harry Balzer, chief food industry analyst for the NPD Group, a global market research firm. After all, Cheerios' main ingredient, oats, cannot be genetically modified. Heightened consumer awareness of GMOs, which has been building during the past decade, is what is driving the decision, he says. Ten years ago, 43 percent of US consumers were aware of genetically modified food; today, 55 percent are, according to an NPD Group study released in December. NPD also reports that 20 percent of US consumers are “very” or “extremely” concerned about genetically modified food; in 2002, that concern was shared among just 10 percent of consumers.The General Mills decision stems from a “movement driven by consumers, rather than driven by companies," Mr. Balzer says. "Marketers will surely follow wherever consumers go.” As more food manufacturers and grocery chains push for GMO-free products, the potential exists for higher costs for the consumer, he says.Moreover, GMO technology requires “fewer pesticides, less water, and keep(s) production costs down,” the Grocery Manufacturers Association says. Thus, it “helps reduce the price of crops used for food, such as corn, soybeans and sugar beats,” by 15 percent to 30 percent.Eliminating GMO ingredients from the American diet is largely impossible, most experts say, because processed foods are such a dominant part of it. As General Mills and other food suppliers unveil GMO-free versions of popular brands, they will likely create a niche market for those consumers who want a choice. This will be especially true of products ingested by children, such as cereal and baby food.“The way to sell any food product is to have several different versions. That’s probably where we’re going to be in a few years,” Mr. Albala says. “This is a specialty market.” [More]

Note the way consumer polls are moving on this issue even as farmers and Monsanto, et al. apply a full-court press.

Now consider this nugget of what the popular mind is thinking.

One possibility is that respondents who identified as Republican and believed in evolution in 2009 are no longer identifying as Republicans. Fewer scientists, for example, are reportedly identifying with the GOP, and the overall trend is for fewer Americans to call themselves Republicans. But both Gallup and separate polling from Pew found approximately the same party ID in 2009 and 2013.Another is that the rise of "intelligent design" education has helped to swing younger Americans against evolution. Yet the age breakdown remains similar in 2009 and 2013, with respondents ages 18 to 29 most likely to believe in evolution.What does that leave? Maybe the gap represents an emotional response by Republicans to being out of power. Among others, Chris Mooney has argued that beliefs on politically contentious topics are often more rooted in opposition to perceived attacks than anything else—an instance of "motivated reasoning." Given that Democrats have controlled the White House and Senate since 2009, this could be backlash to the political climate, though it will be hard to tell until Republicans control Washington again.Of course, motivated reasoning might help explain why many Democrats also believe in evolution. [More]

Some pundits argue there is an indication of tribalism going on here.

So what happened after 2009 that might be driving Republican views? The answer is obvious, of course: the election of a Democratic presidentWait — is the theory of evolution somehow related to Obama administration policy? Not that I’m aware of, but that’s not the point. The point, instead, is that Republicans are being driven to identify in all ways with their tribe — and the tribal belief system is dominated by anti-science fundamentalists. For some time now it has been impossible to be a good Republicans while believing in the reality of climate change; now it’s impossible to be a good Republican while believing in evolution....And look, this has to be about tribalism. All the evidence, from the failure of inflation and interest rates to rise despite huge increases in the monetary base and large deficits, to the clear correlation between austerity and economic downturns, has pointed in a Keynesian direction; but Keynes-hatred (and hatred of other economists whose names begin with K) has become a tribal marker, part of what you have to say to be a good Republican. [More]

Such ideas are worth pondering, but I would add two more points.

1. Americans have decided science (or even rational thought) is not necessarily the last word for any policy debate. As such farmers are free to argue against global warming if it looks like it may interfere with current practices. Likewise, other special interests use the same selectivity in respecting science. Sound science is science that agrees with my ideology, so to speak.
2. Ag and agribusiness has framed this debate as digital: either 1 or 0, no shades of compromise. This is proving to be a much riskier gamble than any of us imagined. In fact, I think the odds are now we could lose.  And losing means losing big, because we won't offer anything halfway to meet critics. Meanwhile, I have heard or seen nothing about any Plan B.

I still believe we could have negotiated some kind of labeling and eliminated much of the possible damage. But even if we see this type of Big Food action snowball, my guess is we'll dig in and rally around the same seed companies we are outraged at for trapping us into no-choice high prices by cartel action and decreasing non-GMO seed production.

In other words, we may not only lose this battle for consumer acceptance, we may actually make its consequences worse.  The sun will come up no matter which way this battle is decided, but it could be a testing time for corn/soy producers and our value chain. We may have also exhausted considerable political capital that won't be there for crop insurance, TMDL regs, animal welfare public relations, etc. Bungling this controversy will have collateral damage.

I would watch the stock price of Monsanto for a hint of a disruptive event coming down the road.

No wonder...

Sen. Baucus is headed for Japan.  He's going to take some heat from Big Ethanol for his energy tax reform plan.

Baucus's proposal would be to get rid of those 42 energy tax incentives and, in their place, create two broad credits:1) First, any facility producing electricity that is at least 25 percent cleaner than the average for all electricity production facilities would receive a tax credit. The cleaner the facility, the larger the tax credit. (By "clean," Baucus is referring to greenhouse-gas emissions per unit of electricity produced.)This credit starts at 2.3 cents per kilowatt of generation and rises to a maximum of 20 percent of the total cost of the investment. Companies couldn't get the credit until they started producing power, and then they'd get the break for 10 years.All of these credits, meanwhile, would phase out in four years once the greenhouse-gas intensity of the entire U.S. electricity sector is 25 percent below current levels. So there's an overall limit.2) Likewise, any transportation fuel that is at least 25 percent cleaner than conventional gasoline will generally receive a credit. Again, the cleaner and more energy-efficient the fuel, the larger the credit — and the bill would take the entire life-cycle into account when judging the fuel. So if, say, corn-based ethanol wasn't cleaner than gasoline, no tax credit.(Note that the credit for transportation fuels would likely need to be paired with a repeal of the Renewable Fuel Standard that requires refineries to blend a certain amount of ethanol into gasoline. It wouldn't make sense otherwise. But Baucus's committee doesn't have jurisdiction over that fuel standard, so this part isn't in the proposal.)  [More]

Ya live by the mandate, ya perish by the mandate.

