FAIR WINDS.

With the end of the college basketball season come the coaching changes.

Sue Semrau, the longest-tenured head coach in the ACC and Florida State’s all-time winningest coach, announced Monday that she is retiring as head women’s basketball coach at Florida State University. The Associated Press, WBCA and ESPNW National Coach of the Year in 2015, Semrau guided the Seminoles to 16 NCAA Tournaments, Elite Eight appearances in 2010, 2015 and 2017, and was voted ACC Coach of the Year four times over her 24 seasons.

It's hard to perform consistently well for that long in a sport with a serious Pareto distribution of talent.  "Twenty seasons on one job, where even in the non-revenue sports headquarters' impatience often manifests itself.  Northern Illinois are on their fifth head coach since Sue Semrau and Jane Albright headed to Madison to develop Badgerball." That was several years ago and Northern Illinois continue to muddle in middling mid-major mediocrity, as the conference generally does, a few runs to the round of sixteen notwithstanding.  Florida State were not in a good place at the end of the 1997 season. 

Well done, Coach Sue.

UKRAINE, BEFORE THE VANDALS WRECKED THE PLACE.

I wonder where the hand-on-heart gesture that accompanies Shche nye vmerla Ukraina originated.

International comments running generally in support of Ukraine. Find yourself a reputable charity and pitch in.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Did I nail it, or did I nail it?  "'For God’s sake' — and the sake of human civilization — 'this man cannot remain in power.'"  It's simple, moutzas.  "Can America stand another three years of the Bidens?"  Joe Biden is no Vladimir Putin.  "The president is too diplomatically clumsy, too parochial in his political interests, too nickel-and-dime in his priorities, and too beholden to the left-wing elements in his party to do what needs doing, especially when it comes to energy policy."  "Willing to make" presumes agency on part of the ficus, doesn't it?  "Biden is willing to make an obvious phony of himself, embracing a policy he knows is punitive, divisive, unworkable, and virtually certain not to pass—and he's willing to do so simply to get attention."  By his, and his party's, fruits, shall ye know them.  "The only good thing about the Biden presidency so far, and I mean the only good thing, is that it has highlighted the utter corruption and destructiveness of the Democratic Party itself. More and more people are noticing this, and perhaps that will matter."

Yes, there were a few other things going on this week, although I'm not done piling on.  This will be a longish post.  A few entries might expand on familiar Cold Spring Shops themes.

THE TECH OLIGARCHY ALSO COMES FOR ITS LEFT.

Chris Hedges is not happy that he might have been cancelled.  "The entire archive of On Contact, the Emmy-nominated show I hosted for six years for RT America and RT International, has been disappeared from YouTube."  Apparently it's his affiliation with RT, which is to say, tovarish, "Russia Today."

His procedural point is spot on.

I received no inquiry or notice from YouTube. I vanished. In totalitarian systems you exist, then you don’t. I suppose this was done in the name of censoring Russian propaganda, although I have a hard time seeing how a detailed discussion of “Ulysses” or the biographies of Susan Sontag and J. Robert Oppenheimer had any connection in the eyes of the most obtuse censors in Silicon Valley with Vladimir Putin. Indeed, there is not one show that dealt with Russia. I was on RT because, as a vocal critic of US imperialism and militarism and, of the corporate control of the two ruling parties, and especially because I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, I was blacklisted. I was on RT for the same reason the dissident Vaclav Havel, who I knew, was on Voice of America during the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. It was that or not be heard. Havel had no more love for the policies of Washington than I have for those of Moscow.

Are we a more informed and better society because of this wholesale censorship? Is this a world we want to inhabit where those who know everything about us and about whom we know nothing can instantly erase us? If this happens to me, it can happen to you, to any critic anywhere who challenges the dominant narrative. And that is where we are headed as the ruling elites refuse to respond to the disenfranchisement and suffering of the working class, opting not for social and political change or the curbing of the rapacious power and obscene wealth of our oligarchic rulers, but instead imposing iron control over information, as if that will solve the mounting social unrest and vast political and social divides.

