The Three C's and a Cockroach

I realized the other day that I hadn't posted in a while. I have been fairly busy of late traveling and working on trying to get my dissertation chapters into journal article formats to get them published in scholarly journals. Currently, two chapters are either with the co-authors or a colleague for review prior to submitting them to journals. The final chapter has been reviewed by a colleague and I'm in the process of cleaning that up prior to submission though I may have do some re-estimation.

Anyway, there are three C's in Louisiana agriculture: chickens, cattle, and crawfish in that order of economic impact to the state. In the past few weeks, I've been to meetings for all three sectors. By now, you are probably wondering where the cockroach comes in. The LSU Ag Center has several Dodge Magnums which are used by extension personnel to travel the state. These Magnums have a stunning resemblance to the LARGE cockroaches I kill on a regular basis at the house I'm renting.


At the last meeting near Jerry Clower's old stomping grounds on the Tickfaw River, I got to drive one of the cockroaches. It was definitely an interesting meeting with chicken jambalaya instead of a beef dish. Prior to the start of the meeting, the parish ag agent had a demonstration plot of using corn gluten as a fertilizer on an oat field. It seemed to work really well though the gluten can actually prevent certain type of plants from growing due to its chemical composition. It certainly is a cheaper alternative to nitrogen these days.

Once at the actual meeting site, I stumbled on to a conversation of farmers upset about the recent financial bail-out (or buy-in for those fans of Rep. Pelosi). Historically, livestock producers have very rarely directly benefited from the farm bill (aside from the conservation/disaster titles), so it was interesting to hear their complaints of all the money in the bill going to food stamps. (Never mind that food stamps actually helps increase consumption of beef among lower income households.) There were only a handful upset, but those that were noticeably upset when these issues were mentioned. One even wanted a bailout for farmers.

What is certain is that rage seems to be rising as shown in this CNN story and it will be an interesting finish to the campaign season, although it can't come fast enough.

Earlier this week, I also made a quick trip to Chicago for a meeting there. The first night I was there I ate with some people I met (one had been at Purdue roughly the same time as me) at Gibson's Steakhouse in Rosemont. Gibson's is one of the fancy white tablecloth steakhouses that supposedly serve one of the best steaks in the nation as they serve USDA prime beef. It's so fancy that menus are re-printed each day with the prices updated. I ordered a nice sirloin that was quite tasty. As nice as it was, I still think the steak I had at Dakota's in Dallas in February was much better. Though that might have been the fact I didn't have to pay for that steak.

A 2 Minute Review of "Liberal Fascism"

The basic premise of Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg is that fascism is a left of center political movement. That's not to say fascism can't occur on the right (for example compassionate conservatism), but historically it is associated with the left. Goldberg makes the argument that fascism gets confused with the right because fascism is typically to the right of socialism and communism, hence the confusion. What I find most supportive of the argument is that supporters of fascism want 'change' while what ever traditionalist/conservative argued for change for the sake of change?

Goldberg additionally makes the argument that fascism has appeared in the U.S. on three different occasions: during World War I under Woodrow Wilson, the New Deal with FDR, and likely during the Great Society under LBJ. He makes the argument that the New Deal lengthened the Great Depression in part because of the experimentation that occurred. This makes sense because as we are seeing today, if you keep changing the rules, bad things happen. From an economic standpoint, the regulations imposed to curb 'big business' actually leads to the necessity of business to get involved in lobbying government (see Microsoft and Wal-Mart ignoring Washington until Washington got involved with those companies). A very intriguing point is that The Jungle led to consolidation in the meat packing industry because the larger packers influenced policies which ultimately led to mom and pop packers being forced out because of the cost of compliance. Economically this does make sense, even if it is desirable for meat to be inspected since the regulations established as a result of The Jungle minimum standards perceived as safe by consumers (Goldberg cites an interview where Sinclair states The Jungle actually did more harm than good). In short, any time a politician calls for 'increased cooperation' or 'a new partnership between government and business', run for the hills as it's codespeak for socialism. This cooperation ultimately leads to larger (and fewer corporations) which most seem to detest, but politically they are easier to manage for sake of the 'national good' according to Goldberg.

I'm leaving out a lot of topics covered including the myth of the 1960s, the European version of fascism, and the hijacking of the Kennedy legacy into something that it never represented. Though it gets into a lot of deep political science terminology at times, it is definitely worth a read. Especially, that regardless of who wins the presidency, this country is about to take a good sized step to the left.