Socialist agriculture...  

Isn't pretty. But its end is even uglier.

The collapse of his farm is part of an even larger puzzle – the catastrophic decline of agriculture in the breadbasket regions of the former Yugoslavia. Food imports and prices are rising in countries that once fed themselves comfortably.
In the lush plains of Serbia, farmers are getting poorer, while their children migrate to the cities for work. In Croatia, agriculture today accounts for three percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared to almost 20 percent two decades ago.
Trade liberalization and the current economic crisis bear some of the blame, as do the conflicts that tore the former Yugoslavia apart. But across the region, experts say it is corruption and mismanagement that have brought agriculture to its knees.
No soldiers traded gunfire over Mr. Zivkovic’s farm in eastern Croatia. Instead, its workers spent the 1990s fighting businessmen and lawyers for their tractors and orchards – the spoils of a privatization deal gone wrong.
“It was like a small war zone,” says Marko Tominac, an insolvency manager who tried to settle the farm’s accounts among Zivkovic and his colleagues. “Everybody was screaming that everybody else was getting the bigger part – including the workers.”
The privatizations of the last two decades were largely – but not universally – disastrous. A handful of the region’s largest collective farms have changed ownership and remained productive.
But most of the small and medium-sized concerns did not survive the transition from socialism. They were treated as the low-hanging fruit of the privatization boom – bought cheap, stripped bare, and discarded – by men who had little interest in agriculture. [More]

We've seen this before in East Germany as unwinding collectivization descends into blatant corruption not unlike hyenas at a kill. Usually party apparatchiks get in first, aided by a dysfunctional judiciary and non-existent law enforcement. It seems to take a generation to arrive at something workable.

Agriculture in Germany continues to bear the hallmarks of the divided country, with small and mainly family-operated farms in the west and south and enormous collectives in the east.
Gabel's Torney collective, named after a babbling brook that runs through the village of Pripsleben, is a perfect example, with 1,300 hectares of corn, rapeseed, barley, potatoes and beetroot, plus 300 hectares of pasture.
In addition, Gabel farms hundreds of cows, calves and pigs for meat, sold locally throughout the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the form of salamis, hams and cutlets.
After what promises to be long and painful negotiations on the budget in Brussels, Gabel's half-million-euro annual support is likely to be slashed, said Frank Offermann, an agricultural expert from Germany's Thuenen Institute.
While some EU countries want the budget slashed, others want the funds redistributed. "In either case, the transfers to German agriculture will diminish," said Offermann.
If a proposed cap on the handouts per farm is introduced, "it will cost us 200,000 euros," said Gabel.
But he is not without a more modern plan B.
Rather than scrapping with the red tape needed for CAP handouts, he is busy hiring out the roofs of his barns for solar panels and his fields for wind energy turbines. [More]

I don't have a good feel about the odds, but it interesting to ponder what the aftermath of drastically reducing our peculiar socialized crop insurance safety net. How would the lending industry respond? How many would be priced put of the system by paying 100% of the cost, or ending the government role as backup lender?

My guess is crop insurance would be an agonizing decision for most, if not all, producers. That is how accurately underwritten insurance tends to "feel" - just on the borderline of cost and perceived risk. Would producers respond immediately or pay whopping premiums for a couple of years before observing those who didn't had an initial, say $100 to spend for cash rent?

Now factor in the insurance industry's growing recognition of climate change, and the business model for crop insurance could be very different soon. Our fledgling private insurance industry could have a headstart on creating products to fit these new circumstances.

I can imagine individually tailored policies to cover specific risks for specific times, for example. More likely will be the typical insurance market that prompts more high equity/relatively low risk operations to self-insure, which results in higher costs for marginal ground/more leveraged farms. I'm not sure we can fully predict what would happen, but judging from the de-socialization agonies in other countries, it will be very hard on many of us. 

If nothing else, the fiscal cliff and spending anger makes the idea of previously unthinkable outcomes for farm policy worth imagining.

Further into irrelevance...  

I was getting ready for fall speeches, now that harvest is finished. (Whew!) One of the curious trends I will be sharing is gasoline consumption.  In short we may be talking Peak Gas(oline).

 Of course, note that the scale makes the "hump" more dramatic than if it was based at zero, but still, it seems to me the advances in engines and stricter mileage requirements are having a big impact.

Now add in this unexpected trend:

 

(Apologies for the lack of source links - I forgot to load them with the pics)

In short, even with a recovery clearly in progress, we may not see gasoline consumption rise back to former intensity.  in fact, with even a few more CNG vehicles, although facing an uphill battle for acceptance, demand for gas could be dull at best.

That has big implications for the RFS. Also the upcoming changes in the RFS focused on biodiesel. Hence when Scott and Darrel did the math on the ethanol impact for corn, the arrived at a unexpected place, IMHO.