The most vocal cheerleaders for this censorship are the liberal class. Terrified of the enraged crowds of QAnon conspiracy theorists, Christian fascists, gun-toting militias, and cult-like Trump supporters that grew out of the distortions of neoliberalism, austerity, deindustrialization, and the collapse of social programs, they plead with the digital monopolies to make it all go away. They blame anyone but themselves. Democrats in Congress have held hearings with the CEOs of social media companies pressuring them to do more to censor content. Banish the troglodytes. Then we will have social cohesion. Then life will go back to normal. Fake news. Harm reduction model. Information pollution. Information disorder. They have all sorts of Orwellian phrases to justify censorship. Meanwhile, they peddle their own fantasy that Russia was responsible for the election of Donald Trump. It is a stunning inability to be remotely self-reflective or self-critical, and it is ominous as we move deeper and deeper into a state of political and social dysfunction.

Although I am not Chris Hedges, nor do I share his worldview (he's a regular foil here at Cold Spring Shops), when Our Credentialed Overlords come for Chris Hedges, they could come for me, or for Pajamas Media.  Are they paying attention? There's a great deal of schadenfreude at a Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green post calling attention to the You Tube censorship.  That's misplaced, even if Pajamas Media run their own subscription service and presumably own their servers.

The Cold Spring Shops You Tube channel, which limits itself to ferroequinology and other fun stuff, shuns the kind of controversy that might run afoul of the Guardians of Proper Thought.  All the same, dear reader, all the videos are backed up and kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls's porch, just in case something goes wrong.

ANOTHER PARETO DISTRIBUTION EMERGES.

Earlier this week, we saw four tournament perennials qualify for the finals in the men's basketball tournament.  "It might not be possible to fill in a perfect bracket, and yet, a fan has a better chance of having a shot at the big prize if the entry has traditional strong programs, even if not high seeds, in the Final Four."

Them that has get, only more so, in the women's tournament.  "With all the upsets that occurred during the women’s NCAA Tournament this year — a record number of double-digit seeds won — three No. 1 seeds and No. 2 seed UConn remain."

The three one seeds are several-times-champion Stanford and South Carolina, as well as tournament regular Louisville.  Connecticut ousted the other one seed, North Carolina State, last seen in the finals during the Kay Yow era.

Would it be churlish of me to raise the possibility that all the talk of "equity" that's pushed on (self-selected?) fans of the women's game ends in the recruitment of highly talented players?

USENET WITH BETTER GRAPHICS.

I was troubled enough by the doddering ficus seemingly calling for regime change in Russia (which he and his crew have been walking back ever since) to dust off an old meme and launch it on social media.

For God's sake, this man cannot be allowed to remain in power. #BidenWorstPresidentEver pic.twitter.com/1tX2SSVkNK

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) March 27, 2022

Not a bad ratio, for those who worry about such things, and 32,062 "engagements" is likely a personal best.  What's intriguing about the comments, which people who worry about ratios treat as possible negatives, is that in addition to the predictable "But Trump" (the medium is not a good place to offer my thoughts about the past thirty years of uninspiring presidents) and "Russian stooge" there are supportive comments, as well as social media style rivet counting, e.g. "ice cream, not pudding."

Whether any minds get changed on social media, or if it exists to be cathartic, and everybody understands it as such, is more thinking than I want to do right now.

THE BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT GENERATES THE RENTS.

The woketards will figure out how to dissipate them.

With March Madness in full swing, you may have noticed more than usual mainstream sports media coverage devoted to the National Collegiate Athletic Association women’s swimming finals last week. The coverage largely focused on “concerns” about the possibility of new records being broken by Lia Thomas, a varsity swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who also set records for varieties of outrage generated by simply existing and thriving as an elite transgender athlete.

Thomas became the first known transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I championship by winning the 500-yard freestyle last week. Before this event—and every other event in which she swam—swimmers are customarily introduced and cheered one by one, but the crowd reportedly was “noticeably quiet” for Thomas’s introductions. This silent treatment continued at the 500 free winners’ podium, with what seemed like deliberately more applause for every other finisher.

It's more polite to call attention to an affront by shunning it, rather than booing or otherwise making the interloper into a martyr.

HOW PARETO DISTRIBUTIONS EMERGE.

It might not be possible to fill in a perfect bracket, and yet, a fan has a better chance of having a shot at the big prize if the entry has traditional strong programs, even if not high seeds, in the Final Four.

The Final Four is headed to New Orleans, and if you aren’t on the short list of college basketball’s “haves” — as in having it all, including lots of blue in your uniforms — you’re just not invited.

Villanova, Duke, Kansas and North Carolina.

Lots of past championships among those teams.  More than a few allegations of cheating to go with those blue uniforms as well.  In a world of relatively few pundits appearing on Meet the Press or relatively few law schools sending graduates to the high bench, perhaps a relatively small set of tournament finalists is logical.

