Ask me if I care.

As I peruse the various news websites today, it seems clear we have a fairly serious financial meltdown on our hands.  Lehman’s gone, Merrill Lynch has been bought by Bank of America, and the big-ass insurer AIG is on the verge of going belly-up.  And all the other BFFs (Big Financial Fuc.., uh Firms)  seem to be on edge.  You know it’s bad when we have the big font on the top of nytimes.com.  So I guess we have a major crisis that if not worth of an advocacy campaign, is at least important enough to merit continued scrutiny.

My problem?  I couldn’t care less.  It hurts just to click on the story links, let alone read the articles.  Now I know this is probably an irrational response, but what do I care if a bunch of BFFs and their buddies are in pain?  What do I know about these arcane business deals (little, but you’ll note that doesn’t stop the rant).  This is a mess of their making (can you spell G-R-E-E-D) , and I’m not alone in that emotion- check out the comments section on any of these stories.  This seems to be the general sentiment:

September 15th,
2008
1:45 pm

You all deserve to lose your jobs. You are the ones who created this mess. “…great institutions and will be missed. I Wish my friends there the best…”

Well, I don’t wish them…thank god I didn’t have any investments tied up with these loser firms. The good thing is that apartment prices in NYC should come down and lots more foreclosures as well. Maybe I can buy an apartment at a 30-40% discount from current prices.

Posted by Hahahhaha

And:

September 15th,
2008
2:02 pm

Will somebody, somewhere, finally be held accountable for this mess? Don’t tell me nobody did anything wrong.

Posted by Manteca

I mean, these are my general impulses- a hefty dose of schadenfreude and a general”isn’t anyone accountable?” mentality.  But the current running underneath all of that is “what the hell does this have to do with my life?”

Because it’s not like I work for a BFF, want to work for a BFF, or have lots of friends that work at BFFs.  Nor do I own a lot of stocks.  And in these ways, I am similar to the vast- vast- majority of Americans.  What is it, 90% of stocks in America are owned by the wealthiest 5% of Americans?  Something like that, anyway.  So why, exactly, should I concern myself with Wall Street goings-on?

Wait a minute!  I know why.  Because when Wall Street is on a high, they keep the rewards for themselves, but when they get the sniffles, the pain gets spread around.  So while I have not been impacted at all by the past 6 years of high-flying boom times, probably somewhere, at some point, I’m going to get shafted by the BFFs, or  (more likely) the government acting on their behalf.  Great.  All because they had to have their fancy-ass credit default swaps and all manner of other blathering financial transactions, which anyone with any common sense could tell were bullshit (the simple act of buying and selling a mortgage does not increase its value, by the way).  Why did they need these transactions?  To make ungodly, obscene amounts of money.

Because the act of selling and holding mortgages isn’t sexy.  Oh no.  That’s for chumps- like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  We have to bundle and securitize and insure and derive non-existent valuations.  Simply lending money and making a reasonable profit over the long term isn’t enough.  That’s what neighborhood banks used to do (chumps that they were).  Neighborhood banks were satisfied with reasonable profits and the archaic ideal of playing a positive role in their community.  There aren’t many neighborhood banks left, and the ones that are have swooned at the altar of securitization and byzantine financial transactions.

That byzantine nature is the fundamental problem today- nobody knows what anything is worth.  And the BFFs are all up in arms about this, demanding government guarantees, pissing and moaning about “uncertain valuations”.  What they conveniently forget is that the opaque nature of these stupid transactions was great for them- nobody could value it, so the assets (and more importantly, their derivatives) were simply valued at whatever the BFFs said they were worth.  That’s what they wanted.  It worked out nicely for all involved, because then they could create a nice big economic bubble that allowed them to make those ungodly, obscene amounts of money.

So kiss my ass, BFFs.  I’m sure you’ll get me somewhere down the line.  In the meantime, I want to hear from somebody that will tell me how to stop this from happening again (HELLO OBAMA?).  My worry is that it’s too late- all the regulators are in the pocket of the supposedly regulated.  More importantly, they are philosophically in the pocket of the regulated.  Hopefully it won’t take another generation of this shit before we again discover how to regulate markets in a manner that benefits the common good.