The biofuels era that began in 2006 helped propel corn and other crop prices to a new higher level that has been sustained for nearly six years. One might be tempted to conclude that this new era is coming to an end as corn consumption for ethanol levels out and corn production begins to catch up. Instead, it actually appears that the new era of higher crop prices could be extended well into the future as a result of the RFS for advanced biofuels that in all likelihood can only be met with a rapid expansion in biodiesel production. To gain some perspective on the potential size of this expansion, consider our projection of 3.113 billion gallons of biodiesel production in 2015. This would require about 23.5 billion pounds of feedstock when total consumption of fats and oils in the U.S. currently totals about 28 billion pounds annually. Consumption of tallow and grease, another biodiesel feedstock, is thought to be near 10 billion pounds per year. At the projected level for 2015, biodiesel would account for over 60 percent of fats and oils consumption from all sources. This compares to about 20 percent in in 2012. The new price era, then, would not be extended by rising corn demand, but by rising vegetable oil demand. Whether this scenario actually is realized depends crucially on the evolution of biofuels policy here in the U.S. and energy policies in Brazil. We will be monitoring these issues closely in the future. [More]

I just don't see how policy makers will let fuels compete this directly for food - unlike corn, which is largely for feed, we're talking human consumption of vegetable oils. Demand for same is strong, driven by oil-deficit nations beginning to upgrade diets. No longer is oil a drag on oil-commodity prices - it is often the driver these days.

The persistent assumption - and I admit it still seems reasonable - is corn production will resume what we thought was a permanent acceleration of yield, thanks to biotech, better tools and our immodest brilliance. Climate change may brutally revise those expectations for many of us, but it will take a couple more clunker national yields before we will address it, I would venture.

The battle over the ethanol mandate could replace Afghanistan as our longest war. And it may be not so much resolved as just quietly fizzling out. Oddly, perhaps the same as Afghanistan ends. Maybe the longer the conflict, the fuzzier the end.

Preparing Plan B...  

While I am seriously concerned that the Republican mindset is simply about power, the members who seem to be driving the bus having given some signals to indicate what a broad Republican victory this fall might mean.

Curiously, in a few ways, I might support their goals.

We can, I think, forget about the deficit reduction as likely. The goal for the right is to cut programs they hate and taxes. The first is a trivial amount (shutting PBS down won't dent the budget), and they have shown little regard for other supposed spending targets. 

One of which is, (ahem), the farm program.

A target price supporter discounted the idea that Tea Party House members would rebel against the notion of government set prices.
“It never comes up with them,” one said.  
Key members of the freshman class are seen as allies.
Reps. Martha Roby (R-Ala), Austin Scott (R-Ga.). Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), Steven Fincher (R-Tenn.), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.), Steve Palazzo (R-Miss.), Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) and Robert Hurt (R-Va.) are seen as in the peanut camp.  [More]

This is just one example of unwillingness to cut anything other than stuff outside a your own district. This especially holds true for defense. Meaningful reform of major entitlements/defense look pretty low probability to me right now.

“The whole point here is to try to get some economic growth, job creation, to get out of this recession,” Kyl told POLITICO. “Why would we risk going backward with policy that even CBO says would be the wrong prescription right now?”

Arizona’s other senator, John McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, dismissed Reid’s comments as “unfortunate.”

“I think it makes it pretty clear what Senator Reid doesn’t understand are the devastating effects on our nation’s security that Secretary Panetta has so graphically described,” said McCain, a Vietnam veteran and retired Navy captain.

“I wish [Panetta] would take a trip down to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and tell the president we cannot afford this from a national security standpoint,” McCain added. “That isn’t John McCain’s opinion; that is Leon Panetta’s opinion.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, an Air Force reservist, chimed in as well: “Gutting the military should be the last thing we want to do.” [More]

Keep in mind this was the deal they agreed to last summer. Which makes me pretty sure they will renege on any campaign-promised spending cuts in that huge block of the budget.

On the other hand, I don't think I can even guess how many tax targets they will aim for. And hit. Revenues will almost certainly drop to great cheers, even as corresponding cuts bog down. And a new war somewhere will suddenly become more feasible, along with some costly bullets.

Simple history tells us Republicans are bigger spenders and deficit producers, and especially unfunded spending. While they have neatly convinced many that Obama has been a big spender, he pales in comparison to Bush, and Reagan. They have, however failed to convince people who can do the math.

 [Source]

 Obama has indeed presided over the slowest growth in spending of any president using raw dollars, and it was the second-slowest if you adjust for inflation. The math simultaneously backs up Nutting’s calculations and demolishes Romney’s contention. The only significant shortcoming of the graphic is that it fails to note that some of the restraint in spending was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True. [More]

I was as surprised by these numbers as critics, but being a Keynesian, I support government spending increases during recessions, but not expansions. Thanks largely to the wind-down of the Iraq war and, in fairness, a less than cooperative Congress, the Obama "splurge" simply never happened.

My point is not to continue the did-too/did-not charges, but to estimate what a Republican sweep of power might mean for spending. Romney gave us a hint, I think in a recent interview with TIME.

Halperin: I want to get to a lot of those, and let’s go to spending, which is a big thing for you, one of the bases of comparison – you say you’d cut spending a lot more than the President has.  And like most governors I know, you can get down in the detail.  A lot of people don’t know that about you; you can really get your arms around a policy issue and go deep, so let’s talk about spending.  You have a plan, as you said, over a number of years, to reduce spending dramatically.  Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office?  Why not do it more quickly?
Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%.  That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression.  So I’m not going to do that, of course.  What you do is you make adjustments on a basis that show, in the first year, actions that over time get you to a balanced budget.  So I’m not saying I’m going to come up with ideas five or ten years from now that get us to a balanced budget.  Instead I’m going to take action immediately by eliminating programs like Obamacare, which become more and more expensive down the road – by eliminating them, we get to a balanced budget.  And I’d do it in a way that does not have a huge reduction in the first year, but instead has an increasing reduction as time goes on, and given the growth of the economy, you don’t have a reduction in the overall scale of the GDP.  I don’t want to have us go into a recession in order to balance the budget.  I’d like to have us have high rates of growth at the same time we bring down federal spending, on, if you will, a ramp that’s affordable, but that does not cause us to enter into a economic decline. [More][My emphasis]

Another way of putting this is expressed well by David Frum, a conservative heretic whom naturally I read. "We're all Keynesians during Republican administrations." Romney is at least smart enough not to try drastic cuts while the recovery is still struggling. The problem is while I agree with this, Congress may force just enough reductions to slow us to a halt, or alternately, after getting back to 4% growth, decide deficits don't matter again.

