New Wyoming Law Lets Local Ranchers Sell Cuts of Meat Directly to Consumers

Wyoming’s groundbreaking Food Freedom Act has served as a national model for how states can deregulate many in-state food sales. The five-year-old law opened up many previously illegal food transactions in Wyoming, and has delivered on its promise to benefit ranchers, other food entrepreneurs, and consumers alike. And it’s done so without a single case of foodborne illness being tied to any foods sold under the law. 

The law also keeps getting better. As I detailed a column just last month, an amendment to the Act will allow low-risk foods such as homemade jams to be sold in grocery stores and sold and consumed in restaurants.

That was great news. But yet another new amendment to the law, passed last month and set to take effect in July, could further bolster the fortunes of ranchers and consumers in the state.

A new animal share amendment will let consumers buy individual cuts of meat directly from ranchers though an animal-share agreement, completely outside of the typical U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection regime. That’s something that’s still illegal in the other 49 states. It’s also why the Wyoming law could be a game changer for ranchers in the state and—should other states follow suit—a valuable new revenue stream for farmers and ranchers across the country.

The new amendment was introduced by Wyoming State Rep. Tyler Lindholm (R), who co-sponsored the bipartisan Food Freedom Act five years ago. 

The idea for the bill is simple,” Lindholm—a rancher with whom I serve on the board of the nonprofit Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund—told me this week. “Let ranchers and farmers sell herd shares for their animals. That way the entire herd is ‘owned’ by all of the customers before slaughter, thereby meeting the exemption standards of the federal law, and now the rancher does not have to jump through the hoops of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and can utilize the smaller mom and pop butchers that still [exist] in most of our small towns.

The premise behind animal shares isn’t new. For example, some states which prohibit raw (unpasteurized) milk sales allow distribution to people who’ve purchased shares in one or more of a farmer’s dairy cattle. These “herdshare” agreements let a farmer raise and care for the herd-shared livestock in exchange for providing some of its (typically unpasteurized) milk to share owners.

Meat sharing has been a bit more complicated. As I detail in my book, Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable, a consumer may buy a significant portion of a living cow—say one-quarter or one-half its post-slaughter weight—and take possession of its meat after it’s been slaughtered in a non-USDA approved facility without running afoul of USDA rules. But that can mean buying more than 100-200 pounds of beef. Until the new Wyoming law, consumers who weren’t quite that hungry (or who wanted only a particular cut of meat) have had little option but to buy from farmers who’d had their animals processed under the USDA’s rules or to go to the grocery store for similarly inspected cuts.

The Wyoming amendment takes advantage of an exemption created under § 623(a) of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which governs interstate and even most intrastate livestock slaughter and meat sales in this country. The FMIA exemption allows custom slaughtering of livestock by and for an “owner” of the animal.

The Wyoming law clarifies who is or may be an owner of livestock in that state. It does so by defining an animal share as “an ownership interest in an animal or herd of animals created by a written contract between an informed end consumer and a farmer or rancher that includes a bill of sale to the consumer for an ownership interest in the animal or herd and a boarding provision under which the consumer boards the animal or herd with the farmer or rancher for care and processing and the consumer is entitled to receive a share of meat from the animal or herd.”

Since the Food Freedom Act’s passage five years ago, Lindholm has sought ways to improve the law. Meat sales were always at the top of the list.

“The sale of processed meat, except poultry, is not allowed under the Food Freedom Act,” Lindholm explained to me in 2015. Even five years ago, though, he was already busy at work figuring out a fix.

“We have to find a workable solution to this issue and you can expect to see legislation in the future dealing with this issue so that ranchers and farmers can also sell beef and pork directly to consumers also,” he told me. “This is just the beginning.”

He meant it. Still, the new amendment has its limits. It still doesn’t allow for the resale or donation of meat obtained under the law; for third-party retail or restaurant sales; or for sales taking place off of a farm or ranch. It also requires, among other things, that ownership shares be established prior to an animal’s slaughter.

While it’s difficult to ascertain right now who might be taking advantage of the law—given it doesn’t kick in until July—Lindholm learned after the bill’s passage of one such person. That would be his sister Bonita Carlson, who runs Persson Ranch near Gillette, Wyoming, with her husband Drew Persson.

Bonita told me this week that the law could be a game changer for ranchers and consumers in the state.

“It’s caught quite a few people’s attention in the state,” she tells me. “It’s pretty exciting news for sure. Even with social distancing, I’ve spoken with probably twenty people personally who are interested in using animal shares.”

Carlson tells me the fact the Wyoming law lowers costly barriers to entry for ranchers like her—for example, she won’t have to transport her animal-share cattle to an out-of-state feedlot—will help her high-quality grassfed beef compete on price with larger competitors.

“We will be selling 93% lean ground beef for much cheaper than they’re selling 80/20 at the grocery store,” Carlson tells me. “We should be competitive enough that a single mom can purchase ground beef from us, too.”

More than five years after Wyoming passed the Food Freedom Act, the law has benefited farmers and ranchers, small entrepreneurs, and consumers throughout the state. And it just keeps getting better.

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New Wyoming Law Lets Local Ranchers Sell Cuts of Meat Directly to Consumers

Wyoming’s groundbreaking Food Freedom Act has served as a national model for how states can deregulate many in-state food sales. The five-year-old law opened up many previously illegal food transactions in Wyoming, and has delivered on its promise to benefit ranchers, other food entrepreneurs, and consumers alike. And it’s done so without a single case of foodborne illness being tied to any foods sold under the law. 