Amazingly trivial things…

Yet actually pretty important. You can count this sort of thing as one of the reasons I no longer work in the federal policy advocacy business. Such stupid shit, but it really is important. So somebody has to notice these things, and I’m glad the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is on the job. I thank some higher deity that I don’t have to deal with this. From SAC’s incomparable Weekly Update:

AFRI Needs Urgent Technical Correction: In the aftermath of a silly legalistic debate over what the word “pursuant” means, the 2008 Farm Bill language establishing the new Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) now likely needs Congress to pass a “technical correction.” At stake is whether 30 percent of the $200+ million that Congress will appropriate for the program this year can actually be spent or not. That is the 30 percent that funds “integrated” projects, meaning projects that combine research, education, and/or extension.

Unless Congress changes the words “pursuant to” to “as authorized in,” the troublemaking lawyers at USDA’s Office of General Counsel are refusing to allow the money to be spent. If their counsel wins out over common sense, the AFRI Request for Applications to be released later this year will exclude all integrated programs, including small and medium size farms, rural development, and parts of managed ecosystems and other environmental research categories. SAC is encouraging Congress to take action this month while it is still in session.

Community Food Project Grant Money Also Hinges on a Technical Correction: Congress also needs to approve a farm bill “technical correction” or the $5 million it mandated for Community Food Project Grants for 2008 cannot be spent. The farm bill provided the money, but did so as an amendment to a law that does not take effect until Fiscal Year 2009. A simple date change will fix the problem. If Congress makes the fix, the CFG program will be able to make the FY 2008 awards even after the new fiscal year starts on October 1. SAC is encouraging Congress to act on the technical correction immediately.

We Come to Party

Unless you were ensconced in Guantanamo (or you just don’t pay all that much attention to food politics), you’re aware that Slow Food USA held some sort of event in San Francisco.  To which 50,000 people or so found it necessary to attend.  Great analysis of the event can be found several places on the web, particularly by Tom Philpott and Bonnie Powell.  And while I have my own thoughts on Slow Food (mostly hopeful) that’s not why I’m writing this post.

I am distressed by the tone of some of the commentary on the Slow Food event.  Not horribly distressed; maybe mildly peeved.  The Slow Food commentary I’ve seen includes criticisms from “too ambitious” and “elitist” to “not enough vegetarian options”.  This, for me, recalls a certain trend that I find really annoying.

As progressives, it can be hard for us to have a good time.

Why?  Because we’re into self-criticism.  And reflection.  And meditation on our flaws and shortcomings.  And hey, I’m a critical kind of guy.  I can usually be relied on to think of 372 ways somebody (including myself) could do something better.  Self-criticism and reflection are a good thing- often, it is what distinguishes us from our opposition.  But there comes a time when you have to put all that to the side and celebrate.  Have a party.  Get together with good people, and take a few days to celebrate how damn right y’all are.  And I’m not talking have-a-beer-at-the-end-of-the-conference type thing.  The whole event should be designed to party.

Of course, I’m not trying to pick on Slow Food or the people who commented on it.  The whole Democratic Party has this problem (which others have written about, far better than I can), and it just has to stop.  Damn, the Dems convention was practically tying itself in angst-ridden knots until the last day.  That was painful.   Thankfully, they had Stevie and John Legend and who all else, and they just had a great time all around.  And you know what?  That’s what people are drawn to.

So I hope the people at Slow Food had a great damn time.  Because at the end of the day, San Francisco is not where the fight over the future of agriculture will be won.  Denver is not where the election will be decided.  That’s out in the field, dependent on organizers and the ability of progressives to kick some ass.  Events like San Francisco and Denver exist to rejuvenate and re-energize the faithful, those who already agree with each other.  So lighten up, build the courage behind your convictions, reflect on those who came before you, and just generally appreciate the incredible people you’re fortunate enough to be hanging out with.  You can’t change the world if you’re not having fun.