Where is all this leading me? Well, in discussion with my family this weekend, it dawned on me there are some things we could anticipate in a Romney win that would allow us to better cope during the ensuing administration.

• My taxes will likely be lower than otherwise. Thanks to $6 corn, etc. I'm in the coddled sliver of 1%. We'll get ours first. And no, I won't be creating any jobs. In fact, I will be investing in technology that lowers labor needs (autonomous chainsaws, 600 hp.wheelbarrows, etc.) But given where demand will go, I won't be expecting big sales surges.
• I think it puts a real horizon on low interest rates. I'm not too sure how fast the bond market will respond, but it could be faster than I think, raising interest rates despite Fed actions to the contrary. So my long-standing bias against piles of cash will be at least mitigated by seeking protection from interest costs. Sooner or later we'll have to inflate this debt, but the time delay for interest rates could be bigger than I imagine.
• The economy could plunge (see also: UK), but more likely meander back into recession, in my best guess. The right has shown little finesse in fiscal policy and our delicate balancing act to encourage our fragile growth will succumb to policy lurches like SNAP cutbacks, unemployment cutoffs, and more government layoffs - especially at the state level. Meanwhile, tax cuts for the wealthy will have minimal stimulative effect on consumer spending, but could fuel asset inflation significantly. This could, in turn, keep farmland price growth strong, even as commodity prices stagnate or decline.
• The effect of the resulting deficits will be hard to predict politically. Given the intransigence of the right on revenue increases (taxes), and the simultaneous reluctance to truly reform health care - which is THE problem - they may just be ignored as long as we remain the least ugly currency and can attract the immense hoard of free-floating cash in the world.
• One sure thing is the end of health care reform for a while. Even so, the numbers on that problem might force even reluctant Republicans to try something. I just can't see them cutting off their largest demographic - the elderly - with any serious Medicare decreases. As for Medicaid, we too often forget it's increasingly about nursing homes, not just welfare moms/children. (Interesting note on this problem: it may not be enough to exhaust Mom's assets to qualify her nursing home costs for Medicaid coverage. Junior's assets may have to go as well.) One thing seems likely, large increases in the uninsured.

All of this speculation is worth the paper it isn't written on, of course. But the one scenario I think has the lowest possibility is a realistic long-term grappling with the deficit-causing problems, unless the economy is roaring and tax revenues growing by November, allowing some funds to actually be used to address the deficit.

But in that case, Obama is more likely to win.

As for farm prices, I think soon we'll suspect, at least, the yield curve has been altered by climate change, and assumed yield growth will be re-thought. We may realize our supply issues are real after a couple more below-trend yields.

So be lucky with rain, but avoid floods, stay in the 1%, don't have children/grandchildren to put through college or expect to have jobs for, don't lose your health or health insurance before 65, and you should be fine.

Save ze payments!...  

Ya gotta say this for the Frenchies - their whining for government payments shows a lot more original thought than our "bragvocates". They did this during the Tour de France (apparently some sort of bicycle race).



[More]

By popular request...  

(OK - one guy,  but that's about as popular as I ever get.)

The Phipps Farm Policy

1. Repeal the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (Look - if Congress passed it, Congress can repeal it, despite being named "permanent")
2. End all farm subsidies, market orders, sugar quotas, dairy programs, and crop insurance subsidies. Totally and immediately.
3. Move food stamps, WIC, etc. to HHS.
4. Move foreign food aid to State Dept.
5. Move the Forest Service and conservation stuff to Interior.
6. Consolidate all food inspection work into the FDA.
7. Subcontract NASS functions to the lowest bidder (Accenture, Deloitte, etc.). Make crop reports weekly on Sunday morning during the season and all objective. Make all other reports more frequent, at least as often as monthly. In short, make ag reports like other industry formats.
8. Whatever remains of USDA (ERS, etc.) is made a subsection of Commerce just like other industries many times our economic size.
9. Encourage the development of a professional body for self-regulation of farmer qualifications like the AMA and medical boards.
10. Rent the USDA buildings. Remove one chair from the Cabinet meeting.
11. Miscellaneous

You can sum it up as "Treat farmers just like other Americans".  Then stand back and watch what we can accomplish.

It's probably a little too liberal for many...

Problem solved...

Just bill Uncle Sam. In a rather typical fashion Big Seed (I think I just made that up, BTW) has found a way 'round those pesky Brazilians who won't pay tech fees.

On February 18, Republicans in the House of Representatives defeated an obscure amendment to the House Appropriations bill by a 2-to-1 margin. The Kind Amendment would have eliminated $147 million dollars that the federal government pays every year directly to Brazilian cotton farmers. In an era of nationwide belt tightening, with funding for things like education and the U.S. Farm Bill on the chopping block, defending payments to Brazilian farmers may seem curious.
In order to understand this peculiar political move, one has to look all the way back to 2002, when Brazil filed a case in the WTO challenging U.S. cotton subsidies. In 2004, the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO found in favor of Brazil, ruling that government subsidies afforded U.S. cotton producers an unfair advantage and suppressed the world market price, which damaged Brazil's interests. After multiple appeals the WTO upheld the original ruling, and by 2009 the U.S. still had not reformed its cotton programs. Brazil then asked the WTO for permission to retaliate against the U.S. by imposing trade sanctions. The WTO decided that Brazil was entitled to impose 100-percent tariffs on over 100 different goods of U.S. origin. Even more importantly, however, Brazil was entitled to suspend intellectual property rights for U.S. companies, including patent protections on genetically engineered seeds.
In WTO language, Brazil was allowed to suspend its obligations to U.S. companies under the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. This constituted a major threat to the profits of U.S. agribusiness giants Monsanto and Pioneer, since Brazil is the second largest grower of biotech crops in the world. Fifty percent of Brazil’s corn harvest is engineered to produce the pesticide Bt, and Monsanto’s YieldGard VT Pro is a popular product among Brazilian corn farmers. By targeting the profits of major U.S. corporations, the Brazilian government put the U.S. in a tough spot: either let the subsidies stand and allow Brazilian farmers to plant Monsanto and Pioneer seeds without paying royalties, or substantially reform the cotton program. In essence, Brazil was pitting the interests of Big Agribusiness against those of Big Cotton, and the U.S. government was caught in the middle.
The two governments, however, managed to come up with a creative solution. In a 2009 WTO “framework agreement,” the U.S. created the Commodity Conservation Corporation (CCC), and Brazil created the Brazilian Cotton Institute (BCI). Rather than eliminating or substantially reforming cotton subsidies, the CCC pays the BCI $147 million dollars a year in “technical assistance,” which happens to be the same amount the WTO authorized for trade retaliation specifically for cotton payments. In essence, then, the U.S. government pays a subsidy to Brazilian cotton farmers every year to protect the U.S. cotton program—and the profits of companies like Monsanto and Pioneer.  [More]