The law also keeps getting better. As I detailed a column just last month, an amendment to the Act will allow low-risk foods such as homemade jams to be sold in grocery stores and sold and consumed in restaurants.

That was great news. But yet another new amendment to the law, passed last month and set to take effect in July, could further bolster the fortunes of ranchers and consumers in the state.

A new animal share amendment will let consumers buy individual cuts of meat directly from ranchers though an animal-share agreement, completely outside of the typical U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection regime. That’s something that’s still illegal in the other 49 states. It’s also why the Wyoming law could be a game changer for ranchers in the state and—should other states follow suit—a valuable new revenue stream for farmers and ranchers across the country.

The new amendment was introduced by Wyoming State Rep. Tyler Lindholm (R), who co-sponsored the bipartisan Food Freedom Act five years ago. 

The idea for the bill is simple,” Lindholm—a rancher with whom I serve on the board of the nonprofit Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund—told me this week. “Let ranchers and farmers sell herd shares for their animals. That way the entire herd is ‘owned’ by all of the customers before slaughter, thereby meeting the exemption standards of the federal law, and now the rancher does not have to jump through the hoops of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and can utilize the smaller mom and pop butchers that still [exist] in most of our small towns.

The premise behind animal shares isn’t new. For example, some states which prohibit raw (unpasteurized) milk sales allow distribution to people who’ve purchased shares in one or more of a farmer’s dairy cattle. These “herdshare” agreements let a farmer raise and care for the herd-shared livestock in exchange for providing some of its (typically unpasteurized) milk to share owners.

Meat sharing has been a bit more complicated. As I detail in my book, Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable, a consumer may buy a significant portion of a living cow—say one-quarter or one-half its post-slaughter weight—and take possession of its meat after it’s been slaughtered in a non-USDA approved facility without running afoul of USDA rules. But that can mean buying more than 100-200 pounds of beef. Until the new Wyoming law, consumers who weren’t quite that hungry (or who wanted only a particular cut of meat) have had little option but to buy from farmers who’d had their animals processed under the USDA’s rules or to go to the grocery store for similarly inspected cuts.

The Wyoming amendment takes advantage of an exemption created under § 623(a) of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which governs interstate and even most intrastate livestock slaughter and meat sales in this country. The FMIA exemption allows custom slaughtering of livestock by and for an “owner” of the animal.

The Wyoming law clarifies who is or may be an owner of livestock in that state. It does so by defining an animal share as “an ownership interest in an animal or herd of animals created by a written contract between an informed end consumer and a farmer or rancher that includes a bill of sale to the consumer for an ownership interest in the animal or herd and a boarding provision under which the consumer boards the animal or herd with the farmer or rancher for care and processing and the consumer is entitled to receive a share of meat from the animal or herd.”

Since the Food Freedom Act’s passage five years ago, Lindholm has sought ways to improve the law. Meat sales were always at the top of the list.

“The sale of processed meat, except poultry, is not allowed under the Food Freedom Act,” Lindholm explained to me in 2015. Even five years ago, though, he was already busy at work figuring out a fix.

“We have to find a workable solution to this issue and you can expect to see legislation in the future dealing with this issue so that ranchers and farmers can also sell beef and pork directly to consumers also,” he told me. “This is just the beginning.”

He meant it. Still, the new amendment has its limits. It still doesn’t allow for the resale or donation of meat obtained under the law; for third-party retail or restaurant sales; or for sales taking place off of a farm or ranch. It also requires, among other things, that ownership shares be established prior to an animal’s slaughter.

While it’s difficult to ascertain right now who might be taking advantage of the law—given it doesn’t kick in until July—Lindholm learned after the bill’s passage of one such person. That would be his sister Bonita Carlson, who runs Persson Ranch near Gillette, Wyoming, with her husband Drew Persson.

Bonita told me this week that the law could be a game changer for ranchers and consumers in the state.

“It’s caught quite a few people’s attention in the state,” she tells me. “It’s pretty exciting news for sure. Even with social distancing, I’ve spoken with probably twenty people personally who are interested in using animal shares.”

Carlson tells me the fact the Wyoming law lowers costly barriers to entry for ranchers like her—for example, she won’t have to transport her animal-share cattle to an out-of-state feedlot—will help her high-quality grassfed beef compete on price with larger competitors.

“We will be selling 93% lean ground beef for much cheaper than they’re selling 80/20 at the grocery store,” Carlson tells me. “We should be competitive enough that a single mom can purchase ground beef from us, too.”

More than five years after Wyoming passed the Food Freedom Act, the law has benefited farmers and ranchers, small entrepreneurs, and consumers throughout the state. And it just keeps getting better.

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Drone Delivers Food To Customers In COVID-19 Isolation  

Drone Delivers Food To Customers In COVID-19 Isolation  

A food truck operator in North Carolina has deployed a drone to deliver sandwiches to customers amid the state’s “stay at home” public health order and other strict social distancing measures that have completely changed how business is conducted in these challenging times.

CBS17 Raleigh reports that the folks at CheeseSmith Food Truck deployed a DJI drone to deliver grilled cheese sandwiches to customers.

The idea came one customer who is in quarantine suggested that using a drone for deliveries could be a modern tool to stay within the guidelines of government-enforced social distancing. Here’s a look at how technology is allowing some food truck/restaurants to adapt to strict new rules of how citizens interact in the real economy during a pandemic:

As for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules for small unmanned aircraft, the food truck operator and drone pilot should read Part 107 of FAA regulations that detail “external loads” and “line of sight.” Maybe they should request a Part 107 waiver before conducting more sandwich drone deliveries. Due in part, if they are breaking FAA rules, the penalty could be severe.   

