Pun Salad

The New York Times Official Food Nag, Mark Bittman, continues to entertain. His latest column looks at federal agricultural subsidies, and finds them dreadful.

Agreed!

Unfortunately the title of Bittman's column is "Don't End Agricultural Subsidies, Fix Them". Sounding like a very bad fourth verse of that dreadful John Lennon song:

Imagine support designed to encourage a resurgence of small- and medium-size farms producing not corn syrup and animal-feed but food we can touch, see, buy and eat -- like apples and carrots -- while diminishing handouts to agribusiness and its political cronies.

To his credit, Bittman does a half-decent job describing some of the problems with the current subsidy program. But you can get a completely-decent description of those problems and more from Cato's Downsizing Government site. Summary:

1. Subsidies do a reverse-Robin Hood wealth redistribution from Joe and Jane Average Taxpayer to relatively wealthy farmowners.

2. Subsidies damage the economy by eliminating or decreasing the price signals present in a free-market system.

3. Subsidies are corruption-prone.

4. Subsidies damage the effort to liberalize trade, hurting both consumers and producers in the US and other countries.

5. Subsidies encourage environmental damage.

6. Subsidies are an unnecessary relic hanging on from the Great Depression; there's no evidence they're necessary to maintain a thriving agricultural sector.

It sounds unforgivably condescending, but it's tough to characterize Bittman's attitude as anything less that a childlike faith in statist theology, a True Believer. Even though he admits multiple malfunctions and dysfunctions in the current subsidy system, he can't bring himself to the obvious response: just stop it..

As I've noted before: when confronted with three tons of government money going down a rathole to ill effect, the statist response is: let's make it four tons, and toss it down this rathole, of slightly different shape, instead.

Sallie James, also at Downsizing Government says it pretty well:

If Americans decide to eat more fruit and vegetables, you can be sure that farmers here or abroad (and it does not matter which) will be happy to provide them. The solution lies not in tinkering with the program in the hope that finally, this time, bureaucrats in Washington will get it right, but in freeing the farmers from government interference totally, and letting the market decide which foods are grown.

A lot of famous movie-making names in this 1940 movie: William "Ben Hur" Wyler directed, the screenplay was by Howard "Casablanca" Koch, and the music was by Max "Also Casablanca" Steiner. And it had the incomparable Bette Davis. And it was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture.

And yet, I didn't care for it at all. Not sure what's going on there.

Ms Davis plays Mrs. Crosbie, the wife of the manager of a British rubber plantation in the Malay peninsula. The movie opens with her emptying a revolver into the back of one Geoffrey Hammond, who has (for some reason) worn out his welcome at the Crosbie's bungalow, while Mr. Crosbie is out of town.

The remainder of the movie involves Mrs. Crosbie's efforts to not hang for this offense, despite the fact that what happened is bleedingly obvious to everyone save Mr. Crosbie. Unfortunately her exoneration is cast into doubt by (guess what) "The Letter" she sent to Hammond, which is now in the hands of Hammond's Eurasian "wife", the very pissed-off Gale Sondergaard.

It's 95 minutes, but seems to be much, much longer. We keep seeing shots of the moon getting obscured by clouds, and more shots of the moon getting revealed again. I think this may be Symbolism.

Mrs. Salad did not appreciate me pointing out "She's got Bette Davis eyes." Maybe because I did it about 20 times.