This is why I get peeved with the NCGA occasionally. Why can't they get the CCC to pay my tech fees?

Now let's talk about how farmers hate on the deficit some more...

The single-crop advantage...

A commenter asked my views on the recent actions by NCGA delegates to kinda, sorta nudge toward lower subsidies.

After an extended discussion and failed attempts to change the language, NCGA delegates approved via voice vote that farm programs should look at options for shifting from direct payments to better risk-management tools. The policy read: "NCGA should investigate transitioning direct payments into programs that allow producers the ability to manage risk while assuring food security."

In a 52-48 percent vote, NCGA delegates had rejected a resolution Thursday that the group would "actively pursue transitioning direct-payment dollars into a revenue-based safety net that triggers only when a loss occurs."

Pushed by the Ohio Corn and Wheat Growers Association, delegates from several states then came together to craft the language that eventually passed. NCGA delegates acknowledged they were facing a balancing act of wanting to show farmers would like to help in cutting the federal deficit but other farm groups don't want to necessarily spell out specifics of where agriculture is willing to take cuts in the safety net.

On the floor, delegate Ken McCauley of Kansas, a former NCGA president, cautioned against changing the language reached in compromise. "The original amendment is what people in D.C. told us they were looking for," McCauley said. Later, he added, "This is important and I think this is the right message of where we need to go."

Shortly later, delegates also added a separate resolution stating that NCGA believes a safety net is a combination of risk-management tools available to producers with the ability to protect farmers against revenue losses due to circumstances beyond their control. [More]

As I replied, I had left on Friday, and thought the issue was dead, according to an account from some old friends (yeah, I know - all my friends are old now).

I think this is what first steps look like, and I note it seems it was a struggle just to get this vague language included. The reluctance to give up any payment is enormous, and I commend highly the effort and result. Good on ya, mates!

That said, it is instructive to note that corn (and perhaps soy) associations probably have the only shot at making these advances. Crimony, when corn prices are over $7, and a DCP is ~$25/A, how big a hit are we talking? When all you speak for is corn farmers you have significant latitude.

Meanwhile, Farm Bureau was tied in knots when the IA delegation attempted a similar policy nudge. Populated with growers of all kinds - especially cotton - AFBF is cemented in place on policy, I'm afraid. (Although, you'd think $200 cotton might soothe any payment loss).

It is crucial to keep in mind as well how much organization staffs have at risk when you begin talking about less government intervention. Part of their job justification is brings pieces of the Washington carcass back to members.

The result is while many want to be seen taking one for the team, we also want something in return (better safety nets, etc.) In fact, I would guess what we are looking for is something like a ethanol mandate that grants enormous economic benefits without line-item funding.

The troubling aspect for me is the assumption that what we get right now is deserved, so any cuts are sacrifices. This is baloney. We are the waste and abuse we rail against.

Nonetheless, all this does not take any credit away from the courageous and hopefully example-setting result by the NCGA.

Lost comment...

I dunno what's going on with Blogger, but a recent comment by Derek on this post doesn't show up on my browser. (The "Recent Comments" section is a little funky too.)

Here it is:

Here is an interactive map I found of large (I assume CAFO) livestock operations across the U.S. You can even click on counties. Yes, the intent is questionable, but it does show interesting trends.

The map is pretty interesting. Check it out. Here is the map for broilers, for example.

But the intriguing thing for me is his phrase "intent is questionable". While I don't want to presume his meaning nor pick an argument, it is a common reaction to an obviously anti-big-farm website. But does intent really matter if the information is correct?

Farmers dismiss information depending on the source, not the quality. Al Gore could utter eternal truths and every word would be suspect. Yet for all the spluttering about the EWG subsidy database, I have never seen one criticism that the data or the presentation are inaccurate.

You can't demand sound-science based decisions if what you really support origin-approved facts.

The evidence for epistemic closure in agriculture continues to pile up.

Food choice and income...

I was struck by Chris Clayton's casual semi-endorsement of food intervention by the government in a glancing reference in a recent column.

I was going to write this blog about people being able to use food-stamp debit cards in California at fast-food places. Yeah, really. But someone pointed out that in L.A. they have been doing that since 2005. It's still a big issue in other parts of California and, yes, I'm floored that we can let people use food stamps at a Jack-in-the-Box on one hand, and then preach about obesity on the other. [More]

This a curious, but widely held contradiction in farm country, I think. On one hand we rise up against foodies who want to tell us what to eat - stinkin' vegans, etc. At the same time, we are mightily offended at our tax dollars being used for the "obesity fodder" for the poor.

My question: Is fast food bad for poor people, but good for the rest of us or what?

