Be wary of the banksters in Washington
On July 17, the U.S. Senate pulled off a Half Ginsburg by convening three Capitol Hill hearings on why the crooks and crackpots in...
Can’t duck crop insurance disaster
Many on Capitol Hill are quick to point out that “If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck.”...
Readers know how to write, too
On an early morning bicycle ride I roll past a massive red combine slumbering at the end of a freshly barbered wheat field.<
‘Free markets’ really aren’t free
If there’s no such thing as a free lunch — and there isn’t: even the United States Department of Agriculture’s “free” National School Lunch...
A golden goose for chicken feed
Every week for 19 years this 170 square-foot, two-dog, one-person office has declared its complete devotion to numbers. For example, just last week we...
Bigger programs, bigger boondoggles
In mid-June, the best guessers on Capitol Hill handicapped a probable 2012 Farm bill this way: either the Senate passes its version by the...
Some hot numbers in cold times
As the world stumbles toward a summer of financial winter, one part of the American economy continues its merry, five-year waltz: U.S. ag exports...
Go ahead and bet against Europe
When I hopped on the ag journalism jet in 1981, the European Union (known then as the European Economic Union) forecast it would spend...
Take a guess how this is going to end
Since you speak English as well as anyone, perhaps you understand the working paragraph of a May 19 Washington Post column that explains the...
Big numbers should trigger hard questions
Hard numbers, hard questions and even harder answers.