DELAY IS THE DEADLIEST FORM OF DENIAL.

Last week, Mark J. Perry issued a call for lawsuits. "Higher education has a major civil rights problem, and it’s so widespread that it’s nothing short of systemic and structural."  Perhaps the deanlets and deanlings who run the division of diversity and special education will dither and delay and hope the problem goes away.  Prepare to fight it out on that line if it takes seventeen summers.

In February 2005 the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents ignored my complaints that several financial aid programs violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These programs restricted eligibility to students based on their race, color, and national origin even though Title VI explicitly prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, and national origin” in programs or activities receiving federal funds.

The Board of Regents’ brushoff led me in March 2005 to forward my complaints to the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is charged with enforcing Title VI. I expected a quick ruling because the evidence of UW’s discrimination was so clear cut. But, now, seventeen years later, OCR, specifically its Chicago Office, still has not ruled on my complaints. It nonetheless claims to be moving “as expeditiously as possible” in ruling on my complaints, which it has said involve “complex legal issues.”

The nature of these “complex legal issues” has never been explained to me. The language of Title VI could not be stated more clearly, nor could the violations by the University of Wisconsin be more obvious.

A lengthy excursion into process worship follows.

The time has come to enforce the law. I hope that Catherine Lhamon, the new Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, will move quickly to see that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is enforced. However, it is difficult to be optimistic since Lhamon took no action on my complaints when she served in this position previously.

How long must a citizen wait before his well-documented complaints are ruled on by the very organization established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to enforce the law?

The author of the essay is Wisconsin economist Lee Hansen, once upon a time a New Frontier man, who has called attention to numerous education policy follies coming out of Bascom Hall over the years.

WATCH THIS SPACE.

The Chicago area O Scale swap meet might have been one of the last public events of March 2020 before the politicians panicked.  The Gloucester Branch was available for layout tours during the show.

The show, which hobbyists refer to as the "March Meet," will take place during the first weekend of April.  Between the corona restrictions and the shakeout of capacity in travel and entertainment business over the past two years, lining up host hotels has become more difficult, and at least one of the larger shows will not take place in future.

The Gloucester Branch will be holding open days during the meet.  This year, it's not going to be the Plywood Central everywhere.

There's a possibility of more than a cameo appearance by a project some 20 years in the making.

Expect a situation report after the show.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Did Joe Biden inadvertently demonstrate the emptiness of his pledge to senior Democrat James Clyburn by fulfilling it with ludicrously unprepared appointments? “The hypocrisy and absurdity of this is that she was nominated by President Biden in large part because she is a woman.”  I'm not a veterinarian, but I know a dog when I see one.

A roundup of pithy distillations of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes, with or without refreshers, follows.

A CALL TO ACTION.

"Higher education has a major civil rights problem, and it’s so widespread that it’s nothing short of systemic and structural," according to Mark J. Perry, and he's calling for lawsuits.  The gravamen:

Typical and frequent illegal violations of Title IX that have gone unchallenged for many decades include various single-sex female-only scholarships, fellowships, awards, study spaces, mentoring, tutoring, special freshman orientations, industry meetings, summer STEM programs, summer STEM camps, coding clubs, leadership programs, entrepreneurship programs, gym hours, etc. that operate exclusively for women while illegally excluding and discriminating against boys and men. Over the last several years, it has also become increasingly common in higher education for universities to introduce illegal, racially segregated, or racially preferential events, affinity groups, theater performances, campus housing, course sections, music programs, scholarships, summer internships, and other academic programs that violate Title VI.

Those violations of Title IX and Title VI reflect what is a clear, hypocritical, and selective double standard in higher education for the enforcement of federal civil rights laws. The civil rights of certain preferred groups are vigorously protected – women and persons of color – while the civil rights of un-preferred groups are routinely violated – men, whites, and Asians.

The title references are to the 1972 Civil Rights Act.  What have I been telling you, dear reader, about the way to demonstrate the folly of a rule.

The University of Chicago’s quick correction of its Title VI violation following an internal complaint and publicity on Twitter is an example of an all to frequent and troubling occurrence in higher education today. Like I mentioned above, colleges and universities are constantly demonstrating that they are either unaware of their legal obligations to enforce Title VI and Title IX, or they purposefully and deliberately violate federal civil rights laws to promote their commitment to the flawed trilogy of “diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE)” under the assumption that nobody will notice or complain. Whether it’s an unacceptable unawareness or a deplorable indifference to enforcing Title VI and Title IX, the longstanding history of schools violating Title VI and Title IX with impunity illustrates the necessity for increased efforts like those of Professor Abbot to challenge and expose the thousands of examples of civil rights violations on campuses across the country.

