On Locavorism

I'm fascinated by food trends and issues of agricultural policy, and as someone who dreams of someday becoming a yeoman farmer himself, these are not purely abstract concerns.  The "locavore" movement is certainly good news to one who hopes to be able someday to market the produce of a small, diverse operation. So it's not with great enthusiasm that I agree with the analysis that several of the primary reasons people cite for buying local really don't add up, namely the environmental and food-security.  Here, a small local producer explains why the "buy local" food movement is just another sentimental feel-good trend, and why it would be an environmental disaster if it were actually embraced throughout the culture.

In short, the energy costs of agriculture and food shipment and processing are really quite small: we Americans use more energy powering our televisions than producing the food we eat. Without question the most significant environmental burden of our food production system is the sheer amount of land it takes up, so making a marginal reduction in the already-tiny transport costs at the expense of using more land is hardly a win for the environment.

Schoolhouse Rock

This pretty much speaks for itself, I'd say (via Instapundit)

On Corporatism

Our Fearsome Comrade has a really important insight on the relation of business and government:

Corporations are going to get your money. The question is, will they do it by offering you a useful service or a valuable good in return, or will they do it by getting their friends in Washington to force you to give it to them for nothing?

When business and government collude, ordinary people lose. A laissez-faire policy is not based on some generalized affection for big business, rather the recognition that businesses that aren't threatened by the government have no reason to meddle in the government and no lust to control the government. If the government didn't have the power to bankrupt competing companies, funnel billions in tax revenue to favored industries, or force people to buy products they don't want, businessmen would have no interest in corrupting it.

On Working With Your Hands

I'm thankful to have come from part of the country and a family where nobody would have imagined the need to write a defense of craftsmanship. But for all my readers who've been raised and educated to be "knowledge workers" with no thought to the alternative, Matthew Crawford outlines "The Case for Working With Your Hands" in NYT Magazine, an abridgment of his philosophical treatise "Shop Class as Soulcraft" in The New Atlantis, which has now been expanded into a book.

American culture as a whole idealizes the thought of being one's own boss, and yet does not encourage promising young people to enter the only sector of the economy where this goal is not only realistic, but relatively commonplace: the skilled trades. Crawford's focus is on the mechanical trades, but the requirements of creativity and problem-solving and the rewards of concrete satisfaction and connection to the community are just as real for pastry chefs, florists, and cobblers (they still exist) as they are for plumbers, electricians, and auto mechanics.

My goal is nothing less than the "miracle" of small-scale self-employment.

Huzzah For Bizarre Alliances

MAKE, CRAFT, and Etsy crowd, meet the libertarians. These days, you're going to want to be in touch.

Takeaway lesson? Big business loves regulation at least as much as big government does. Big business already has a legal department to jump through regulatory hoops, and inspection and compliance costs per facility or per product hit the smallest producers hardest. Bottom line, no CEO of a regulated industry ever missed his tee-time because some upstart competitor introduced a game-changing product.

The Pot Calls Kettles Black In National Press Conference

Treasury Secretary Geithner's been talking about closing loopholes and tax havens to prevent tax evasion. We really should pay attention, I suppose, since he is the subject-matter expert.

In Case You've Forgotten

A friendly reminder from 1948 of how free enterprise works. From the Internet Archive.

If the Italian Postal Service Built a Car

Chrysler has been "rescued" by Fiat and the U.S. government. The synergy of Italian administration and Beltway engineering will no doubt take the automotive world by storm.

For a preview of government-built cars from decades past, Top Gear drives the automotive masterpieces of the Eastern Bloc:






Come what may, I will never drive a government-built car.

On Schadenfreude

I posted recently that there's a reason the word sabotage is from the French. Apparently, it's also no accident that the word schadenfreude is from the German.

Grab A Roller, Let's Get Started

So painting roofs and parking lots white has immediate cooling effects by reflecting sunlight while also reducing the amount of energy used for air conditioning, both directly in the affected buildings, and indirectly by reducing the urban "heat island" effect. Pretty cool (no pun intended). So why aren't we doing this yet? If we're going to be throwing money around at labor-intensive projects in the name of stimulus (and it's quite clear we're going to be doing quite a bit of that), we can at least lobby for comparatively commonsensical projects. Painting a roof white is a lot cheaper than installing solar panels, for instance. I'd be curious to find out how the energy produced by a solar roof stacks up against that saved simply by a white one.

Credit Where Credit Is Due: President Obama Pushes Colombian Trade Agreement

One of the things I promised myself this past election night was that I would do my level best to give President Obama credit where credit is due. His announced commitment to champion the long-stalled free trade deal with Colombia, along with his promise to visit Colombia and his offer of a state visit for President Uribe are by far the most substantive fruit of his otherwise ill-starred visit to the Summit of the Americas. His warm embrace of Hugo Chavez and abdication of American history before Daniel Ortega still grate, but further extending the long geopolitical alliance with Colombia into the economic realm is a poke in the eye to both leftists, and sound policy besides. Bravo, Mr. President.

So This Is Odd

So the Tea Party protesters are outraged at the irresponsible, unaccountable, and opaque spending of hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts. So is Jon Stewart, though I doubt he and his audience have the self-awareness to realize they're outraged at many of the same things as those crazy right-wing yahoos.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 1
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Stewart quotes his guest Elizabeth Warren, regarding her misgivings about the bailouts, "capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell". Astute, but many Americans seem to think both can work.

And of course, Stewart can't help himself but to throw out a strawman attack at the end, as if sensible regulation of the financial sector is what opponents are calling "socialism". Regulation isn't the issue, the issue the manipulation and control of these businesses without the honesty of nationalization. It's forcing businesses to accept bailouts, and refusing to allow others to pay theirs back, precisely to maintain that control. And to be fair, nobody should be calling that "socialism", because it isn't. The term is "state corporatism", and it's far worse.

Fiscal Responsibility, Two Ways

Fearless Comrade has a piece of earth-shattering advice on the economy: let's at least consider listening to people who've been proven right. And while we're at it, let's stop listening to (and appointing to high office!) people who've been repeatedly and embarrassingly wrong:

If an economist didn't see it coming, why listen to anything he says about how to fix it? If you had a heart attack, would you go to the curmudgeonly, slightly bonkers doctor who had been warning you about an impending heart attack for the last two years, or go see the affable, soft-spoken guy who gave you the 2nd opinion and told you everything was fine?

And on the microeconomic side, consider this radical program to revolutionize your family's finances: