Chart of the Day: Manufacturing Employment Edition

From Bloomberg:

While the number of manufacturing jobs is up from the low set during the Great Recession, the total is still lower than any other time since 1950.  Unfortunately, I believe it will plumb new lows in the next recession, and will almost certainly never get back to pre-2008 levels.  A few of the reasons for that are that manufacturing is hard, it is extremely capital-intensive, and new technology is eliminating the need for some employees.  It is a lot easier to make money in advertising or mergers and acquisitions or technology. 

Making America Great

Awesome photo gallery at The Atlantic featuring photographs of Chicago's rail yards by Jack Delano.  Bonus points for the ones of the Illinois Central yard featuring the giant neon PBR sign.

Man-Killing Jobs

Start of July Links

I'm generally not the most optimistic person out there, but last week pretty much squeezed any hope for the future out of me, as far as politics goes.  Maybe this is the turning point where it becomes obvious how wrong I am to be negative, but I'd wager it isn't.  Anyway, I did find some interesting, if not necessarily positive stories for your reading pleasure:

A-Rod, Ken Griffey Jr. and the Greatest Home Run-Hitting Team in MLB History - Bleacher Report

What Makes a Team Great? - The Atlantic 

Weeds Are Winning in the War against Herbicide Resistance – Scientific American  

As Carbon Dioxide Levels Rise, Major Crops Are Losing Nutrients – The Salt

Do We Treat Our Soil Like Dirt? - National Geographic.  Betteridge's Law violation.


These tiny little bugs are a harbinger of wetland health -- and they're disappearing - Minnesota Public Radio

How to Steal 50 Million Bees – Bloomberg  

The Tragic Roots of America’s Favorite Cherry – Atlas Obscura.  Sorry, Mel, it is about Bing cherries, not Rainier cherries.

Rising seas: 'Florida is about to be wiped off the map' – The Guardian.  I'm not sure that is a net loss.

The Grandfather of Alt-Science - FiveThirtyEight.  Hoo boy!

Bavaria: Affluent, Picturesque — and Angry - New York Times.  They call it the Texas of Germany, but I'd rather try my luck in Bavaria than the Lone Star State.

Anger in America – Project Syndicate.  This makes some very important points.

After the Fall -  London Review of Books.  Another reminder of why people are angry.

One County Thrives. The Next One Over Struggles. Economists Take Note. - The Upshot

A Cleveland Revival Must Include Manufacturing – American Conservative.  I like the Cleveland focus, but I think the author has way too much faith in Trump and his tariffs.  Paying more for steel is going to drive out even more non-primary material manufacturing.  Just ask Harley.  They may be the first, but they surely won't be the last.

Best advice to U.S. dairy farmers? 'Sell out as fast as you can' - NBC News.  It is notable that the U.S. dairy farmers interviewed were envious of the Canadian supply management system that tries to maintain a large number of small dairies.  The chart below shows that the U.S. has gone the other way.

Mid-June Links, Part II

More stories for you, as I avoid working in the heat:

This ex-Detroit football player is vowing to become a nun - Detroit Free Press

Ashes of an industry: A Pennsylvania tradition is dying, one baseball bat at a time - Philadelphia Inquirer

No more cathode ray tubes from China, says Trump Administration - Asia Times

Philadelphia Shipyard Struggles to Survive on Order Drought - Wall Street Journal.  Calling Donald Trump....

Billions in U.S. solar projects shelved after Trump panel tariff - Reuters.  I guess if your goal is to bail out coal, this is a win.  If your goal is to have a sane energy policy, this is idiotic.

When North Dakota Farmers Blew up Partisan Politics - Zocalo Public Square.  Nonpartisan League.  I knew North Dakota has a State Bank.  I didn't realize they have an elevator and flour mill.

The Failed State of Franklin - ThoughtCo

The bishop and the brothels – Wellcome Collection

Farm Bill Targets Food Stamps -- But Not Handouts to Well-Off Farmers – Governing.  For Republicans, that is a feature, not a bug.

Lone Star Rising - Fortune.  Fracking in the Permian Basin.  The avoidance of Peak Oil means we will probably drill until the climate is completely wrecked.  It might be a good think I don't have kids.

T. Boone Pickens on Selling the Ranch - Texas Monthly

The preventable tragedy of D’ashon Morris – Dallas Morning News.  Think of this when you hear Republicans say they are pro-life.

How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People - The Cut

These Harvard Kids Got The Lesson of Their Lives in the Heartland - New York Post.  A noble effort, but I don't know how much can be gleaned by these junkets.

The Strange Case of the Missing Joyce Scholar – New York Times.  The line between genius and madness is often blurry.

America’s Largest Private Company Reboots a 153-Year-Old Strategy – Bloomberg

Traditional Tax Day Links

Here are the latest stories for you:

James Harden Isn't Playing Around – GQ 

As dairy crisis crushes farmers, Wisconsin's rural identity in jeopardy - Dairy farmers have been getting pummeled.  I feel awful for them.

Republican Farm Bill Calls On Many SNAP Recipients To Work Or Go To School - The Salt.  Subsidies for me, but not for thee. 

Texas is making billions from oil and gas drilling, but counties say rural roads are being destroyed - Texas Tribune

Be Good or Be Gone: The Legend of McSorley’s Old Ale House - Modern Drunkard.  I've never been to McSorley's.  I will need to go the next time I'm in New York.

How a Defense of Christianity Revolutionized Brain Science - Nautilus  

Does Tech Need Silicon Valley? - California Sunday Magazine  

Two Decades of War Have Eroded the Morale of America’s Troops – The Atlantic.  This is a must-read.  My position has always been that the best way to honor our troops is to not send them to be maimed or killed in pointless, unwinnable wars.

A Saudi Prince’s Quest to Remake the Middle East - The New Yorker.  The man's PR just isn't good enough to cover for what he's really up to.

Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency - The New Yorker.  I don't know, almost 46% of the voters in 2016 voted for the obviously crooked businessman, I'm not sure why even more evidence that he's a crook is going to convince them they've been conned. 

Trump’s Company Is Suing Towns Across the Country to Get Breaks on Taxes — “Trump, Inc.” Podcast – ProPublica.  See above for why voters won't change their opinions on this asshole. 

Is It the Spending or the Taxes? Mostly the Spending, But ... – Justin Fox.  In honor of Paul Ryan's (aka Bizarro Robin Hood) retirement from robbing from the poor to give to the rich.

Amid Trade Feud, Recycling Is in Danger of Landing on Trash Pile – Wall Street Journal  

Where Blue-Collar America Is Strongest - FiveThirtyEight.  This map reflects the best farm economy in a generation.  We've seen the peak, and it is going to be worse going forward. 

4/4 Mainly Ag Links

I've had some time at work to find links, so I've got some more today:

GMO Yeast Mimics Flavors Of Hops, But Will Craft Brewers Bite? – The Salt 

A Novel Virus Killed 24,000 Piglets In China. Where Did It Come From? – Goats and Soda 

Lawsuit Targeting Smelly Hog Feces Pits in North Carolina Moving Forward – Modern Farmer  

When the Death of a Family Farm Leads to Suicide – NYT

What this Silicon Valley VC learned on the ‘Rust Belt Safari’ – Recode

Scott Walker Dismayed That Wisconsin Apparently Smarter Despite Cuts in Education – Borowitz Report.  A little humor for you.

The Whitewashing of King’s Assassination - The Atlantic  


The Dynamite Cruiser Was Nearly as Dangerous to Her Crew as She Was to the Enemy – War Is Boring 

Turning Poultry Poop and Scrap Wood Into Electricity - Bloomberg

Trump and His Tariffs - Counterpunch 

Trump Tariffs Stick It to U.S. Manufacturers  - Bloomberg and Midwest Farmers Have Trump to Thank for Their Latest Export Woes – Bloomberg.  I'm getting the feeling that Bloomberg thinks the tariffs are stupid policy. 