With so many restaurants going bust across the country during the pandemic, CheeseSmith Food Truck is staying busy while it delivers sandwiches via a drone. 


Tyler Durden

Sat, 04/04/2020 – 08:45

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/39HsUgf Tyler Durden

Former British Supreme Court Justice: “This Is What A Police-State Is Like”

Former British Supreme Court Justice: “This Is What A Police-State Is Like”

Via The Spectator,

he former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption, QC, has denounced the police response to the coronavirus, saying the country is suffering ‘collective hysteria’.

This is an edited transcript of his interview with BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme earlier today.

BBC interviewer Jonny Dymond

 ‘A hysterical slide into a police state. A shameful police force intruding with scant regard to common sense or tradition. An irrational overreaction driven by fear.’ These are not the accusations of wild-eyed campaigners, they come from the lips of one our most eminent jurists Lord Sumption, former Justice of the Supreme Court. I spoke to him just before we came on air.

Lord Sumption 

The real problem is that when human societies lose their freedom, it’s not usually because tyrants have taken it away. It’s usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection against some external threat. And the threat is usually a real threat but usually exaggerated. That’s what I fear we are seeing now. The pressure on politicians has come from the public. They want action. They don’t pause to ask whether the action will work. They don’t ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying.

They want action anyway. And anyone who has studied history will recognise here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria. Hysteria is infectious. We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.

Dymond 

At a time like this, as you acknowledge, citizens do look to the state for protection, for assistance, we shouldn’t be surprised then if the state takes on new powers if it responds. That is what it has been asked to do, almost demanded of it.

Sumption

Yes that is absolutely true. We should not be surprised. But we have to recognise that this is how societies become despotisms. And we also have to recognise this is a process which leads naturally to exaggeration. The symptoms of coronavirus are clearly serious for those with other significant medical conditions, especially if they’re old. There are exceptional cases in which young people have been struck down, which have had a lot of publicity, but the numbers are pretty small. The Italian evidence, for instance, suggests that only in 12 per cent of deaths is it possible to say coronavirus was the main cause of death. So yes this is serious and yes it’s understandable that people cry out to the government.

But the real question is: is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up, saddling future generations with debt, depression, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable distress inflicted on millions of people who are not especially vulnerable and will suffer only mild symptoms or none at all, like the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister.

Dymond 

The executive, the government, is all of a sudden really rather powerful and really rather unscrutinised. Parliament is in recess, it’s due to come back in late April, we’re not quite sure whether it will or not, the Prime Minister is closeted away, communicating via his phone, there is not a lot in the way of scrutiny is there?

Sumption 

No. Certainly, there’s not a lot in the way of institutional scrutiny. The press has engaged in a fair amount of scrutiny, there has been some good and challenging journalism. But mostly the press has, I think, echoed and indeed amplified the general panic.

Dymond 

The restrictions in movement have also changed the relationship between the police and those whose, in name, they serve. The police are naming and shaming citizens for travelling at what they see as the wrong time or driving to the wrong place. Does that set alarm bells ringing for you, as a former senior member of the judiciary?

Sumption 

Well, I have to say, it does. I mean, the tradition of policing in this country is that policemen are citizens in uniform. They are not members of a disciplined hierarchy operating just at the government’s command. Yet in some parts of the country, the police have been trying to stop people from doing things like travelling to take exercise in the open country, which are not contrary to the regulations, simply because ministers have said that they would prefer us not to. The police have no power to enforce ministers’ preferences, but only legal regulations – which don’t go anything like as far as the government’s guidance. I have to say that the behaviour of the Derbyshire police in trying to shame people into using their undoubted right to take exercise in the country and wrecking beauty spots in the Fells so that people don’t want to go there, is frankly disgraceful.

This is what a police state is like. It’s a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority and the police will enforce ministers’ wishes. I have to say that most police forces have behaved in a thoroughly sensible and moderate fashion. Derbyshire police have shamed our policing traditions. There is a natural tendency of course, and a strong temptation for the police to lose sight of their real functions and turn themselves from citizens in uniform into glorified school prefects. I think it’s really sad that the Derbyshire police have failed to resist that.

Dymond 

There will be people listening who admire your legal wisdom but will also say ‘well, he’s not an epidemiologist, he doesn’t know how disease spreads, he doesn’t understand the risks to the health service if this thing gets out of control’. What do you say to them?

Sumption 

What I say to them is I am not a scientist but it is the right and duty of every citizen to look and see what the scientists have said and to analyse it for themselves and to draw common sense conclusions. We are all perfectly capable of doing that and there’s no particular reason why the scientific nature of the problem should mean we have to resign our liberty into the hands of scientists. We all have critical faculties and it’s rather important, in a moment of national panic, that we should maintain them.

Dymond 

Lord Sumption, former Justice of the Supreme Court, speaking to me earlier. We put his criticism of Derbyshire police to the force and they sent us this statement: ‘Our advice to the public was in line with national government instruction and echoed what people in our communities were saying following thousands of people that travelled to the Peak District National Park the previous weekend. The weekend just gone saw much smaller numbers and we thank the public for their response.’   

*  *  *

Full interview below:


Tyler Durden

Sat, 04/04/2020 – 08:10

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JFyx44 Tyler Durden

Want To Escape? These Are The Countries That Have Escaped COVID-19 So Far?

Want To Escape? These Are The Countries That Have Escaped COVID-19 So Far?

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread to all corners of the globe and the following infographic shows the last places on Earth remaining unaffected.