If nothing else, such grassroots action by disgruntled students, faculty, or alumni will give the diversity deanlets work that might keep them from issuing ukases. Or, perhaps their job satisfaction will deteriorate and they'll mope off.

TODAY IN URBAN PROGRESSIVE PRIVILEGE.

The Urban Weenie Aesthetic includes periodic efforts to deplorable-shame people for their transportation choices by holding Toxic Car Commercial contests.  Sometimes the category is "toxic masculinity" (understand as Real Guys doing Difficult Things) and sometimes the category is "unrealistic road rage" (understand as peeling rubber or otherwise going fast on uncrowded urban streets or highways.)

Fine, Urban Weenies can have their tournaments.  In that spirit, perhaps there ought to be another category, for Urban Weenie Snobbery.  First nominee, Infiniti's "Beautiful Mess."

That's right, dear reader, you can block out the sound of middle schoolers struggling to play Strauss by activating your power windows and the reclining seat.  There are some favorable comments, although sentiment strikes me as more negative than positive.  For example, "I'm sure the person who came up with the idea was at their kids recital like this is so horrible Ive got an idea." The best Infiniti have by way of apology is "It was never our intention to denigrate the arts or art educators in any way."

UNDERSTANDING THE CORRELATION OF FORCES.

Frederick W. Kagan offers a primer on the terms of art military analysts use.

The technical terms “stalemate,” “campaign,” and “culmination” can confuse the lay reader unfamiliar with military terminology. This note offers an explanation of those terms with reference to historical examples in World War I and World War II, recognizing that historical analogies are always limited.

A campaign is a major military undertaking launched as part of a war effort to achieve one or more objectives that are necessary but not necessarily sufficient to achieving the overall war aims. The Russian invasion of Ukraine that began nearly a month ago was such an undertaking—its aims of seizing Kyiv and Ukraine’s other major cities were part of a larger effort to replace the government of Ukraine, destroy the Ukrainian military, and allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to set political, economic, and security conditions in Ukrainian territory to his liking.

The "part of a war effort to achieve one or more objectives" matters.  In the current case, the overarching objective is the creation of a more Russia-friendly Ukrainian state.  Given the size of Ukraine, it might make sense to think of the movement on Kiew as analogous to the Vicksburg campaign, with the southerly push an attempt to connect the Russian-aligned populations along the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.  (If you're into counterfactuals, what would have happened had McClellan taken Richmond in 1862, with much of the cotton South untouched?)

"Culmination" is the interesting term.  It refers to a situation in which the addition of resources to a campaign fail to achieve results.

It is useful to compare Putin’s initial campaign with the German invasion of the Soviet Union (USSR) that began in June 1941. The German objectives were to seize Leningrad (today’s St. Petersburg), Moscow, and Ukraine to knock the USSR out of the war quickly. The Germans destroyed huge portions of the Soviet military, besieged Leningrad, reached the outskirts of Moscow, and then the campaign culminated in winter 1941. Like the Russians in Ukraine today, the Germans in 1941 continued to try to get more combat power to the front and launch increasingly hopeless attacks against Moscow well past the point of diminishing returns—which is one sign that a campaign has culminated. The Germans failed to take any of their objectives.

That remains to be seen. It took Grant and Sherman a long time to invest Vicksburg, and Northerners grew frustrated with the pace of operations outside Petersburg.  In neither case could the rebels be resupplied, though.  It's still possible for outsiders to supply Ukraine, and that turns culmination into stalemate.

Stalemate describes a condition in war in which neither side can change the front lines dramatically no matter how hard it tries. WWII never reached stalemate in Europe. The opponents alternated offensive and defensive campaigns but were almost always moving. World War I epitomized stalemate. Stalemate in that conflict, as in others, saw lots of very hard and nasty fighting with many casualties on both sides. The front lines became generally (but not completely) static, with very little movement. There was always some movement of the lines even in World War I, but never enough to change the situation materially.