An update

Did I mention the Environmental Working Group yesterday? I think I did. Besides putting out reports, EWG is a media machine. I mean really. Probably the best media advocacy group in the conservation/sustainable agriculture field, which I attribute to two things: 1. They put resources into it. Far too many groups view media as last minute strategy, one not worthy of strategic funding, and 2. They’re willing to say something interesting. If you just put out your tired “please please give us money for our programs” press releases over and over again, nobody’s going to cover you. If, on the other hand, you’re willing to take people on and call it like it is, you’re a lot more likely to get coverage.

If you do one of these things, you’ll get better media coverage than most. If you do both, you’re golden.

Anyway, EWG’s report yesterday got picked up in a lot of places, not the least of which is a Reuters story (wire stories are kind of the Holy Grail), Des Moines Register, and a couple of other spots. I’m sure there will be more. Anyway, some links are here, here, here, and here.

And I should mention that while sixteen groups signed a letter opposing the cuts, only EWG stood up and called it as they see it, blaming Congressional Democrats for the cuts and saying the funding was promised to get support in the farm bill and now they’re getting screwed. Good for them all over again.

Segway!

For those of you who appreciate Arrested Development (the greatest TV comedy ever), this will bring a smile to your face:

Amount:	$18,436
Grant Period:	8/1/2008 to 1/31/2009
Program:	Flint Area
Program Area:	Special Initiatives
Geographic Focus:	United States: Michigan: Flint & Genesee County

This grant will provide funds to the city of Flint to support a new policing program in downtown Flint. The Flint Police Department is utilizing Segway vehicles to increase and improve their response time and visibility on the streets of downtown Flint.

Ah, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, promoting community-friendly policing in Michigan.  I’m all for it, but only as long as the Segway siren is “The Final Countdown”.

It’s all about the money

I always admire the Environmental Working Group for standing up and saying things publicly that other organizations only have the gumption to complain about behind closed doors.  So it doesn’t surprise me to come across a report from EWG today detailing the ways in which Congress is yet again poised to screw sustainable agriculture.  And EWG doesn’t hold back on their rhetoric, either:

Behind the thin green gloss Congressional leaders spread across the subsidy-laden 2008 farm bill, key Democratic lawmakers are hacking away at promises to expand conservation and other environmental programs.

But within weeks of the farm bill’s passage, the Senate appropriations committee sent to the Senate floor a spending bill (S.3289) that would slash conservation measures by $331 million in fiscal year 2009.

Commodity subsidies that provide billions to the richest farmers each year remained untouched.

I’m not surprised EWG is pushing this report, and I’m sure as hell not surprised the Senate is already trying to whack conservation programs while leaving totally unncessary commodity program payments untouched.  And, as noted above, within weeks of the Farm Bill’s passage.  It’s the classic method- promise money to everyone to get the bill passed, then screw sustainable agriculture once the media moves on.  And all those groups that endorsed the farm bill now no longer have the media spotlight to complain in.  Let me just say, any conservation group that endorsed the bill should be screaming their heads off right now about how they were betrayed  But they’re not- and it’s not as if they should be surprised.  The very same thing happened after the 2002 farm bill passed (See EWG’s page for extensive data).

Now, the informed will say “But most of that cut is from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which has a payment limit that is way too high and often is money spent for livestock confinement operations”.  That’s true.  (Though I’ve never seen data on how much EQIP money is actually given to confinement operations, and certainly some EQIP money goes for very good projects.)  But that misses the point.  First some very good programs do get cut.  Second, this is the crap that always happens.  Always.  Why do we put up with it?

If we saw even the slightest hint of cutting farm program payments, the vaunted commodity machine would swing into action.  There would be no end of press releases, news stories, DC visits, and other strategies mobilized to defeat any potential cut.  (Not only that, but anytime the temperature gets above 90 or it doesn’t rain for more than 10 days straight, that machine cranks up, demanding “disaster” assistance.  Sometimes I think they do it just to keep the “machine” well oiled.  More likely, they’re just laying the groundwork for future greed).  Yet time and again, conservation (and other things we care about) get the shaft, and no more than a peep or two is heard from the sustainable agriculture community.  What’s going on?