It is based on countries that have not reported any known COVID-19 cases and that remained absent from the extensive global tracking carried out by the Johns Hopkins University as of March 31, 2020.

Infographic: Which Countries Have Escaped The Coronavirus So Far? | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, however, there are certainly question marks regarding the true situation in some countries, particularly North Korea, with sources in South Korea claiming COVID-19 has indeed spread there via the Chinese border. Due to the secretive nature of the government in Pyongyang and the degree of state control over the media, it is impossible to tell whether the South Korean claims are true. However, it is also not unreasonable to think that in this instance, North Korea’s isolation from the rest of the world is helping it largely avoid the pandemic. Myanmar, another secretive country, was on the first version of this map but it has now reported its first case of COVID-19.

Several countries in Africa are still saying that they have no COVID-19 cases, though again this could be due to a lack of testing capacity on the ground. As of March 30, Botswana, Burundi, the Comoros, Malawi, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone and South Sudan were the African countries still to report a confirmed case.

The virus also remains mostly undetected in the smaller Pacific island nations such as the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.


Tyler Durden

Sat, 04/04/2020 – 07:35

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3bWneRb Tyler Durden

China Floods Europe With Defective COVID-19-Fighting Medical Equipment

China Floods Europe With Defective COVID-19-Fighting Medical Equipment

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

As the coronavirus rages across Europe, a growing number of countries are reporting that millions of pieces of medical equipment donated by, or purchased from, China to defeat the pandemic are defective and unusable.

The revelations are fueling distrust of a public relations effort by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Communist Party to portray China as the world’s new humanitarian superpower.

On March 28, the Netherlands was forced to recall 1.3 million face masks produced in China because they did not meet the minimum safety standards for medical personnel. The so-called KN95 masks are a less expensive Chinese alternative to the American-standard N95 mask, which currently is in short supply around the world. The KN95 does not fit on the face as tightly as the N95, thus potentially exposing medical personnel to the coronavirus.

More than 500,000 of the KN95 masks had already been distributed to Dutch hospitals before the recall was enacted.

“When the masks were delivered to our hospital, I immediately rejected them,” a hospital worker told the Dutch public broadcaster NOS.

“If those masks do not seal properly, the virus particles can simply pass through. We cannot use them. They are unsafe for our people.”

In a written statement, the Dutch Ministry of Health explained:

“A first shipment from a Chinese manufacturer was partly delivered last Saturday. These are masks with a KN95 quality certificate. During an inspection this shipment was found not to meet our quality standard. Part of this shipment had already been delivered to healthcare providers; the rest of the cargo was immediately withheld and not further distributed.

“A second test also showed that the masks did not meet our quality standard. It has now been decided that this entire shipment will not be used. New shipments will undergo additional tests.”

The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported on March 17 that the Netherlands had only a few days’ supply of masks: “All hope is now for that one cargo plane from China on Wednesday.” The substandard quality of the masks delivered by China has left the Netherlands shattered. A spokesperson for a hospital in Dutch city of Eindhoven said that Chinese suppliers were selling “a lot of junk…at high prices.”

In Spain, meanwhile, the Ministry of Health on March 26 revealed that 640,000 coronavirus tests that it had purchased from a Chinese vendor were defective. The tests, manufactured by Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology Company in Guangdong province, had an accurate detection rate of less than 30%.

On April 2, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that it had been presented with leaked documents which showed that Bioeasy had lied to the Spanish government about the accuracy of the tests. Bioeasy had claimed, in writing, that its tests had an accurate detection rate of 92%.

Also on April 2, the Spanish government revealed that a further million coronavirus tests delivered to Spain on March 30 by another Chinese manufacturer were also defective. The tests apparently required between five and six days to detect whether a patient is infected with coronavirus and were therefore useless to diagnose the disease in a timely manner.

On March 25, the Spanish government announced that it had purchased medical supplies from China in the amount of €432 million ($470 million), and that Chinese vendors demanded that they be paid up front before the deliveries were made. Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa explained:

“We have bought and paid for 550 million masks, which will start arriving now and will continue to arrive for the next eight weeks. 11 million gloves will arrive in the next five weeks. As for rapid tests, we have acquired 5.5 million for the months of March and April. In addition, we will receive 950 respirators during the months of April to June. We are managing the purchase of more equipment.”

It is not at all clear how the Spanish government will be able to guarantee the quality of these new mass purchases, or how it would obtain compensation if the products from China were again substandard.

On March 28, the French government, which apparently has only a few weeks’ worth of supplies, announced that it had ordered more than one billion face masks from China. It is unclear whether the quality control problems experienced by other European countries would affect France’s purchasing plans.

Other countries — in Europe and beyond — have also criticized the quality of Chinese medical supplies:

  • Slovakia. On April 1, Prime Minister Igor Matovič said that more than a million coronavirus tests supplied by China for a cash payment of €15 million ($16 million) were inaccurate and unable to detect COVID-19. “We have a ton of tests and no use for them,” he said. “They should just be thrown straight into the Danube.” China accused Slovakian medical personnel of using the tests incorrectly.

  • Malaysia. On March 28, Malaysia received a consignment of medical equipment donated by China, consisting of test kits, medical face masks, surgical masks and other personal protective equipment. A senior official in the Ministry of Health, Noor Hisham Abdullah, said that the test kits would be evaluated for accuracy after previous test kits from China were found to be defective: “This is a different brand from the one we tested earlier. We will assess the new test kit which is FDA-approved. I was assured by the Chinese ambassador that this is more accurate than the other one we tested.” Abdullah previously stated that the accuracy of the Chinese tests was “not very good.”