But stalemate often involves large and bloody battles. The Battles of the Somme, Verdun, and Passchendaele took place in conditions of stalemate. Hundreds of thousands were killed in those battles that moved the front lines a little, but not much. And stalemates can ultimately be broken, as the one in World War I eventually was. One side or the other can lose its will. One side or the other can gain a new ally (like the US in World War I). One side or the other can gain a technological advantage, although that’s less common (and was less important in World War I than the entry of the US). One side or the other can just be ground down and collapse (like Russia in 1917). Many things can happen in the context of a huge amount of fighting and dying, all in conditions of stalemate.

Note that the military meaing of "stalemate" differs from the chess meaning.  "Stalemate is one of the drawing rules of chess. It happens when the player who has to move has no legal moves available. The game then ends immediately in a tie, and each player is awarded half a point."  Often, that arises when the player with an overwhelming advantage in material or position leaves his opponent with no legal move, an embarrassing mistake that even the Grandmasters sometimes make.  (They get to write about those instructive errors in their books.)  It's a useful technique that even beginning players can develop.  Consider the simplest of King and Pawn endgames: one student has to promote the Pawn, the other has to stop it.  To win, maneuver the King ahead of the Pawn, with the opposition.  The other player must move his King, and then the player with the Pawn can take a step forward with the King and advance the Pawn.  But if it's a Rook Pawn or Bishop Pawn, even that isn't good enough.

PRESIDENTIAL MALPRACTICE.

How big an asterisk do you append to the title "Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson?"

A big f***in asterisk, according to Lawrence J. McQuillan.

President Joe Biden’s promise to select a Black woman for the U.S. Supreme Court committed the country to a social experiment involving only 70 people for one of the most critical positions in the federal government. Perhaps Ketanji Brown Jackson would have emerged as the best nominee among all qualified candidates. We’ll never know because of Biden’s self-imposed political-pandering stunt, which equates to presidential malpractice.

That could be a Friday short Take, but for Jeff Kouba, a new contributor at Shot in the Dark, chiming in.

Our current vice president is a dopey gigglebox whose morning calisthenics consist of struggling to find a coherent thought. Feel the burn! She was picked solely on the basis of her skin color and gender.

Now, our current president, whose Biden Doctrine “I can’t have oatmeal before 8 am because I get gassy” will soon be of interest only to the nurses who wheel him down to the solarium, has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the Left’s favorite unaccountable super-legislature. What’s more, she was picked for the exact same reasons as Harris. Given that first steaming example of affirmative action, as fresh as objets d’art on a San Francisco sidewalk, and how that is working out, might Jackson be worth a few pointed questions from a co-equal branch of government before she takes her lifetime appointment, Mr. Waldman?

Today, the nominee had to take a pass on attempting a legal definition of "woman."

Our governing class is pathetic.

PICKING WINNERS IS HARD.

We know that is true about industrial policy, but we now know that twenty million predictions of the outcome of the college basketball tournaments is operationally pretty far from infinity, in case anyone wants to work out how many monkeys it would take, in how much time, to come up with the works of Shakespeare.

Creighton guard Lauren Jensen stunned Iowa and busted the last perfect entry in the CBS Sports Bracket Challenge in the first game of the second round of the Women's NCAA Tournament. Jensen, a transfer from Iowa, hit a game-winning three-pointer with 15 seconds on the clock to help No. 10 seed Creighton upset the No. 2 seed Hawkeyes.

The last perfect entries in the men's Bracket Challenge had were eliminated on Friday.

All other brackets were busted over an insane first round in which eight lower-seeded teams advanced, including two No. 12 seeds (Florida Gulf Coast and Belmont) for the sixth time in the women's tournament's history.

That's right, the tournaments didn't even get out of the first round before all the brackets were busted.  That's also true, thanks to Michigan State being excused, of Inside Higher Ed's picks.  The talent pool in the women's tournament appears to be getting bigger, with those twelve seeds doing what has become usual and customary in the men's tournament of late.

If only the rest of higher education had the kind of churn we see in the basketball tournaments.  Who knew that relatively small Catholic institutions (St. Peter, St. Mary Gaels, Mount St. Mary) could achieve where the Ivies were one-and-done?  If you want to smack Yale around some more, because of corona protocols, their band could not travel to Milwaukee.  Greendale High School's band filled in.  Maybe admissions officers in New Haven will look more favorably on applications from Greendale.

In addition, once again the power conferences punched below their weight.  Perhaps the algorithm for issuing at-large bids is flawed, and second place teams in the likes of the Mid-American ought be considered in preference to middling teams from the power conferences.

THE CORRELATION OF FORCES IN UKRAINE.