Locations of U.S. Elevators

Selection Sunday Links

Here are the best stories I saw in the last part of the week: 

Suicides, Drug Addiction and High School Football - New York Times.  Madison, Indiana

America's Basketball Heaven - ESPN 

Country Star - Washington Post

Steve Francis: I Got a Story to Tell - The Players' Tribune 

Nun Involved In Katy Perry Convent Lawsuit Collapses And Dies In Court - NPR

Deep gas bands, shapely cyclones — NASA's Juno reveals more of Jupiter's secrets – LA Times 

What scientists found trapped in a diamond: a type of ice not known on Earth - LA Times

Salk, Sabin and the Race Against Polio - Smithsonian.  An old story, but one I was wondering about recently.  

Why Are New Hampshire's Tax-Free Liquor Stores Selling So Much Hennessy? - The Salt

For many factory towns, white collar job loss hurts the most – AP News

Magnesium May Save the Town of Asbestos – Bloomberg 

This Is What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town – Politico 

A New Documentary Honors the Work and Life of Photojournalist Chris Hondros - The Atlantic.  I didn't know it until after he died, but he started his photojournalism career at the local small-town paper.

China's Staggering Demand for Commodities  - Visual Capitalist 

Chart of the Day-Rural Suicide Edition

Washington Monthly:

Included are suicide and undetermined deaths suspected of being suicides. Teenage rate is deaths under age 20 divided by population age 15-19; adult rate is for age 20+.

Emerging analyses show rapidly rising suicide, firearms, and addiction-related “deaths of despair” afflict whites the most in rural and suburban areas where white populations are most concentrated. There are many more suicides among the seven million white rural 35-64 year-old men than among all 40 million American teenagers of all races and both sexes everywhere. Rural areas also tend to have higher rates of gun ownership and firearms mortality (correlated with men’s suicide) and lack the level of mental health services that have evolved in cities.

 There has been a spate of articles pointing out that farmers have a suicide rate about twice as high as the rate amongst veterans.  The scary part of that news is that we are just coming off of a generational price boom that I probably won't see a return to for the rest of my (assumed actuarial) lifetime.  Those of us in agriculture are facing much darker days going forward, at least in a financial sense.  Meanwhile, rural areas continue their steady decline.  Considering these factors, I fear the trend in suicide deaths will continue to worsen.  I don't anticipate that either the public or private sector will work to change any of these trends.  What I can say is that faithful readers of this blog do not have to worry about me, I'll be with you until the bitter end.  I enjoy hating life way too much to ever consider cutting it short.  Plus, there is this to consider:

Inside a Pencil Factory

This NYT feature is pretty cool.

Photo by Christopher Payne.

Mid-November Links

 I have a bunch more stories than this, but if I don't publish some I probably won't publish any.

Greetings From Palau, The Micronesian Archipelago That Baseball Built - Deadspin

The war against Pope Francis - The Guardian
\
The Saintliness of Undecayed Corpses - The Atlantic 

The Adaptable Cattle Saving Ranchers From Drought - The Atlantic

A Crimson Fracture in the Sky - Topic

Becoming a Steelworker Liberated Her. Then Her Job Moved to Mexico. - New York Times.  Rexnord.  They are one of our suppliers at work, and the transition to Mexico has been difficult, to say the least.

The Decline of the Midwest's Public Universities Threatens to Wreck Its Most Vibrant Economies - The Atlantic

 The Great College Loan Swindle - Rolling Stone.   Taibbi in fine form.

The Mythical Whiteness of Trump Country - Boston Review  

Here's What Happens When Republicans Have No One To Fight - Buzzfeed

The Amazing Idiot Asshole Identifier

If you need to select who the dumbest asshole in a particular group is, let rural people vote on it.

Small Towns As The New Inner Cities

The Wall Street Journal goes to Kenton, Ohio to look at the demographic challenges facing many small towns:

In Hardin County, where Kenton is the seat, factories that once made cabooses for trains and axles for commercial trucks have shut down. Since 1980, the share of county residents who live in poverty has risen by 45% and median household income adjusted for inflation has fallen by 7%.
At the same time, census figures show, the percentage of adults who are divorced has nearly tripled, outpacing the U.S. average. Opioid abuse is also driving up crime.
Father Dave Young, the 38-year-old Catholic priest at Immaculate Conception, was shocked when a thief stole ornamental candlesticks and a ciborium, spilling communion wafers along the way.
Before coming to this county a decade ago, Father Young had grown up in nearby Columbus—where for many years he didn’t feel safe walking the streets. “I always had my guard up,” he said.
Since 1980, however, the state capital’s population has risen 52%, buoyed by thousands of jobs from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., plus the growth of Ohio State University. Median household income in Columbus is up 6% over the same span, adjusted for inflation. “The economy has grown a lot there,” said Father Young. “The downtown, they’ve really worked on it.”
Meanwhile, as Kenton—population 8,200—continues to unravel, he said he has begun always locking the church door. Again, he finds himself looking over his shoulder.

There are definitely some similarities between the current struggles of many small, isolated towns and the challenges faced by inner city neighborhoods fifty years ago.  Both areas lost jobs and hope while drug use and family failures spiraled up.  Currently, we haven't seen the spike in violent crime in small towns, and hopefully we won't, but I expect that part of the inner city collapse rose up with the feeling of hopelessness that grew up out of the utter lack of opportunity and impact of drugs.  It very well could crop up in today's seemingly abandoned small towns.

Revisiting the Carrier Plant

Bloomberg goes back to follow up on what currently looks like the high point of the Trump era (which actually occurred before the inauguration):

HVAC makers have left the U.S. for the same reason countless other businesses have: cheaper labor. Carrier’s unionized workers in Indy are paid, on average, about $23 an hour (though more recent hires earn $17). Their Mexican counterparts earn an hourly rate of $3. Absenteeism and turnover in Indiana are considerably higher than at the company’s Monterrey operations, Hayes says. He told the Council on Foreign Relations breakfast that his Mexican rooftop AC plant has “probably one of the best-performing workforces that we have around the globe.”
Which isn’t to say that Carrier’s Indy workers, represented by United Steelworkers Local 1999, aren’t productive. They produce 10,000 furnace or fan-coil units a day, or one every seven seconds. According to a 1993 Hartford Courant story, the Indianapolis plant back then produced 500,000 furnaces a year with 1,500 workers. Today it can make four times as many furnaces and fan coils with a slightly smaller workforce—and you don’t have to explain the significance of that to the members of Local 1999. Studies show that 50 percent to 90 percent of job losses at American factories are attributable to productivity gains linked to automation. Except for a blip during the 2008 recession, industrial production in the U.S. has been on a fairly steady rise for decades. Even if Trump struck three Carrier deals a day for the rest of his term, he wouldn’t recoup even half the 7 million American manufacturing jobs lost since that employment peaked in 1979.

Here is a gem that should be repeated anytime some businessperson trots out the "job-killing regulations" line:

The union offered concessions amounting to a third of the $65 million a year Carrier expected to save by moving. Indiana then-Governor Mike Pence and Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly met separately with Carrier and UTC executives. Pence told RTV6 of Indianapolis that the “rising tide of red tape” in Washington made it impossible for Carrier to keep the plant running.
Donnelly says he asked Carrier executive Nelson and Robert McDonough, who runs UTC’s Climate, Controls & Security division, to cite one regulation that figured in the decision. “They couldn’t,” he says. The executives did confirm that furnaces sent to the U.S. from Mexico would have to comply with the same rules. The company later told the union that regulatory costs didn’t figure into expected savings from the move.
“This is about Carrier chasing wages at $3 an hour,” Donnelly says. “They put together a $16 billion stock buyback and just went wherever they could to try to pick up a few extra pennies.”