  • Turkey. On March 27, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said that Turkey had tried some Chinese-made coronavirus tests but authorities “weren’t happy about them.” Professor Ateş Kara, a member of the Turkish Health Ministry’s coronavirus task force, added that the batch of testing kits were only 30 to 35% accurate: “We have tried them. They don’t work. Spain has made a huge mistake by using them.”

  • Czech Republic. On March 23, the Czech news site iRozhlas reported that 300,000 coronavirus test kits delivered by China had an error rate of 80%. The Czech Ministry of Interior had paid $2.1 million for the kits. On March 15, Czech media revealed that Chinese suppliers had swindled the Czech government after it paid upfront for the supply of five million face masks, which were supposed to have been delivered on March 16.

On March 30, China urged European countries not to “politicize” concerns about the quality of medical supplies from China. “Problems should be properly solved based on facts, not political interpretations,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

On April 1, the Chinese government reversed course and announced that it was increasing its oversight of exports of coronavirus test kits made in China. Chinese exporters of coronavirus tests must now obtain a certificate from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in order to be cleared by China’s customs agency.

Meanwhile, the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei announced that it would stop donating masks to European countries as a result of allegedly derogatory comments by the EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell.

On March 24, Borrell had written in a blog post that China was engaging in a “politics of generosity” as well as a “global battle of narratives.”

On March 26, a Huawei official told the Brussels-based news service Euractiv that due to Borrell’s comments, the company would be ending its donation program because it did not want to become involved in a geopolitical power play between the U.S. and China.

On March 28, Huawei paid for sponsored content in the publication Politico Europe. Huawei’s Chief Representative to the EU, Abraham Liu, wrote:

“Let me be clear — we have never sought to gain any publicity or favor in any country by what we are doing. We made a conscious decision not to publicize things. Our help is not conditional and not a part of any business or geopolitical strategy as some have suggested. We are a private company. We are trying to help people to the best of our abilities. That’s all. There is no hidden agenda. We don’t want anything in return.”

On March 30, the BBC reported that Huawei was acting as if nothing had really changed since the coronavirus crisis began:

“That may be naive on the company’s part. While nothing has really changed when it comes to the technical and security issues around Huawei’s equipment, the political climate for the company has certainly worsened.

“A story in the Mail on Sunday at the weekend had Downing Street warning China ‘faced a reckoning’ over its handling of the coronavirus.

“And that is likely to embolden those MPs who have been telling the government no Chinese company should be allowed a role in the UK’s vital infrastructure.”

On March 29, the British newspaper Daily Mail reported that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his allies in parliament had “turned” on China because of the coronavirus crisis:

“Ministers and senior Downing Street officials said the Communist state now faces a ‘reckoning’ over its handling of the outbreak and risks becoming a ‘pariah state.’

“They are furious over China’s campaign of misinformation, attempts to exploit the pandemic for economic gain and atrocious animal rights abuses blamed by experts for the outbreak.”

On January 28, Johnson had granted Huawei a role in Britain’s 5G mobile network, frustrating efforts by the United States to exclude the company from the West’s next-generation communications, which, it seems, can also be used for spying. The London-based Financial Times reported that U.S President Donald J. Trump vented “apoplectic fury” at Johnson in a tense phone call. Johnson is now facing pressure from his Cabinet as well as from Members of Parliament to reverse his decision.

After Chinese officials blamed the United States and Italy for starting the coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Mail quoted a British government source as saying:

“There is a disgusting disinformation campaign going on and it is unacceptable. They [the Chinese government] know they have got this badly wrong and rather than owning it they are spreading lies.”

The newspaper continued:

“Mr. Johnson has been warned by scientific advisers that China’s officially declared statistics on the number of cases of coronavirus could be ‘downplayed by a factor of 15 to 40 times.’ And No. 10 believes China is seeking to build its economic power during the pandemic with ‘predatory offers of help’ to countries around the world.

“A major review of British foreign policy has been shelved due to the Covid-19 outbreak and will not report until the impact of the virus can be assessed. A government source close to the review said: ‘It is going to be back to the diplomatic drawing board after this. Rethink is an understatement.’

“Another source said: ‘There has to be a reckoning when this is over.’ Yet another added: ‘The anger goes right to the top.’

“A senior Cabinet Minister said: ‘We can’t stand by and allow the Chinese state’s desire for secrecy to ruin the world’s economy and then come back like nothing has happened. We’re allowing companies like Huawei not just into our economy, but to be a crucial part of our infrastructure.”

In an article published by The Mail on Sunday on March 29, former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith wrote:

“All issues can and will be discussed, except for one, it seems — our future relationship with China.

“The moment anyone mentions China, people shift uncomfortably in their seats and shake their heads. Yet I believe it is vital that we start to discuss how dependent we have become on this totalitarian state.

“For this is a country which ignores human rights in the pursuit of its ruthless internal and external strategic objectives. However, such facts seem to have been swept aside in our rush to do business with China.

“Remember how George Osborne [Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2016] made our relationship with China a major plank of UK Government policy? So determined were Ministers to increase trade that they were prepared to do whatever was necessary.

“Indeed, I am told that privately this was referred to as Project Kow-Tow — a word defined by the Collins dictionary as ‘to be servile or obsequious.’

“We were not alone. Countless national leaders over recent years have brushed aside China’s appalling human rights behavior in the blind pursuit of trade deals with Beijing….

“Thanks to Project Kow-Tow, the UK’s annual trade deficit with China is £22.1 billion ($27.4 billion). But we are not alone in being in hock to Beijing.