I’ll just say it:  The sustainable ag movement, as a whole, is too damn nice and has been begging for money for too damn long.  Money, or the lack thereof, motivates most policy decisions, and a close second is fear.  When a politician (or their staff) is afraid they’re going to get their ass kicked, they change their behavior (or at least think twice).  If all they’re going to get is a phone call saying “Gee, we’re really disappointed you did that” and the general public never finds out, they really don’t care.

It’s all about the money.  You want more proof?  Check out Phil Brasher’s latest:

The farm bill expands assistance for farmers who are classified as “socially disadvantaged.” However, women are excluded from the definition for some programs, including conservation benefits, but not for others…

Lawmakers have used different definitions for socially disadvantaged farmers before, but there was more at stake this time because of the special set-asides for the environmental and stewardship programs. Lawmakers decided there wasn’t enough money to cover both women and minorities.

Kate Cyrul, spokeswoman for the Senate Agriculture Committee, said there were strong arguments over the definition when it came to the conservation funding. The “limited funding required that farm bill writers restrict this definition,” she said.

Uh huh.  Evidently the limited money didn’t dictate that ridiculous, stupid direct payments totaling $5 billion per year disappear.  And who does Kate think she’s kidding?  “farm bill writers?”  That’s what you say when you’re embarrassed somebody found out about this.  I guarantee if this was a positive article, it would say “Tom Harkin”.  But when it’s bad, nobody’s willing to name names.

Frankly, it does piss me off that the Senate Appropriations Committee is pulling this crap.  (Oh, and by the way, the #2 Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that deals with Agriculture is…. TOM HARKIN! And we’re still getting screwed).  But really, it is incumbent on the organizations that represent sustainable agriculture to put the fear of divine retribution into these Senators, because that’s the only way this changes.  And to tell the truth, most of the money cut out of EQIP is almost certainly ending up in WIC- which I believe is more important than EQIP.  But the fact that no one even contemplated taking it from the gluttons sucking at the teat of direct payments is more than I can bear.

Judgement Day

Let me just get this out of the way:  Now that I’m unemployed, I can say that I am a Democrat and a progressive, and I knew I was in the right party when we had a choice between a white woman and black man as a nominee for president, vs. a geriatric white male of the aristocracy.  The Democratic Party should be proud of that, and talk about it too.

Anyhoo, a very well written article today brings me back to a discussion I had several time with my coworkers at the Center for Rural Affairs.  While this isn’t the main point of the article, it is the part that made me think:

The Hundlings watch, they say, as the biggest farmers secure more and more land, the youngest ones, like themselves, fail to afford any, and the locals go on fretting that everyone has moved away.

“They sit and complain there’s nobody in the small towns anymore, there’s nobody in our schools,” Mr. Hundling said. “And then they go and rent it to the guy that’s already farming 10,000 acres and lives 30 miles away, 40 miles away, 100 miles away.”

This is a pretty powerful statement in several ways, but first let me unwind a little, and relate this back to my first statement.

Generally, progressives have a common trait that is both a blessing and a curse: we don’t like to judge individuals.  We’re squeamish when it comes to telling somebody they are simply wrong, and we’re even worse at telling people their actions are immoral.  We search for qualifications, ways to soften the blow of harsh words, ways to exculpate those who have contributed to some harm.

And that’s generally good; it reflects a certain recognition that the environment in which we live- call it the system- shapes ourselves and our actions to a large extent, and if we want large-scale change, we need to reorganize the system of rewards and costs our society imposes on certain actions.  But that mentality, taken too far, also feeds a major conservative critique of progressivism- nothing is ever anybody’s fault.  If you listen to Rush (and once a month, you should, just to get a feel for the opposition), you’ll hear him talk about whining liberals who never think anything is their fault, who blame everything on somebody else, who never want to take responsibility for their actions.  I really hate to say it, but he has a point.

