In the final book of the famous series of political novels that began with ADVISE AND CONSENT, we get a (relatively) happy ending called THE PROMISE OF JOY, in which Drury's idealized hero, Orrin Knox, finally becomes President. His inaugural speech is recorded in some detail. This one paragraph -- which does not really arise out of anything else in the plot, jumps out at me. "Agriculture will continue to receive the same close attention from my administration that it has received from others. The price gap between producer and consumer is still too low for the producer, too high for the consumer, too close to profiteering for the middleman. We will seek ways to close that gap." What on earth does that mean? As I say, it is from Drury's hero. We should not lightly write it off as meaningless political blather. The gap between producer and consumer? Presumably this refers to the gap between what the farmer gets selling wheat and what the consumers put out buying the...
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Nassim Taleb is refreshing because he writes on social phenomena in a way at a great distance from the usual platitudes of right and left, and that leaves him agreeing with one or the other in ways that seem fortuitous. I just finished reading SKIN IN THE GAME (2018). The essential idea of the book is that one shouldn't take advice from anyone who doesn't stand to lose if the advice is wrong. Don't buy stock in Apple on the basis of a case made to you by someone who has no Apple in his own portfolio. This is connected in Taleb's mind with the idea of "fat tails," extraordinary events that aren't at all as extraordinary as they "should" be under Bell-curve or Gaussian probability theory. A bell curve maps one dimension, which can be for example the earnings of Apple next year. The highest point is the most likely outcome. Some absurdly high number for Apple's earning would be the "tail" figure on one head, and bankruptcy-forcing ...
The Las Vegas Convention Center will host an MJBizCon in the middle of next month. I've received a brochure, and I mention this just in case you, dear reader, are not on the same mailing lists I am. These things seem like they'd be a blast, but they aren't. In my experience, these aren't conventions of stoners sharing their really good stuff in the hallways. From the page listing "featured sessions," I give you this: Cultivation Applying Big Ag Techniques to Cannabis Cultivation Cultivation Deep Dive: Economic Impact of Light Intensity on Yield and Secondary Metabolites Retail Packaging Considerations: Choosing the Right Materials and Machinery Retail Tutorial: Boosting Dispensary Revenues Through Patient and Physician Education. There's much more like that, but you probably get the idea. It ain't pass-the-bong fun. But that is as it should be. The state-legal MJ industry in the US is a wide and deep one now: and I am ...
Almost nobody talks about "price parity" any more. A few decades back the term was the common coin of politcal debate, central to arguments about agricultural price subsidies. During the depression, Rooseveltian economists decided that a period about 20 years before that , 1910-1914, had been a golden age for farmers. The price of goods farmers had to buy (made by urban folk) were in a "parity" with the price of the goods they were selling, their crops and slaughtered critters. So (the Brain Trust decided) the goal of federal policy ought to be to get back to that parity. Ag subsidies, direct and indirect, were justified for over the next 30 years or so on the basis of helping farmers return to or maintain parity, defined by pre-WWI price relationships. These subsidies were by the the 1960s receiving heavy critical fire all along the political spectrum, and although the critics didn't manage to stop the subsidies (which are still very much with us in ...