“For China has racked up a global trade surplus of £339 billion ($420 billion). Distressingly, the West has watched as many key areas of production have moved to China….

“The brutal truth is that China seems to flout the normal rules of behavior in every area of life — from healthcare to trade and from currency manipulation to internal repression.

“For too long, nations have lamely kowtowed to China in the desperate hope of winning trade deals.

“But once we get clear of this terrible pandemic, it is imperative that we all rethink that relationship and put it on a much more balanced and honest basis.”


Tyler Durden

Sat, 04/04/2020 – 07:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/39IgDrG Tyler Durden

How We Lost the War on Poverty

Great Society: A New History, by Amity Shlaes, HarperCollins, 429 pages, $32.50

With John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency in 1960, Amity Shlaes recounts, Americans developed a growing urge for a “big change that blasted like a space rocket.” By 1972, when the smoke from that rocket had somewhat cleared, they had acquainted themselves with the New Frontier, the Vietnam War, the moon landing, two landmark civil rights acts, Medicare, Medicaid, the New Federalism, the “urban disorders” of Watts and Detroit, and the severing of the last feeble tie between the dollar and gold. But it was President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty that gave the era the appellation of “the Great Society.”

In Great Society: A New History, Shlaes describes the actors, events, and outcomes of those years. The book is a fast-moving and entertaining read, rich in interesting details and extraordinary in the author’s marshalling of the history. Shlaes, an experienced journalist, has a gift for leading the reader through subjects that initially seem only marginally related, tying them together in the service of her narrative.

As one who lived through that era, most of it in Washington, I appreciate how Shlaes has shone her reportorial light into many fascinating corners and upon a marvelous and frequently flawed cast of characters. Besides Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, this cast includes poverty czar Sargent Shriver, his brother-in-law Bobby Kennedy, presidential wordsmith Richard Goodwin, United Auto Workers leader Walter Reuther, Fed Chairman Arthur Burns, radical activists Tom Hayden and Michael Harrington, California Gov. Ronald Reagan, Michigan Gov. George Romney, black power leader Nathan Wright Jr., and future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. (I had encounters with all of them except Shriver.)

The overarching theme of the Great Society was a massive social project announced by Johnson in a 20-minute address at the University of Michigan on May 22, 1964. He told the graduates that “far from crushing the individual, government at its best liberates him from the enslaving forces of his environment.” His administration, Johnson said, had assembled “the best thought and the broadest knowledge to find answers to society’s problems.” Those answers would be implemented by a “fighting and aggressive” federal government dedicated to winning a war against poverty and against the “loneliness, estrangement, and isolation” that were its consequences.

“The men around Johnson,” Shlaes observes, “felt the weight of this faith in them, and strove hard. Viet Nam would be sorted out. There would be a Great Society. Poverty would be cured. Blacks of the South would win full citizenship. The Great Society would succeed.” There would be plans! Many plans! Measurements! Results! The federal government, led by a powerful and determined president advised by the best social scientists, would become the driving force for social change, as opposed to merely backfilling the shortcomings of capitalism.

And how did all this work out? Poorly, says Shlaes.

Shlaes’ most compelling example contrasts a monumental public housing project in St. Louis called Pruitt-Igoe with an adjacent neighborhood development project called the Bicentennial Civic Improvement Corporation.

Pruitt-Igoe was a stark and stupendous complex of 33 high-rise apartment buildings for the poor, designed by rising architectural star Minoru Yamasaki. Begun in 1955, it was the delight of the urban planners of the ’50s. But by the mid-’60s, it had become a decaying, dangerous, increasingly abandoned, and crime-ridden concrete wreck. Interpretations of Pruitt-Igoe’s descent vary, but all agree that high-rise rental housing for the poor (or at least the nonelderly poor) turned out to be a very bad idea. Feeble attempts at rehabilitating parts of the project foundered. After resisting the embarrassment for years, the feds threw in the towel in 1972. The demolition was finished in 1976. Half of the site now hosts industrial warehouses; the other half became an unplanned urban forest, later bulldozed for commercial redevelopment.

By contrast, there was the Bicentennial project, literally in the shadow of a Pruitt-Igoe high-rise, inspired by Father Joseph Shocklee of St. Bridget’s parish. Working with people of the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood organization, Shocklee put together a team involving the gas company, the Pulaski Savings Bank, a few private donors, and a small-scale minority contractor. Starting in the mid-1960s, Bicentennial bought up vacant brick town houses for $600, found and counseled prospective homeowners, contracted for the rehab, and financed the sale with unsubsidized market-rate mortgages from Pulaski. Existing homeowners cooperated to help the new homeowners improve their education and job skills, find employment, and improve their new properties.

As Bicentennial scored successes with 80 new homeowning families, the appeal of home ownership for the working poor blossomed. Under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Section 235 mortgage insurance program, passed in 1968, mortgage brokers rushed to enroll low-income homebuyers. They offered nominal down payments, 40-year terms, and 1 percent financing. But the program relied on new construction, not the more troublesome rehab, and it favored large contractors to achieve the government’s grandiose production goals (6 million housing units for low- and moderate-income families over 10 years).

The contractors had to pay FHA-mandated above-market Davis-Bacon wages to their unionized (and largely white) workforces. There was little time or inclination to prepare inexperienced homebuyers for ownership or to bring them into a supportive neighborhood organization. The result: brand new suburban-style split-level houses, purchase price $23,000—unaffordable even with the extreme subsidy terms. When a confused and fitfully employed buyer couldn’t pay, the lender foreclosed, the FHA took the hit, and the buyer often departed with all the copper plumbing for resale. (This aftermath is not in the book.)