I think the underlying issue, however, is twofold. First, we hold many unfounded ideas about who the poor are and how they live, and second we resent the necessity of utilizing those same folks to get the farm bill approved.


But much of what we think about food stamp (SNAP) recipients is inaccurate. It is a startlingly Red State phenomenon (check out this very helpful map) with Oregon, Michigan, Washington, and Maine thrown in. Which makes me wonder whether Republicans have really thought this latest rant against the poor through.


Other misunderstood characteristics:

There have been several notable changes in the characteristics of SNAP households between 1989 and 2009. Some of the most striking changes are noted here.
The primary source of income among SNAP participants shifted from welfare to work. In 1989, 42 percent of all SNAP households received cash welfare benefits and only 20 percent had earnings. In 2009, less than 10 percent received cash welfare, while 29 percent had earnings.
The percentage of households with no cash income of any kind more than doubled. In 1989, 7 percent of SNAP households had zero gross income. This increased to nearly 18 percent in 2009. Similarly, the percentage of SNAP households with zero net income, who received the maximum benefit, rose from 18 percent in 1990 to 37 percent in 2009.
The average SNAP household’s income remained close to 60 percent of the poverty level. When SNAP participation levels decline, average    household    income    rises    slightly. Conversely, income falls when participation levels increase. However, the variation is small, ranging from an average income that is 56 percent of poverty, when caseloads were rising rapidly in
1993, to 63 percent of the poverty level in 2000, when caseloads were low.
Households have gotten smaller. In 1990, the average SNAP household contained 2.6 persons. In 2009, the average had fallen to 2.2 persons. During this period, households with one person rose from 32 percent of all households to over 46 percent.
The percentage of participants who are children remained fairly steady. In 1990, half of participants were under age 18, about the same percentage as in 2009. However, the share of households with children fell from 60 percent in 1990 to 50 percent in 2009. This is primarily due to an increase in single-person households. [More]

Much of the animus toward the program may be quietly racial, as the image of an obese African-American single mother pops into farmer minds easily (based on my asking them when they begin their what's-wrong-with-America speech - hardly scientific but telling nonetheless).


But the racial profile is even less clear-cut.

Based on a study of data gathered in Fiscal Year 2006:

• 49 percent of all participants are children (18 or younger), and 61 percent of them live in single-parent households.

• 52 percent of SNAP households include children.

• 9 percent of all participants are elderly (age 60 or over).

• 76 percent of all benefits go to households with children, 16 percent go to households with disabled persons, and 9 percent go to households with elderly persons.

• 33 percent of households with children were headed by a single parent, the overwhelming majority of which were headed by women.

• The average household size is 2.3 persons.

• The average gross monthly income per SNAP household is $673.

• 43 percent of participants are white; 33 percent are African-American, non-Hispanic; 19 percent are Hispanic; 2 percent are Asian, 2 percent are Native American, and less than 1 percent are of unknown race or ethnicity. [More]

More concerning to me, especially as this recession still struggles to provide many jobs, is the growing cultural divide between the have-jobs and the have-nots. With empathy falling from favor, and a
just-world vindication of the poor deserving somehow their status, the idea a permanent underclass with virtually no upward mobility chances becomes more possible.


Strangely enough it is this disconnect that leads many to embrace the conviction that the poor are poor because they make really dumb economic choices. I'll ignore the astonishingly stupid economic decisions we now recognize the rich and middle class made in the last few years, and focus instead on new research that suggests to me I would probably be making similar decisions in similar circumstances.

There are also serious cause-and-effect arguments to be made on this assumption.

There is so much nonsense here it’s hard to figure out where to start. First of all, some of the factual claims aren’t even supported. For example, on obesity, they cite a study finding that obesity declines with educational level. Then they assert: “Given the strong correlation between education and income, there is little doubt that the poor have more trouble maintaining a healthy body weight.” Yes, given the above, it is likely that there is a negative correlation between obesity and income; but it is also likely that that negative correlation is explained by education, not by poverty. Couldn’t they have made the effort to find a study with the facts they need instead of just assuming?*

Second, and more importantly, if we assume for the purposes of argument that more poor people are obese, it’s an enormous leap to say that this is because they make worse judgments. There are many other possible explanations. Here are a few, each of which I find more compelling than the behavioral one:

• It’s more expensive to eat healthy food than unhealthy food.
• Many poor people work long hours or have limited child care options, which makes it harder to buy and cook healthy food from the grocery store.
• Poor people have worse health care than rich people.

[More]

 One other than springs to mind for me is access to grocery stores vs. fast food. 

People who live in poorer neighborhoods in the U.S. are less likely to have easy access to supermarkets carrying a wide variety of fresh produce and other healthy food, an analysis of 54 studies confirms.

But they probably have plenty of unhealthy fast food joints to choose from, Dr. Nicole I. Larson of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and her colleagues found.

"The research I reviewed suggests there is a need for new policies and other local actions to address the problem of poor access to healthy foods in many lower income, rural, and minority communities," Larson told Reuters Health.

Evidence is mounting, Larson and her team note, that segregation of neighborhoods by "income, race, and ethnicity" plays a major role in US health disparities, and accessibility to healthy -- and unhealthy -- food may be a factor. [More]

And from a straightforward dollars per calorie calculation, fast food is a far better buy than ingredients. Which of course, is another problem, but on one level obese poor people are making Adam-Smith-approved choices.

This is especially true for the unemployed. Until you have experienced this personally or a  close family member, it is easier to promote the idea SNAP and similar programs enable slackers. Doubtless there are many who game the system, but there are more, I believe, folks like this:

Whatever the demon or deity, I was, of course, grateful. But 15 months of unemployment does something to you, changes you. The obvious horrible thing about poverty, of course, is that you can’t buy things, but poverty also dices and shreds whatever self-esteem you might have left after losing your job and your apartment. I remember the weekend I had $3.48 in the bank and was hoping my food stamps would electronically replenish on Monday so I could eat, and recall wondering whether there was a state of the soul beyond humility. [More]

The acid test is when you know some folks personally who use SNAP, and for whom it makes a big difference. Many of these people may be new users in the last few years and are deeply embarrassed by their situation, but I for one am glad we have this type of safety net particularly because of my profession. Farmers should have a natural interest in hunger, I would think.


No government program works perfectly, and before I would throw stones at SNAP participants for their choices, I would ponder how I would rationally explain economically some of my government handouts and what I do with that money.


If we are outraged about food advocates wanting to tax soda, for example, why are we upset about welfare recipients buying soda? Let's pick one side and stay on it.

*** Repost: This oughta be good (II)...

This is a re-post from 10/26/2010 when Todd Neeley originally published his research on oil vs. ethanol subsidies. I just got my copy of Progressive Farmer and he ignored all counterarguments and simply arranged the answer to please his audience, I think. My conclusion below, using his numbers, still better compares the two government policies. [More here]

I have been following The Ethanol Blog by Todd Neeley as he wades through the complex maze of subsidies for ethanol and oil.  His breadth of coverage is admirable, even if his blogging style is distracting, not to mention finding your way past the subscription gates.  Here are links to the first three posts anyway: 1   2  3

My comments about the latest two installments.

Much space is given to the March study by Bruce Babcock at CARD, although irritatingly, the actual study (pdf) is not linked.  However, the report is accurately reflected and answers one of the questions I had posed about the value of the mandate (RFS).

Babcock said it would be easy to figure out the level of subsidy from RFS if VEETC wasn't there by examining the price of renewable identification numbers, or RINS. These are the numbers assigned to each gallon of renewable fuel to allow the EPA to track usage of those fuels.

Fuel blenders are required to either blend a certain amount of ethanol or to purchase those identification numbers from blender companies that have met RFS requirements and have "excess" renewable fuel to sell. The RIN system works to ensure industry-wide compliance with the RFS.

"All you would need to do would be to look at the RIN price to look at how much support is being received by the ethanol industry. But with VEETC, the RIN price is as much as 45 cents per gallon lower than what it would be," said Babcock.

With the influence of VEETC, the RFS provides little support. With VEETC removed, Babcock said, the RFS would be worth about 30 cents per gallon, or about $3.9 billion, based on the 2010 RFS of 12.95 billion gallons.

Koplow said the RFS will become more valuable every year on its way to the mandated 36 billion gallons of production in 2022. [More]

[Curiously, we have no way of knowing who this "Koplow" guy is, but I appreciate his input.  Actually he is identified in the third? fourth? post.]

This value for the mandate seems low to me, but I can find no fault in Babcock's logic other than at the extremes: low oil prices, for example. 

Also the original study referenced regarding oil protection costs is here. The report does answer my speculation about the importance of Israel vs. oil.

Next, the CRS (1992) claims that the U.S. military salso is concerned with the security of Israel. But we see no evidence of a major military concern for Israel per se, independent of concern about energy security. In the first place, the Military Posture statements cited above make it clear that the JCS cares about Israel only in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. On account of its oil interests in the Gulf, the U.S. does want the region to be stable, and to forestall and resolve Arab-Israeli conflicts. As cited above, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are clear on this. Thus, U.S. military planners care mainly about regional stability – because of the region’s oil – and not so much about Israel per se. We believe that, if the Middle East had neither oil nor strategic importance, the U.S. would not maintain a significant military presence in the region solely to help protect Israel. Fuller and Lesser (1997) agree, stating that “at this point, Israel’s security, however important, does not represent an extra dimension of U.S. Gulf Policy” (p. 45).11 [Same]

This will come as harsh news to AIPAC, I'll bet.

However, the authors of the study warn against using their analysis to do, well, what this series is doing - numerical comparison.

Our analysis of these steps generally is illustrative, not rigorously quantitative. We estimate that there were no oil in the Persian Gulf, then U.S. combined peacetime and wartime defense expenditures could be reduced in the long run by roughly $27 to $73 billion per year (in 2004 dollars). If all motor vehicles in the U.S. did not use oil, U.S. military expenditures could be reduced by $6 to $25 billion per year, or $0.03 to $0.15 per gallon ($0.01 to $0.04 per liter) of all motor fuel. [Same]

The next installment (I think it's next, the numbering is not readily apparent) does yeoman work on summarizing all the possible "subsidies", and again the writing style is puzzling.  The data begs for columns.  Hidden in plain sight are the per-gallon totals I think more accurately reflect subsidy levels, except for one thing: they compare apples to fruit salad.

The oil industry, unlike ethanol, has more products in addition to gasoline.  To allocate all the subsidies to that one product makes no sense.  Here is what you get from a barrel of oil.

[Click to enlarge] [Source]

So if we use 51% as gasoline's share (allocated below), here is what the subsidy levels per gallon look like, using Todd's numbers.  I think this is fair because Todd counts home heating oil subsidies, for one example, in the mix, which don't have anything to do with the 140 B gallons of gasoline he divides by.  The last column using the energy difference between gasoline and ethanol (80%) for an energy equivalent number.

		DTN	Allocated	Allocated
	$B	$/gal	$/gal	$/eqiv gal
Oil (low)*	133.2	$0.96	$0.49	$0.49
Oil (high)*	280.8	$2.01	$1.03	$1.03
Ethanol	16.1	$1.24	$1.24	$1.55

[*These labels were stupidly reversed in the original post] 

It is fair to report the huge total number oil gets, but as I noted before, most farmers still believe the bigger you are the more subsidies you deserve.  And oil is a really big industry.

So for this observer, I think the idea oil is getting "more" subsidies is an artful arrangement of fact.  At the very least, oil gives the taxpayer more energy bang for his/her subsidy buck.
 

The real fight over the Internet...

