Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne argues:
Sub-Saharan Africa, despite its long history of food insecurity, is one place where yields could increase dramatically; agricultural basics such as good seed and fertilizer would go far in a region that the green revolution bypassed. “We could increase yields in sub-Saharan Africa threefold tomorrow with off-the-shelf technology,” says Kenneth Cassman, a well-regarded agronomist who researches potential yields. The problem is the continent’s long history of corruption, poor infrastructure, and lack of market access.
Agricultural investment in Africa—and in a few other high-potential places such as Ukraine and Russia—may be the world’s best bet for keeping food plentiful and cheap.
Does anyone see the problem with both Shelburne and Cassman’s analysis?
To start with – the agricultural problems of sub-Saharan Africa cannot be entirely blamed on corruption, poor infrastructure, or lack of market access. It’s the weather stupid! The weather in Africa – mostly dealing with the rains – is highly unpredictable, with droughts being known to occur as often as once every 10 years. African soil is not like the rich soil of the American midwestern breadbasket- it is tough and hard to farm with because it lack inherent nutrients. Unless you want your food to be so filled with preservatives so that it doesn’t event taste like normal food – then stay clear of expecting an huge growth in agriculture output from Africa any time soon,
And if you are one of those venture capitalists looking for a new agriculture spot on which to invest your lifesavings -you can pick Africa if you want, but just wait until the first drought. Nothing in agricultural technology developed thus-far has been able to solve Africa’s drought problem, so you’ll be up against a hard enemy.
Anyone who lives in West Hartford or is looking to buy a house in West Hartford, could tell you that the main draw to this lovely town if ours is the great schools. People are willing to take out huge mortgages and pay well above the average for homes in West Hartford because it means they don’t necessarily have to send their children to area private schools.
The cost of education as part of the cost of a home, not necessarily any economist or politician’s first thought when it comes to the housing bubble and the subprime crisis, but one that should definitely be considered:
Education There’s a lot of focus on the interest rate deduction that is embedded inside a mortgage. I think the most obvious embedded option inside a mortgage that isn’t discussed is the option to educate your children at the local school district. If sending 3 kids to a private high school at your old houses costs $5,000/year, and if the new house’s public high school is free and equally good then taking a $60,000 bath on the house is break-even. Completely rational.
The value of this option has increased, both with the returns to education but also with a general worry about the robustness of our educational meritocracy. The amount of money and energy that goes into securing access to high-end education has skyrocketed over the past decade, and part of that budget, though it isn’t treated as such, is in your house. And though we often think of educational inequality as a function of a Kozol-narrative of the poorest against the richest, this bidding may be most driven by inequality between the middle and the highest parts of the inequality curve. I’d really like to see some hard research into how much our desire to educate our children in the best way possible has driven subprime and the housing bubble.
Is this what you want your party to stand for?
The list of things wrong with these posters is just too long to write out.
But seriously, Republican Party – do you think “Tea Parties” = anti-war protests? Seriously? Think again.
Oh and on that note, this is nothing compared to European protests – nice try though.
So we all know that being in college is like living in a bubble. Now, studying abroad while in college is like a completely different bubble – no cares in the world and all of your savings spent seeing the sights in your city and going on trips around the world.
But what happens when you come out of this bubble? Or in my case, what happens on April 25th when I fly from London Heathrow to Logan International? Scratch that, what happens on May 1 when I return home to West Hartford via Greyhound bus?
The world that I will return to. The world in which I will spend my 4 months of summer and then the rest of my college life in, is completely different than the world I am currently living in here in London.
The big worry is the economy. Now we all know that the Dow closed at 6,800 today – something that not even Steph, Alex, or I could have predicted even when the stock market first started to fall during 1st semester. Further, according to Dad – houses all over West Hartford are up for sale, mostly because of the fact that people have lost their jobs and can no longer afford a West Hartford mortgage or West Hartford property taxes. To put this in perspective – my parent’s bought our West Hartford house at the beginnings of the housing boom in WeHa, we’ve only seen our property values increase over the 7 years that we’ve lived there, not decrease. Additionally, what happens if Target decides not to hire its usual numbers of summer help? That means I won’t have an income this summer – although I will have a job as an unpaid intern. And to take that a step further, what happens if I can’t get a job in Boston during the school year? That means no income and dipping into my post-grad savings, taking away my ability to lease an apartment in D.C. upon graduation.
Now, I know that I personally don’t have it as bad as other people my age. For my part at least, I have 6 more years of school when you count grad school. Now, it’ll put me in a lot of debt, but it will also allow for the economy to recover sufficiently so that it won’t be as difficult to find a good job.
But then again things could all change in an instant. I know that if either of my parents lose their jobs, affording to send me and Aaron to college together over the next 6 years would be really hard on them. I’d either have to take out loans for BU and for grad school, or just slim down the grad school plan altogether and not get my JD so that I can help my parents pay for Aaron and Adam.
This economic crisis is hitting everyone hard. We can only hope that something is done fast to prevent things from getting too much worse.
Filed under: Economy
… at least the GOP thinks so.
Can prayer’s save the economy?
South Carolina’s governor is offering prayers instead of stimulus funds to his state:
On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Sanford received a call from a Charleston resident who said he lost his job because he has been taking care of mother and sister, both of whom have serious illnesses. The caller told Sanford he is “wrong” to decline the money. “A lot of people in South Carolina are hurting. And if this money can come and help us out we need it.” In response, Sanford could offer him only his prayer.
Dumb. Plain stupid. Forget the whole part that the federal government is actually throwing money at your state Gov. Sandford – free money – just take it, like an allowance. But just forget that. Remember the people that actually need the money. The one’s who are losing their jobs and their insurance. Unable to put their kids through school, get food on the table, buy clothes, pay the mortgage. Yeah, remember them? Don’t they deserve a little bit more than prayers? Yeah, think about that for a second. Then try again.
Filed under: Economy
Via HuffPuff:
• $10 billion to “conduct biomedical research in areas such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and stem cells, and to improve NIH facilities.”
Finally.
Filed under: Economy
Here’s what we get everyone:
Many people paying for college would get a $2,500 tax credit for tuition and other education-related expenses, such as books and computers.
Eligible college students would also receive higher Pell Grants, thanks to a $400 boost in the maximum grant, to $5,250.
Filed under: Economy
From Richard Florida via Andrew Sullivan:
The Atlantic’s new issue is online. Richard Florida’s cover story is on how the recession will change the geography of America. The winners? “Mega-regions, systems of multiple cities and their surrounding suburban rings like the Boston–New York–Washington Corridor”:
Well-educated professionals and creative workers who live together in dense ecosystems, interacting directly, generate ideas and turn them into products and services faster than talented people in other places can. There is no evidence that globalization or the Internet has changed that. Indeed, as globalization has increased the financial return on innovation by widening the consumer market, the pull of innovative places, already dense with highly talented workers, has only grown stronger, creating a snowball effect. Talent-rich ecosystems are not easy to replicate, and to realize their full economic value, talented and ambitious people increasingly need to live within them.
So I guess that mean’s I’ll be riding out the recession in an East Coast city? Good thing I already am – Boston for 2 more years, D.C. for 4 after that. The recession will be over by the right?