So what was the outcome of the "deal"?  This:

Carrier struck a deal with the Indiana Economic Development Corp., a public-private agency chaired at the time by Pence. UTC had declined a similar arrangement in 2014 because, in part, it would have required the plant to add workers. According to the current plan, Carrier will receive up to $7 million in state tax credits and training grants over 10 years—about $1,000 per worker per year, a pittance for UTC, which offers to underwrite four years of college education for any employee.
UTC also pledged to spend $16 million on plant upgrades, including automation. That should make the plant more productive, which in turn could lessen the need to seek dirt-cheap wages. But technology tends to shrink payrolls, and that’s likely to happen at Carrier. “We will take a lot of those jobs that today require very low skill and … eliminate those jobs through automation,” Hayes says...He offers little comfort to the sorts of workers whose jobs he reluctantly preserved. “If you have a low-skilled job, they’re not safe no matter where you are,” he says. “The forces of globalization are not going to slow down.”
That’s painfully clear in Indiana. Not far from Carrier, Rexnord LLC is closing a bearings plant and shipping production to Mexico. Trump tweeted about it in December: “This is happening all over our country. No more!” Rexnord’s 350 workers are expected to be gone by summer. Elsewhere in the state, auto parts supplier CTS Corp. in Elkhart is sending production to Asia and Mexico, cutting 230 jobs. Welbilt Inc. closed its Sellersburg beverage systems factory in January and sent production to Mexico, eliminating more than 70 jobs. Harman Professional Solutions shifted some operations in Elkhart to Mexico, killing 125 jobs.
Layoffs at UTC’s Huntington plant began recently. The facility will be closed by early 2018. The Carrier fan-coil lines and related jobs will be gone by the end of this year.

Unfortunately, I don't think anything, especially a blowhard moron jackass President, can staunch the flow of job losses to low wage countries and to automation.  The truth is, we have locked ourselves into an unsustainable, resource-intensive way-of-life that we just can't afford to maintain.  It is just too easy for businesses to use wage arbitrage to make products in low-wage countries and sell them in rich countries.  It doesn't matter whether Trump's excise taxes or Paul Ryan's border-adjustment tax were to go into effect, because each would pummel the millions of Americans in low-paying service jobs, while barely assisting the approximately 9% of Americans who work in manufacturing.  The only thing that could maybe revitalize American manufacturing would be for investors to give up on squeezing more and more profits out of American companies, and settle for allowing workers to gain a much greater share of productivity gains.  You may as well wait for Donald Trump to show humility.

Charts of the Day: Coal in Ohio

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Miners represent just a fraction of 1 percent of the Ohio workforce. Coal companies employed 2,416 miners in the state in 2015, the most-recent number available, down 23 percent from 2009.
For some perspective, the state has more than 95,000 workers in auto, truck and related parts manufacturing. And Ohio's 2,825 florists outnumber the state's coal miners, according to figures from the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But for the Rosebud miners, it's not just a job. It's a legacy. And they share the hope that the new administration will fight to save their way of life.

It's going to take much more than a blowhard idiot President to bring back many mining jobs.

Pre-Mardi Gras Links

Unbelievably, Lent is almost here and winter is pretty much over.  Here are some stories that caught my attention:

The Next Babe Ruth - Sportsnet

In a Champion's Corner, a Real Coach Who Inspired One on 'The Wire' - New York Times

 A Taste For Pork Helped A Deadly Virus Jump To Humans - Goats and Soda

A Bee Mogul Confronts the Crisis in His Field - New York Times

Farming Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese-Americans Remember WWII Incarceration - The Salt

Red state rural America is acting on climate change – without calling it climate change - The Conversation

Wary of Modern Society, Some Christians Choose a Life Apart - Wall Street Journal

The Secret Art History on Your Money - New York Times

What Happens When Two Bankers and an Engineer Get a Billion Dollars - Bloomberg

The enormous scale of the erosion problem at the Oroville dam site - AGU.  Awesome photos from 2 weeks ago.

