Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Wednesday, January 11. 2012

Weds. morning links


Photo via Ace


Cajun Crayfish Invading Africa, Eating Native Species


Sowell: Kodak and the Post Office


Bankrupt Greece Expands the Gravy Train


ONE MARKET, ONE CURRENCY, ONE PEOPLE?  THE FAULTY LOGIC OF EUROPE


Obsessive Koch disorder at the Times


As you might imagine, government is Krugman’s answer for all perceived wrongs..


A Radical Solution For America’s Worsening College Tuition Bubble



Ideas Have Sex, and We’re Better for It - If government will just stay out of the bar, ideas will meet and mate and produce wonderful things.


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:51 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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I'm sorry - being an LSU alum, I find that image highly offensive - cute though. I demand equal time for LSU Cheerleaders or the LSU Golden Girls.

Post Office

The sad story of the USPS is directly related to its bloated bureaucracy and federalized union labor. It baffles me why UPS, which is a unionized company, can deliver packages quickly which the USPS seems incapable of. Case in point - I ordered two Sage ONE fly rods from Bass Pro Shops and didn't specify how they were shipped - BPS chose USPS and it took five days ground from Springfield, MO to Columbia - shipped Monday, arrived Saturday. The rod tube was open at one end and one of the rods was missing. After investigating, BPS sent me a new rod - I requested UPS shipment - three days from order to arrival and it cost BPS exactly one dollar more to do so.

What's the difference? Got me, but I purchase goods from Amazon, BPS and Cabela's all the time and if I forget to specify FEDEX or UPS, they ship USPS and it takes forever to get here.
#1 Tom Francis on 2012-01-11 08:22 (Reply)
If you order from Amazon often, the $70/year "prime" deal is indispensable. Everything arrives in two days, and it automatically comes by UPS. It pays for itself right away. The "prime" deal applies not only to packages for yourself but for anything you ship to others. It's a great deal for Amazon, too; I think of them first for any routine internet purchase.

My UPS packages come to my door. My USPS packages come to my mailbox a mile away, if I'm lucky; to the post office 10 miles away if they're too big. When I ship packages from Texas to Pennsylvania, the price differential between UPS and USPS is never more than a dollar or two. The time differential isn't too awful unless it's holiday season, in which case USPS can easily be a full week slower -- even if you've paid extra for "2-day shipping."

USPS has a rudimentary kind of tracking system. My sister's Christmas package to me left Philadelphia on Dec. 19, sent by 2-day express. For a full week, the tracking system showed only that the package made it to the sorting facility in Philly on that date. On Dec. 27, up popped a message that the package had made it to South Texas. With UPS, the tracking system would have flagged the package's location at about six intermediate spots.

Down with USPS.
#1.1 Texan99 (Link) on 2012-01-12 10:06 (Reply)
Roll Tide!
#2 Jephnol (Link) on 2012-01-11 08:26 (Reply)
Should we ever get to a time when we think systemically about the impact (cost/value/influence,etc.) of universities on our communities both rural and urban, then we will have to look at the possibility of integrating the need to reduce tuition with the need to provide strong physical labor in the local agricultural efforts. I have long believed that we should offer students some kind of exchange opportunity. The local liberals want their children to understand "where food comes from". And, the local conservatives want to hire the cheapest labor possible for their field and packing needs. Why not make it possible for students to elect to cut their costs of tuition by exchanging hours spent in the field or the packing plant for hours in the classroom? All those wonderful liberals who want to be "systems thinkers" throw up at that connection. But, who knows maybe all those anti-commies will love the idea! Come together folks and remember that "good politics does not guarantee good design"!
#3 faculty Wife on 2012-01-11 11:00 (Reply)
Wellll . . .that would certainly reduce the cry and need for illegal Mexican labor! After all the justification for allowing millions to enter this country illegally is that they do the field labor Americans won't do correct? You mean we might actually start to resolve several problems at the same time?
#4 apple pie on 2012-01-11 11:03 (Reply)
Bird Dog: As you might imagine, government is Krugman’s answer for all perceived wrongs.

That doesn't follow from McQuain's argument and the excerpt from Krugman. McQuain argues that "{Krugman's} premise is it is the job of government to pick up those who’ve made bad choices, in the name of 'equal opportunity', and do what is necessary to 'level the playing field'," yet the excerpt from Krugman points to disadvantages of *children*. What 'bad choice' did a child make to have poor nutrition, or a poor education?
#5 Zachriel on 2012-01-11 11:06 (Reply)
I think your rebuttal is too simplistic. I could go down the issues one by one, commenting on each of them, but I'll just pick one: public education.

There is, as far as I know, NO evidence the quality of public education is directly correlated with the amount of money spent on it. For years, I used to look at the annual summary of expenditures on public education and student test results for each city in the state of Massachusetts. And each year, it turned out that the highest expenditures were for cities like Cambridge, which also had the LOWEST test scores.

Then take this comment by Krugman:

"It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education."

Does that mean to achieve "parity" the government should be spending on public education whatever it takes to match what SOME parents choose to spend on a private school education for their children? I think not. If some parents sacrifice by spending their OWN money to send their kids to public school, it creates NO obligation for the public to spend an equal amount on public schools---not that it would do any good, as my earlier comment already pointed out. In fact, the public should be thankful that the parents who send their kids to private schools are paying taxes to support schools that they don't even use.
#5.1 Agent Cooper on 2012-01-11 14:24 (Reply)
"...OWN money to send their kids to public school"

I meant to type private school here, as should be obvious. Sorry for any possible confusion.
#5.1.1 Agent Cooper on 2012-01-11 15:16 (Reply)
Agent Cooper: I think your rebuttal is too simplistic.

We didn't rebut or discuss anything other than McQuain's fallacious argument.

Agent Cooper: There is, as far as I know, NO evidence the quality of public education is directly correlated with the amount of money spent on it.

Downes, Zabel & Ansel (2009): The achievement gap notwithstanding, this research provides new evidence that the state’s investment has had a clear and significant impact. Specifically, some of the research findings show how education reform has been successful in raising the achievement of students in the previously low-spending districts. Quite simply, this comprehensive analysis documents that without Ed Reform the achievement gap would be larger than it is today.

See also Card & Payne (2002), Deke (2003), Papke (2001), Guryan (2003), Goertz & Weiss (2009). The problem has been that historically, education is largely funded at the local level, meaning poor disadvantaged children are chronically underfunded.
#5.1.2 Zachriel on 2012-01-12 10:07 (Reply)
You convolute, trivialize, and demean the discussion. Of course children have no control over their birth circumstances. All we here realize that, even should you otherwise think us fools.

Most here, I'm guessing, judge based on results. After fifty years of liberal efforts, we're judging those efforts a failure, to include Krugman, and are searching for different paradigms to improve the future. Your extremely clever efforts to subvert that endeavor are noticed, at least by me.
#5.2 XRay on 2012-01-11 21:35 (Reply)
XRay: You convolute, trivialize, and demean the discussion. Of course children have no control over their birth circumstances. All we here realize that, even should you otherwise think us fools.

Of course you realize that, which is why we pointed out the flaw in McQuain's argument.
#5.2.1 Zachriel on 2012-01-12 10:14 (Reply)
On a second reading, I will say that McQuain's opinion could have been better written. Though in my opinion, he was speaking of 'parents' and not children in his basic formulation. Parents who fail to take advantage of the innumerable opportunities available to them for the betterment of their children.

A larger question... how do we solve the institutional ignorance of those who can't grasp, or make significant in their lives, what has been made available for them. Some do, but it is an extremely small percentage.

I say still, I know how you work.
#5.2.1.1 XRay on 2012-01-12 20:49 (Reply)
XRay: On a second reading, I will say that McQuain's opinion could have been better written.

