Teddy Bloggie Blog Blogging

Today we had an orientation with the requisite announcements and administrative stuff. But a few things were interesting...

The UAW local 2865 paid us a visit and I signed up. I've always liked the idea of being a union worker, especially a United Auto Worker union member. Well, officially, I'm not yet a member, but if I ever decide to be a TA (possibly next year) I'd automatically become a member.

A new student from the Korean agriculture ministry (or something to that effect) asked me about U.S. agriculture and the political economy of agriculture in the U.S. I answered with something like how the 1-3% of farmers in the U.S. is a huge constituency that can push through ridiculous farm bills in both the White House and Congress. We spend a few billion here and there to buy products from farmers. We insure that they'll sell for a certain price (say $2.65/bushel for corn) and if it doesn't reach that level, the government pays growers that price anyway. What other business is like that? Oh, and the payments aren't based on the quantity of product. The government pays based on historical harvest, so even if you don't plant anything and the price of whatever you didn't plant drops, you get paid! What a deal, huh? In order to help out the developing world, we destroy their agriculture base. We spend billions to buy from U.S. farmers and give away the crops for free in starving countries. In Egypt, there are silos full of grain from local producers, but it doesn't sell since U.S. free grain is available. Aid agencies are going crazy over U.S. agriculture subsidies since it just creates a cycle of starvation in other countries. U.S. money earmarked for aid is only to be used to buy food from U.S. producers, not producers in the place of famine or drought. Well, anyway, it's going to be fun chatting with him about agriculture policies, but first I'll have to do some homework (a conservative view here).

Another interesting tidbit is that I attended the mixer from 4-6pm. It's the first time I've been a student anywhere and had alcohol catered in. So a bit of red wine, grapes and strawberries were in order. Fun stuff.

After the event, I dug up a speech I read on Brad De Long's site and forwarded it to the new grad students along with my own cautiously optimistic words.

Now, it's time for more math camp homework.