Meet ISRO’s PSLV: The rockstar of Indian rockets - Quartz

The 20th century saw a 23-fold increase in natural resources used for building - The Conversation.  I think this is the definition of unsustainable.

End of a golden age - Aeon.  The product of the unsustainable development (in the West) described above.

Scott Pruitt's Back-To-Basics Agenda for the EPA - Wall Street Journal and Environmental Chief Promises Swift Rollback of Obama-Era Rules - Bloomberg. 

“People across the country look at the EPA much like they look at the IRS -- and I hope to be able to change that,” Pruitt said.

I doubt that he meant that both agencies are endlessly attacked and undermined by Republicans, to the point that they are woefully unable make sure existing laws are followed, but that is the case.

The fallacy of Trump's "send in the Feds" fix for Chicago - Vox

The Two Kinds of Trump Voters - Politico

Outside coastal cities an ‘other America’ has different values and challenges - The Guardian

"I Feel Forgotten": A Decade of Struggle in Rural Ohio - The New Yorker

What happened when factory jobs moved from Warren, Ohio, to Juarez, Mexico - LA Times

Under A New System, Clinton Could Have Won The Popular Vote By 5 Points And Still Lost - FiveThirtyEight.  Gerrymandering (or stealing elections) on steroids.  I'd originally meant to write a post about this, but never got around to it.

Mid-February Links

The crazy continues unabated in DC.  Here are some links that are a little more enlightening than the shit coming out of the White House:

The End of Scarcity in Agricultural Commodities Means Failing Farms in the U.S.  - Big Picture Agriculture.  Hard times are a comin'.

1,000 Years Ago, Corn Made This Society Big. Then, A Changing Climate Destroyed It - The Salt

How fancy cheese may save some small-scale dairies - Harvest Public Media

America's Biggest Asphalt Plant Is Shutting When the Country Might Need It Most - Bloomberg

 "This Is My Town" - Slate.  A review of Glass House, a book covering the decline of Anchor Hocking, a glassmaker based in Lancaster, Ohio.

The New Face of American Unemployment - Bloomberg

Evacuations ordered below Oroville Dam; failure of emergency spillway is possible - Los Angeles Times.  I haven't heard anybody mention them yet, but I'd also be worried about levees in the Sacramento River delta.

The Myth of Apple's Great Design - The Atlantic

Speaker of Record-The man behind the fiscal fiasco in Illinois - Reuters. Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.

What Steve Bannon Wants You To Read - Politico

Trump's Labor Pick Loves Burgers, Bikinis and Free Markets - Bloomberg.  Warning: The top photo may cost you your lunch.  The ones further down are much, much better.

Why Trump's Conflicts of Interest Won't Hurt Him - The New Yorker.  Compares Trump to James Traficant.  Considering voter support in the Mahoning Valley helped propel Trump to the White House, the comparison is apt.

Breitbart alumni shape the message at Trump's White House - The World.  If you can listen to that interview and not consider Sebastian Gorka the most overbearing asshole ever, I don't want to drink a beer with you.

GOP Plan to Overhaul Tax Code Gets Held Up at the Border - Wall Street Journal

The Next American Farm Bust Is Upon Us - Wall Street Journal.  It is going to get worse before it gets better.

Groundhog Day Links

I still don't think I can write a well-thought-out political piece right now (although most readers would probably say there is no evidence I've ever been able to), but I've collected a number of good story links:

Groundhogs totally deserve their own day (even if they can’t predict the weather) - Washington Post

The Basketball Team That Never Takes a Bad Shot – Wall Street Journal

Basketball's Other 3-Point Revolution - FiveThirtyEight

In America’s Heartland, Discussing Climate Change Without Saying ‘Climate Change’ - New York Times

The Health Battle Behind A2 Milk - The Atlantic

Why The Arctic Apple Means You May Be Seeing More GMOs At The Store - The Salt

Water Quality– Iowa Case Resolves One Issue, Clean Water Act Permitting Issue Remains Open - Farm Policy News

America's Great Divergence and Red State, Blue City - The Atlantic.  