Because we progressives hate to judge.  By extension, the progressive nonprofits that claim to represent us in Washington hate to judge as well.  Well, fuck that.  I’m sorry, but we have to start judging, and in the agriculture world, it is time for us to recognize that while we can acknowledge a screwed-up system, we also need to acknowledge that people created that system.  It wasn’t some automaton, some sort of machine- we have an agricultural economy that destroys family farms and rural communities because people made it that way.

The Hundleys, mentioned above, marvel at the ability of rural residents to bemoan their dying towns while renting their land to the highest bidder, no matter where that bidder may reside.  The progressive in me says, well, that’s hard to condemn.  Often that land is somebody’s retirement fund.  Sometimes, it is the thing they have worked for all their lives, and to ask them to accept a lower rental price may well mean they can’t afford their nursing home.  The problem is a messed up system, not the actions of one person.  But another part of me says, the hell with that sentiment.  If these people want to see a vibrant rural economy, why should they wait for some sort of magical policy to come around that makes the morally correct option also the most profitable?

So I’m going to say this is a continuum, not an either-or proposition.  If Grandma has to rent her land to the highest bidder to afford medication, I won’t call her evil.  But if the hedge fund manager in Chicago who inherited land rents out 500 acres to a 10,000 acre farmer because they offered $2 more per acre than a beginning farmer, I’m going to say that’s wrong.  And it’s not just wrong, it’s immoral.  It is contributing to the decline of rural America.  She or he should be ashamed.

Conservatives, of course, are quick to judge and quicker to condemn.  But it’s not just hard-core conservative Republicans who see this sort of judgment as a necessary task.  I truly believe the reluctance of progressives to “call it as they see it” or to stand up and denounce individual economic behavior (unless it’s somebody making more than $1 million a year) actually limits their appeal.  I know I’ve met many people who progressives could win over if they were willing to say that choices have consequences, that people should be responsible for the decisions they make that negatively affect their community.

Moreover, if we’re not willing to judge, I also believe we’re devaluing the pioneers.  If you spend all your time running around and talking about how it’s not the farmers’ fault, how it’s not anybody’s fault, you’re automatically denying people the belief they can change anything at all.

In agriculture terms, that would be the people who have rejected convential agriculture, which they usually view as environmentally unsustainable and socially harmful (to put it mildly).  Some of them may be making money now, but every single one I’ve ever met has worked incredibly hard to be a farmer.  And they didn’t wait for the right policy.  They stood up and did what they thought was right- and for an astonishing number of sustainable farmers, it’s not about money, it’s about morality.  For policy advocates to say, “well, that’s nice, but doesn’t mean a whole lot until we change the system” is, in many ways, downright insulting.  I’ve been guilty of that myself.  And for conventional farmers to say, “well, I would be a sustainable farmer, but it’s just not practical” is just as insulting.

And for an organization, such as a nonprofit, this presents a real dilemma.  You always want to appeal to the broadest number of people possible, if only so they’ll give you money and respond to your action alerts.  But I think organizations must recognize that having people who agree with you and having people who will fight for you are two entirely different things.  Those who seek to change the world need to inspire passion. In today’s world of paid advocates and Washington lobbyists, we need leaders.  Leaders are not those who tell us what we want to hear.  Not at all.  Leaders tell us what we know is true, no matter how uncomfortable, and then they tell us how we’re going to realize the change we seek.

And that message tells us that we are in charge of our own destiny, that we are able to change our lives and the system that so often governs our actions.  Implicit in that statement is the idea that those who have perpetuated and supported the existing system are wrong.  And if organizations and individuals want true support, they must make that implicit statement explicit.  They must draw the contrasts, make clear the differences between themselves and the opposition.  And what is that difference?  Money vs. morality.  Concentration vs. competition.  Community vs. corporate.  At all levels, in all instances, we know which is better, and it’s time for us to say so.