Shlaes is particularly insightful in describing the tribulations and failures of the Community Action Program (CAP), managed by the free-standing Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). CAP, a radical departure in the history of federal programs, squeaked through the Democratic Senate on a 46–44 vote. The proposition was this: Uncle Sam would directly fund local organizations in poverty-impacted areas to plan, develop, and coordinate the many facets of Johnson’s War on Poverty.

America’s mayors did not like this one bit. Accustomed to managing federal funds for urban programs, the mayors regarded the activist groups—composed more often than not of minority citizens resentful of City Hall for its neglect, disrespect, and even oppression—as budding revolutionaries. This, they believed, was not just an affront to the mayors but also a federally funded recipe for revolution.

CAP also required “maximum feasible participation of the residents of the areas and the members of the groups.” But participation in what? Making plans? Assenting to the plans of others? Hiring and firing? Dealing with City Hall? Coordinating multifarious other programs and organizations? As Moynihan pithily summarized: “The government did not know what it was doing.”

The dream of mass participation wound up dissolving. Fifty years later, it would be a challenging task indeed to find a local CAP agency imbued with anything resembling the revolutionary themes of the 1960s.

Shlaes offers a fascinating, detail-rich re-enactment of President Richard Nixon’s Camp David economic summit of August 15, 1971, which she describes as “one of the most impressive [collections of minds] in the history of economic policy.” The impetus was a deteriorating international economic situation brought on by the excesses and misfortunes of the Great Society era: the costly and unwinnable Vietnam War, the interminable and conflict-ridden War on Poverty, the unrepaired wreckage from urban riots, a housing finance fiasco that eerily foreshadowed that of 2007, and the forced abandonment of any tangible link of the dollar to gold.

Nixon’s Camp David summit produced at least a grudging acceptance of breaking the gold link, imposing wage and price controls, and enacting the first general tariff (10 percent) since Herbert Hoover’s day. That all turned out badly. Shlaes, quoting Arnold Weber, notes that “almost everyone associated with the sweeping interventions…has recanted or admitted error.”

 And that brings Shlaes to her trenchant conclusion. Quoting the economist Friedrich Hayek, she concludes that grand governmental schemes to broadly reorder society are doomed to fail. Public planners do not have adequate information from the grassroots, and they cannot collect information from a nonexistent price system. The Great Society program deserves to go down in U.S. history as a baneful example of a far-ranging, high-sounding, politically motivated experiment that turned out to be largely futile in achieving its hopes, proposed and carried out by theoreticians and planners who (to borrow from Moynihan) simply did not know what they were doing. With the notable exceptions of the civil rights bills, this was a sorry legislative era that festers in the memory of many people still living.

And what of Bicentennial? The former Pruitt-Igoe tenants had discovered a superior alternative to government housing aid, Shlaes writes. “With his small [private sector] housing program, Father Shocklee had shown that ‘the poor’ were more like the middle class than people supposed. They gained from something only when they had a chance to own it.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2wdSUlN
via IFTTT

How We Lost the War on Poverty

Great Society: A New History, by Amity Shlaes, HarperCollins, 429 pages, $32.50

With John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency in 1960, Amity Shlaes recounts, Americans developed a growing urge for a “big change that blasted like a space rocket.” By 1972, when the smoke from that rocket had somewhat cleared, they had acquainted themselves with the New Frontier, the Vietnam War, the moon landing, two landmark civil rights acts, Medicare, Medicaid, the New Federalism, the “urban disorders” of Watts and Detroit, and the severing of the last feeble tie between the dollar and gold. But it was President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty that gave the era the appellation of “the Great Society.”

In Great Society: A New History, Shlaes describes the actors, events, and outcomes of those years. The book is a fast-moving and entertaining read, rich in interesting details and extraordinary in the author’s marshalling of the history. Shlaes, an experienced journalist, has a gift for leading the reader through subjects that initially seem only marginally related, tying them together in the service of her narrative.

As one who lived through that era, most of it in Washington, I appreciate how Shlaes has shone her reportorial light into many fascinating corners and upon a marvelous and frequently flawed cast of characters. Besides Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, this cast includes poverty czar Sargent Shriver, his brother-in-law Bobby Kennedy, presidential wordsmith Richard Goodwin, United Auto Workers leader Walter Reuther, Fed Chairman Arthur Burns, radical activists Tom Hayden and Michael Harrington, California Gov. Ronald Reagan, Michigan Gov. George Romney, black power leader Nathan Wright Jr., and future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. (I had encounters with all of them except Shriver.)

The overarching theme of the Great Society was a massive social project announced by Johnson in a 20-minute address at the University of Michigan on May 22, 1964. He told the graduates that “far from crushing the individual, government at its best liberates him from the enslaving forces of his environment.” His administration, Johnson said, had assembled “the best thought and the broadest knowledge to find answers to society’s problems.” Those answers would be implemented by a “fighting and aggressive” federal government dedicated to winning a war against poverty and against the “loneliness, estrangement, and isolation” that were its consequences.

“The men around Johnson,” Shlaes observes, “felt the weight of this faith in them, and strove hard. Viet Nam would be sorted out. There would be a Great Society. Poverty would be cured. Blacks of the South would win full citizenship. The Great Society would succeed.” There would be plans! Many plans! Measurements! Results! The federal government, led by a powerful and determined president advised by the best social scientists, would become the driving force for social change, as opposed to merely backfilling the shortcomings of capitalism.