Robots Over Roughnecks: Next Drilling Boom Might Not Add Many Jobs – OilPrice

Here's One Way Trump’s Team Could Manipulate Government Data - Slate

Troubled Waters: A Coalfield County Loses Trust in Water and Government - Ohio Valley Resource

Peter’s Choice – Mother Jones

Wilbur Ross and the Era of Billionaire Rule – Bloomberg

100 years ago, Americans talked about Catholics the way they talk about Muslims today - Vox and To my Jewish, Irish, Asian and Italian friends - The Reformed Broker

The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence - Rolling Stone

Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas – Lawfare.  The first four words will probably define the Trump administration's legacy.

It Can Happen Here – Dollars & Sense

Rural counties’ economies depend on different industries - USDA ERS

Chart of the Day - Manufacturing Job Losses Edition

CNN:

One word: China (they joined the WTO in December 2001).

First Weekend of Trump Circus Links

Wow.  What a start.  While I expected a train wreck, I didn't expect that the first meltdown would be an argument against all evidence that Trump's inauguration crowd was the largest ever.  It's going to be an unprecedented four years.  Anyway, here are some interesting stories:

Why Baseball Revived a 60-Year-Old Strategy Designed To Stop Ted Williams - FiveThirtyEight

Dallas Stars Troll Trump and His Lying Inauguration Attendance Numbers on Jumbotron - VICE Sports.  This photo is too awesome:

The President of Vice - The Onion.  The Onion reflects on eight years of Joe Biden making news.  And, finally, there is this.

Trump's Pick To Lead USDA Heads To Washington With Some Political Baggage - The Salt

US ethanol exports up 85% in first quarter of 2016/2017 MY - Biofuels International

Falling Response Rates to USDA Crop Surveys: Why It Matters - Farmdocdaily University of Illinois

Iceland knows how to stop teen substance abuse but the rest of the world isn't listening - Mosaic.  My former boss highlighted this story, and I think there are some important lessons here.  I tend to think that idle time, along with despair, are at the heart of the opioid problem we have right now.

Why Are There So Many People in Jail in Scranton, PA? - Vera

Congress moves to give away national lands, discounting billions in revenues and millions of jobs - Guardian.  No federal lands should be given away to the states.  Sold, as a last resort, but not given away under any circumstances.

Trump and the Revolt of the White Middle Class - Washington Monthly

Union City: a town waiting on Trump's promises and How does a manufacturing town remake itself for a new economy? - Marketplace.  All of the stories from Erie that Marketplace did last week were interesting, but I can't shake the feeling that a lot of people put way too much faith into the words of a conman.

What Do You Do if a Red State Moves to You - Politico

The Great Exception: California Versus Trump. Part One - California Sunday Magazine

Interactive Maps: Estimates of Enrollment in ACA Marketplaces and Medicaid Expansion - Kaiser Family Foundation.  If my math is correct, the average subsidy recipient is getting about $2400 a year toward health insurance.  It will be interesting to see if removing the supposedly unnecessary Obamacare requirements will drop the cost of health insurance for these folks enough to make up the loss of that subsidy, or if Republicans will keep that or an equivalent subsidy.  Everything I've seen appears that Republicans want to separate out the high cost patients and give tax credits or deductions to everybody, helping out those who don't need it, and helping less those who do.  Typically Republican.

A Tale of Two Economies - Bloomberg.  It would be interesting to know what percentage of jobs lost in this time frame in the more rural areas were related to decreased state and federal funding.  I would expect that Republican spending cuts (almost always linked to tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited city and suburban residents), especially at the statewide level, inordinately impacted rural areas.