Feeding the Flames

My former coworker Brian Depew has always been really, really good at getting me pissed off.  I mean really.  I try to resist, but before I know it I’ve gone off on some twenty minute rant during which I’ve foamed at the mouth and then tapered off into incoherent mumblings about the Bilderbergers.

So it doesn’t surprise me at all to get an email from Brian piling on to my previous post on worthless economic development subsidies.  Because he’s just that kind of guy- once he knows I’m worked up, he’s going to send along something to feed the flames:

Who says politicians can’t get things done? In February it took only 16 days for the Iowa Legislature to introduce and pass a bill that provides the two richest men in America tens of million of dollars in tax breaks. The legislature took care of the fifth richest Americans last year — the Google guys.

If that sounds crazy, you don’t know the half of it.

Basically, Google and Microsoft are building server farms in the Midwest and state legislatures are falling all over themselves to give them money to do it.  Certainly when Google located a data center just over the state line in Council Bluffs, IA, the Nebraska legislature just about had a collective heart attack and decided it needed to create even more big-business tax incentives.

And this excitment is all about creating maybe 50 jobs.  Maybe.  And the piece notes there is another insidious effect of this absurd competition for server farms:

The other huge winner in all this is Warren Buffett. Buffett — along with anyone who can afford Berkshire Hathaway’s $117,000 per share stock price — owns MidAmerican Energy. MidAmerican Energy is the company that will feed these power hogs. How much power? According to the information provided the Iowa legislature by their Fiscal Service Division, Microsoft’s “facility will consume approximately 800 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year.”

To put it in perspective, that’s the amount of energy the entire island of Guam consumed in 1998. Perhaps more helpful, it equals the electric use of 85,324 average households in Iowa each year.

That’s right, cheap-ass electricity is one of the biggest factors in siting a server farm, because they use a ton of it.  And just one of the tax abatements Microsoft scored for is in the neighborhood of $3.6 million per year- $71K per job.  One wonders if that $3.6 million by itself won’t be a bigger number than the entire payroll.

Ugh.  I can’t really say it any better than Dave Swenson, who gets the kicker at the end of the article:

Economist Dave Swenson said it best: “Between Google and Microsoft, firms that are incredibly profitable, the offer of public money is nothing short of obscene.”

The Old Standby

Well, when I wrote for the Blog for Rural America, I referenced Clawback, the Good Jobs First blog, fairly regularly. So I might as well keep it up. This week Good Jobs First got some prominent play in the Madison Capital Times:

“It’s not just a problem in Wisconsin, it’s a problem across the country,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a Washington-based watchdog group.

Last year, the group released a report highlighting the lack of oversight with government subsidies. While it gave Wisconsin an “A” grade for its tracking of lobbying activity, the state scored a “D” for following money that flows to private business.

“Only about half the states are doing anything with this … and only a few are doing it well,” said LeRoy.

And what is LeRoy talking about?  High-tech economic development incentives in Wisconsin, which are of course one of my all time favorite things to complain about.  Millions- hundreds of millions- of dollars are handed out in tax incentives and the effectiveness is almost never tracked.  It’s a predictable cycle.  First, the taxpayers get screwed:

Yet not every deal pays dividends. Companies may fail to deliver on their promises or simply shut down, leaving investors — or taxpayers — out of luck.

For example, Caden Biosciences quietly closed its doors in the Fitchburg office park in May after a much-publicized move from Chicago in 2006.

The firm had booked $5.85 million in financing from Baird Venture Partners of Milwaukee, Madison-based Venture Investors and Chicago-based Illinois Ventures — along with $500,000 from the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.

And you only know about this because the company is going belly-up, which is a pretty damn obvious indicator of failure.  If the company had only created only a tenth of the jobs they promised, yet still was in business, nobody would know, because…:

the demise of Caden Biosciences points to the ongoing problem of tracking public investments in so-called “new economy” companies. While there is often a flurry of attention when a firm lands funding, there is no mechanism in Wisconsin or most other states to follow their progress.