And how did all this work out? Poorly, says Shlaes.

Shlaes’ most compelling example contrasts a monumental public housing project in St. Louis called Pruitt-Igoe with an adjacent neighborhood development project called the Bicentennial Civic Improvement Corporation.

Pruitt-Igoe was a stark and stupendous complex of 33 high-rise apartment buildings for the poor, designed by rising architectural star Minoru Yamasaki. Begun in 1955, it was the delight of the urban planners of the ’50s. But by the mid-’60s, it had become a decaying, dangerous, increasingly abandoned, and crime-ridden concrete wreck. Interpretations of Pruitt-Igoe’s descent vary, but all agree that high-rise rental housing for the poor (or at least the nonelderly poor) turned out to be a very bad idea. Feeble attempts at rehabilitating parts of the project foundered. After resisting the embarrassment for years, the feds threw in the towel in 1972. The demolition was finished in 1976. Half of the site now hosts industrial warehouses; the other half became an unplanned urban forest, later bulldozed for commercial redevelopment.

By contrast, there was the Bicentennial project, literally in the shadow of a Pruitt-Igoe high-rise, inspired by Father Joseph Shocklee of St. Bridget’s parish. Working with people of the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood organization, Shocklee put together a team involving the gas company, the Pulaski Savings Bank, a few private donors, and a small-scale minority contractor. Starting in the mid-1960s, Bicentennial bought up vacant brick town houses for $600, found and counseled prospective homeowners, contracted for the rehab, and financed the sale with unsubsidized market-rate mortgages from Pulaski. Existing homeowners cooperated to help the new homeowners improve their education and job skills, find employment, and improve their new properties.

As Bicentennial scored successes with 80 new homeowning families, the appeal of home ownership for the working poor blossomed. Under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Section 235 mortgage insurance program, passed in 1968, mortgage brokers rushed to enroll low-income homebuyers. They offered nominal down payments, 40-year terms, and 1 percent financing. But the program relied on new construction, not the more troublesome rehab, and it favored large contractors to achieve the government’s grandiose production goals (6 million housing units for low- and moderate-income families over 10 years).

The contractors had to pay FHA-mandated above-market Davis-Bacon wages to their unionized (and largely white) workforces. There was little time or inclination to prepare inexperienced homebuyers for ownership or to bring them into a supportive neighborhood organization. The result: brand new suburban-style split-level houses, purchase price $23,000—unaffordable even with the extreme subsidy terms. When a confused and fitfully employed buyer couldn’t pay, the lender foreclosed, the FHA took the hit, and the buyer often departed with all the copper plumbing for resale. (This aftermath is not in the book.)

Shlaes is particularly insightful in describing the tribulations and failures of the Community Action Program (CAP), managed by the free-standing Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). CAP, a radical departure in the history of federal programs, squeaked through the Democratic Senate on a 46–44 vote. The proposition was this: Uncle Sam would directly fund local organizations in poverty-impacted areas to plan, develop, and coordinate the many facets of Johnson’s War on Poverty.

America’s mayors did not like this one bit. Accustomed to managing federal funds for urban programs, the mayors regarded the activist groups—composed more often than not of minority citizens resentful of City Hall for its neglect, disrespect, and even oppression—as budding revolutionaries. This, they believed, was not just an affront to the mayors but also a federally funded recipe for revolution.

CAP also required “maximum feasible participation of the residents of the areas and the members of the groups.” But participation in what? Making plans? Assenting to the plans of others? Hiring and firing? Dealing with City Hall? Coordinating multifarious other programs and organizations? As Moynihan pithily summarized: “The government did not know what it was doing.”

The dream of mass participation wound up dissolving. Fifty years later, it would be a challenging task indeed to find a local CAP agency imbued with anything resembling the revolutionary themes of the 1960s.

Shlaes offers a fascinating, detail-rich re-enactment of President Richard Nixon’s Camp David economic summit of August 15, 1971, which she describes as “one of the most impressive [collections of minds] in the history of economic policy.” The impetus was a deteriorating international economic situation brought on by the excesses and misfortunes of the Great Society era: the costly and unwinnable Vietnam War, the interminable and conflict-ridden War on Poverty, the unrepaired wreckage from urban riots, a housing finance fiasco that eerily foreshadowed that of 2007, and the forced abandonment of any tangible link of the dollar to gold.

Nixon’s Camp David summit produced at least a grudging acceptance of breaking the gold link, imposing wage and price controls, and enacting the first general tariff (10 percent) since Herbert Hoover’s day. That all turned out badly. Shlaes, quoting Arnold Weber, notes that “almost everyone associated with the sweeping interventions…has recanted or admitted error.”

 And that brings Shlaes to her trenchant conclusion. Quoting the economist Friedrich Hayek, she concludes that grand governmental schemes to broadly reorder society are doomed to fail. Public planners do not have adequate information from the grassroots, and they cannot collect information from a nonexistent price system. The Great Society program deserves to go down in U.S. history as a baneful example of a far-ranging, high-sounding, politically motivated experiment that turned out to be largely futile in achieving its hopes, proposed and carried out by theoreticians and planners who (to borrow from Moynihan) simply did not know what they were doing. With the notable exceptions of the civil rights bills, this was a sorry legislative era that festers in the memory of many people still living.

And what of Bicentennial? The former Pruitt-Igoe tenants had discovered a superior alternative to government housing aid, Shlaes writes. “With his small [private sector] housing program, Father Shocklee had shown that ‘the poor’ were more like the middle class than people supposed. They gained from something only when they had a chance to own it.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2wdSUlN
via IFTTT