Thank you. Didn't see it as a difficult point to acknowledge.

XRay: Though in my opinion, he was speaking of 'parents' and not children in his basic formulation. Parents who fail to take advantage of the innumerable opportunities available to them for the betterment of their children.

Yes, the sins of the parents will often visit on the children. The question is how much obligation society has to provide equal opportunity to children. For instance, universal education has been a norm for over a century, and the vast majority of people consider this an important social advancement.
#5.2.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2012-01-13 10:13 (Reply)
"Thank you. Didn't see it as a difficult point to acknowledge."

I saw it as so obvious as to not require acknowledgment.

"the sins of the parents will often visit on the children"

In certain situations 'often' is nearly always.

I've no issue with "universal education". Thing is, is how to break that link of 'sins of the parents'. All the money and support in the world won't solve that problem.
#5.2.1.1.1.1 XRay on 2012-01-13 20:09 (Reply)
--last time i was in a bar trying to mate ideas what it produced was a squirt of pepper spray
#6 buddy larsen on 2012-01-11 12:11 (Reply)
It is hardly surprising The New Republic's Kevin Carey would think the "radical solution" for solving the problem of rising tuition costs in higher education is for the government to double down on student loans and to call for yet more institutions of higher learning. He sells this as increased "competition" when it's really no different than our ever expanding farm subsidies and green energy subsidies. His "solution" is the higher education equivalent of ObamaCare. It would do for higher education what ObamaCare is bound to do for health care in this country: one way or the other, the public ends up with the bill and pays more while getting less.

The inflation in the price of higher education is due to the administrative costs of compliance with ever more government mandates; rising salaries in the academic guild; a loss of mission focus in which every school attempts to be all things to all students, through course offerings in every esoteric niche program that faculty can conceive (enough already with the gender studies, the queer studies, the womyns studies); and finally the willingness of politicians to buy the votes of our children by offering to subsidize their education in whatever subject field strikes the student's fancy.

Since I believe there are no economies of scale in higher education, my solution to the rising costs of a college education calls for each college and university to perform some serious triage on their curricula. Each school should choose a few areas in which it wishes to concentrate and excel, and it should ruthlessly eliminate the rest. Smaller schools, like smaller government, will lower the cost of higher education and do a better job at preparing students for the rest of their working lives.
#7 Agent Cooper on 2012-01-11 16:03 (Reply)
Yeah, fund the "competition" with money that we've commandeered from other people! That works as well as real competition, right?

The problem with these people, Agent Cooper, is that they don't know the difference between public works and private enterprise. They think they can recreate the beneficial effects of people allocating their own resources with their own central planning, where they get to use your resources in the way they know best.
#7.1 Texan99 (Link) on 2012-01-12 10:12 (Reply)
Given the amounts of cash/credit/whatever spent on public schools, why are there differences in outcomes between/among schools in the same taxing district?

Given that many black children in schools with black teachers and administrators in cities with black mayors/councilmen don't do well, what is the explanation for that. "Not enough money" won't cut it.
#8 Sam L. on 2012-01-11 16:18 (Reply)
"A Radical Solution" to college costs? Not a solution nor is it radical. Simply more of the same -- additional governmental fiddling at the Federal level. Let me suggest a truly radical approach -- no more college subsidies from the Federal government. No loan guarantees, no Pell Grants. Let students self-finance and watch the prices plunge.

Will we have fewer degrees awarded? I hope so, because we've too many underemployed art history majors, among many other fields of study. This whole mess was started due to misguided panic over a lack of science and math degrees during the competition with the USSR, yet now we offer green cards to vast numbers of non-English speakers to meet what some businesses think are their needs in the technical fields. So exactly how well did that deal work out?

Let's go back to self-financing plus scholarships and grants from the schools themselves, and get rid of "helpful" Federal interference.
#9 Dai Alanye (Link) on 2012-01-15 21:26 (Reply)

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