How about that!  No mechanism at all!  So step two is clearly “keep everyone in the dark”.

And if step two fails- for example, if the company you gave half a million bucks to goes out of business and the local paper happens to catch wind of it- move on to step three.  Get an “independent” expert to testify to the fact it’s just damn near impossible to evaluate these sorts of things:

“State support is fairly recent and biotechs take a long time to develop and show a return,” said consultant Steve Clark, a former professor and medical researcher at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. “You will pick up the failures before you see the successes, so that could skew a preliminary analysis of cost-benefit to a state.”…

A consultant!  DAMN do I hate consultants.  And I’m sure Clark is a completely unbiased observer, with no financial stake in any of these “startups” that receive oodles of public money.

Now for the government mouthpiece:

“Technology funding is not job-based, it’s tied to hitting other milestones,” said Hozeny [a spokesman for the state Dept. of Commerce! ]. “You have to look at the long-term potential. We have to remember that small business is creating most of the new jobs in the country.”

And if the funding isn’t job-based, what are these other “milestones” companies have to hit?  Nobody seems to know.

My point is not that government shouldn’t invest in such companies- we just need a mechanism to evaluate how much good it actually does us.  So it’s a little more difficult to evaluate?  What a bunch of whiners.  Figure out a way.  In fact, I bet somebody somewhere has already figured this out.  But frankly, I don’t want the Dept. of Commerce evaluating this sort of thing- clearly an independent commission of some sort is needed.  Lies, damn lies, and statistics- that’s how most departments of commerce justify their existence.

This, of course, reminds me of my time in Nebraska.  Microenterprise programs in Nebraska had all sorts of reporting requirements and produced an annual reports at least 3 inches thick.  None- and I mean none- of that applied to the big business incentives companies like Wal Mart use all the time.  Well, the hell with that shit.  I know for a fact microenterprise programs are worth every penny they get, because I’ve seen the proof.  If some big business or tech startup or whatever wants to use my tax dollars, they damn well ought to be able to demonstrate they’re doing some good.

A first post…

As you may know, I used to work at the Center for Rural Affairs.  I was the primary author of the Blog for Rural America, for which I wrote a large number of words.  Some of them were intelligible; most of them had to do with the recently passed farm bill.  Thankfully Brian Depew, still slaving away at the Center, was kind enough to hit some of the highlights in his most recent blog post.

Now I am attending grad school in Kent, Ohio, with every intention of becoming a full-time librarian, living off the taxpayer and serving the common good.  Why I want to do that is a topic for another post.

Several people have encouraged me to continue writing a blog, and particularly to say a thing or two that I would not have been allowed to say while employed at the Center for Rural Affairs.  To be honest, that could be a bit difficult given that I had an enormous amount of freedom on the Blog for Rural America and could pretty much say whatever I wanted.  I was never sure whether this was due to organizational respect for intellectual honesty or the fact the executive director never appeared to read the blog on a regular basis (if at all).  In any event, the Center should get credit for letting me be as frank as I was; there are many organizational blogs that are just plain shit because they’re not allowed to make any waves (even when the authors are really great writers).  There were a few taboo areas, though, and I’ll do my best to address them.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.  I have an opinion on damn near everything (sometimes informed, mostly not) and if you have any questions (such as, “Why did Tom Harkin never really fight for a livestock title?) I’ll be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

And now that this is my own blog, I get to curse all I want.  Those of you who know me know that’s a pretty frequent occurrence, and I will try to keep it to a minimum.  But the simple fact that I can say fuck whenever I want is exciting.  It’s the principle of the thing.

I should also note that this blog will probably involve less editing than what I wrote previously.  Basically, much of what I write will probably not be fully formed, tested and vetted opinion or facts. (Kind of like Sarah Palin.  HA!  I can say things like that now.  Sweet)  So feel free to argue with me; I’m always happy to hear other opinions and do my best to always have an open mind.  And if I get something completely wrong, go ahead and start cussing in the comments.  I won’t delete it.