Several coincidental (or maybe not) developments underscore the growing importance and vulnerability of the Internet in virtually every aspect of modern life. 

First, from Egypt, note the usual pattern of capturing the TV and radio stations was preempted by a government shutdown of the nations ISP's. 

The domino-like takedown of the ISPs indicated the government didn't have a master shutoff switch, but ordered each company to flip their in-house switches.

"This sequencing looks like people getting phone calls, one at a time, telling them to take themselves off the air," James Cowie, chief technology officer for Renesys, said in the company's blog. "Not an automated system that takes all providers down at once; instead, the incumbent leads and other providers follow meekly one by one until Egypt is silenced."

Vodafone Egypt issued a statement saying all mobile phone operators had been ordered to suspend services in selected areas. "Under Egyptian legislation, the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it," the company said.

The Egyptian government is not the first to shutdown the Internet during political unrest. The Burmese government ordered a takedown in September 2007, and Nepal severed all international Internet connections after the government declared martial law in February 2005.

The fewer the ISPs, the easier it is for governments to impose a blockade. Burma, for example, had only two ISPs in 2007. Shutting down the Internet in developed nations, such as the U.S., would be far more difficult, if not impossible, because of the many ISPs operating in the countries with networks linked to other networks inside and outside the borders, experts say. [More]

Now stay with me, as one commenter thinks this presages a new pattern for - of all things - the NFL.

Facebook and Twitter may get credit for changing the face of northern Africa and I'll go out on a limb and say they'll play a huge part in the dissolution of another global force: the NFL Players Union.

      No one wants to talk about a possible lock-out and the threat of a football-free autumn of 2011, especially not around here as the Packers are poised to take on the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.   That's fine, because a trip to the Big Game is a rare and wonderful thing, something to be savored and not sullied with labor pains.
      But once the last piece of confetti hits the Cowboy Stadium field, the NFL will shift it's focus not to preparing for a new season but making sure there IS a new season.    Owners opted out of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, claiming players salaries are cutting way too far into their profits.    Players defend the status quo, saying that there is no game without them and that they should be paid accordingly.    Owners will say that they can't go on like this, not when so many teams need new stadiums to compete.    Players will say all that they want to do is...play.    A lockout looms in early March.
      That's when the fun will begin, especially among the rank and file.
      More and more players are taking to Facebook and Twitter, supposedly to clue friends and followers in on how they feel about the events of the moment.    What some DON'T realize is how far their words reach in a digital word.  [More]

Our current hold-our-nose partnership with Mideast dictators to help counter terrorism suddenly is put in different light when juxtaposed next to the Obama administration position on Net Freedom.

Now comes the test. The Internet Freedom Agenda may have just undermined an ugly pillar of the U.S.’ Mideast strategy — supporting dictators — without doing much to aid the discontented millions that might replace it. While Obama tepidly calls on Mubarak to let people keep tweeting, Egyptian protesters may want the U.S. ”to completely get out of the picture,” as one told al-Jazeera. “Just cut aid to Mubarak immediately and withdraw backing from him, withdraw from all Middle Eastern bases, and stop supporting the state of Israel.”
That’s exactly what Mubarak never demanded — and why the U.S. fears what comes next. ”The traditional debate is that we’re willing to use these tyrants because they’re useful,” explains Marc Lynch, a George Washington University political scientist. “But if we continue to see developments like those we’ve seen over the last couple weeks, if they can’t hold on to power, it doesn’t matter if they’re useful in counterterrorism.”
Not that the U.S. did much to persuade Egyptian protesters it’s on their side. The Obama team “could have come a lot stronger, prevented the Egyptian government from the crackdown on Internet communication, but they didn’t,” says Sherif Mansour from the human-rights group Freedom House. That makes Obama look either impotent or callous.

And it shows the Internet Freedom Agenda to be a dodge. The heart of the issue is whether the U.S. actually sides with the protests spreading around the Arab world — first Tunisia, now Egypt, and in Jordan and Yemen as well. Asking Mubarak to bring back the Internet pales in comparison to the annual $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid he receives. [More]

But even in the face of such demonstrations of the exploding power of the Internet, so-called Big Government haters can't wait to make it another arm of a domestic police state.

Thanks to the GOP takeover of the House, the odds of such legislation advancing have markedly increased. The new chairman of the House Judiciary committee is Lamar Smith of Texas, who previously introduced a data retention bill. Sensenbrenner, the new head of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, had similar plans but never introduced legislation. (It's not purely a partisan issue: Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, was the first to announce such a proposal.)

Police and prosecutors are the biggest backers of data retention. FBI director Robert Mueller has saidsaid last year that Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," meaning logs of which Web sites are visited. that forcing companies to store those records about users would be "tremendously helpful in giving us a historic basis to make a case" in investigations, especially child porn cases. An FBI attorney

And the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which will be sending a representative to tomorrow's hearing, previously adopted a resolution (PDF) calling for a "uniform data retention mandate" for "customer subscriber information and source and destination information." The group said today in an e-mail exchange that it still supports that resolution.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, says the push for legislation is an example of pro-regulatory Republicans. "Republicans were put in power to limit the size and scope of the federal government," Harper said. "And they're working to grow the federal government, increase its intrusiveness, and I fail to see where the Fourth Amendment permits the government to require dragnet surveillance of Internet users."[More]

It is curious to me that in the litmus test for socialist downsliding how a health insurance mandate is a hideous theft of our rights, but tapping my computer is prudent behavior enforcement.  This action, along with others will reveal that the Tea Party activists have been naive tools, IMHO. [Kudos to Cato for calling them out, BTW]

Back on topic, I think all of us, and especially the rural community where communication faces different hurdles, better pay more attention to seemingly abstruse Internet control debates and regs. We could find ourselves in a world where the most power tools for popular redress and opinion are dangerously at risk. It will involve homework we don't want to do and relationships with people very unlike us, but we have several dogs in this fight.