Chicago Boyz contributor Jay Manifold offers a lengthy analysis.  "Trust only reports of failure, not reports of success" has a Friday short take vibe to it.  In addition, those conscripts Russia has been sending to war might not have had as much basic training as the training manuals prescribe. From a school trip through Siberia a few years ago:

[A] platoon of army recruits were riding in the 3rd class cars forward of our much nicer 2nd class accommodations. Some of the students talked with them (we had three fluent Russian speakers in the group, so we were not dependent on hired interpreters) and quickly learned that much of the recruits’ training was skipped over because they were forced to do construction work on an officer’s dacha. I remember hearing that and thinking, if this country gets into a real war, these kids are going to be like straw in a bonfire. Eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds.

There are all sorts of perspectives on offer in the bull session.

A JOB ACTION ON THE CANADIEN PACIFIQUE DE MEXICO.

Currently, the job action appears limited to Canada based train crews, although the movement of bulk commodities throughout North America (in anticipation of the merger, Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern have been coordinating their freight trains) is at risk.  Because of certain elected officials reluctance to authorize pipelines, a lot of crude oil moves by rail, and with the planting season about to begin, the fertilizer dealers are stocking up.

Crude oil and fertilizer are also two of the products most affected by the war between Russia and Ukraine, which are the “major agriculture producing nations” the senators were referencing in the letter. Oil has been at the center of media attention, but as Andrew Stuttaford has written about before, fertilizer shortages could end up being much more damaging. Food is truly a universal input.

Yes, and there's nothing like a good crisis to encourage people to ask for better working conditions.

Given the war, U.S. and Canadian grain producers are under pressure to produce more than normal this season to at least partially compensate for the lost production in Russia and Ukraine. That means they’ll need a lot of fertilizer. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is home to Nutrien, the world’s largest fertilizer company, and is served by one of the densest parts of CP’s rail network. Without CP operating as normal, many farmers on both sides of the border will have a hard time getting fertilizer.

This work stoppage might only be a foreshadowing of what is to come, however. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents West Coast dockworkers in the U.S. and Canada, has been gearing up for labor negotiations when its current contract expires on July 1.

Just watch, some Washington politician will accuse the fertilizer producers (themselves a concentrated industry?) of price gouging.

THE END OF THE WORLD WILL COME IN 2030.

I remember when the end of the world was supposed to be by 2000, and maybe it was ice and not fire or famine that would be the end, and then it was supposed to come in 2016 (which would have spared us the Clinton - Trump election follies, but I digress.)  Now, we'll see if the world ends in my lifetime.

Dire new research published Tuesday estimates that rich countries must end oil and gas production entirely by 2034 to give the world a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C by the close of the century—the Paris accord's most ambitious climate target.

Assembled by experts at the United Kingdom-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the report finds that "immediate and deep cuts in the production of all fossil fuels" are needed worldwide to avert the worst of the ongoing climate emergency.

If I'm still around then, I'll call attention to those readers who are around that we are still around.

Make of it what you will, dear reader, that the poorer countries, which tend to be more polluted, get to take more time weaning themselves off of fossil fuels.  "A transition based on principles of equity requires wealthy, high-emitting nations to phase out all oil and gas production by 2034 while the poorest nations have until 2050 to end production."

GETTING THE ECONOMICS RIGHT.

Let the record show that the last major outbreak of Official Brow-Furrowing about corporate concentration leading to higher prices through an exercise of market power was during the Carter presidency.  (The Soviet Union invaded another country in hopes of installing a friendly government back then, but I digress.)  That brow-furrowing often focuses on specific sectors, such as food processing, and some of that was at work during the Obama administration.  Back then, though, the troubling developments might have been better living through chemistry.  "Concentration in the food business is not in the public interest -- now-a-days advanced genetic modification is the latest way of enhancing profits despite making the food cheaper and more plentiful."  I tend to file that sort of stuff as "Demand your right to pay higher prices from independent suppliers."  That's what we have farmers' markets, artisanal breweries, and the like for.

But then, the senile potted plant inserts himself in the discussion, and it appears he's arguing that we all end up paying more for meat because the meat packers are paying ranchers less for meat.

Given Biden’s incoherence, it’s up to us to make some assumptions about what he meant here. He most likely meant to say there are four major meatpacking companies, not facilities. And given he said four, he probably means beef specifically, not meat in general. The four major beef companies in the U.S. are Tyson, Cargill, National Beef, and JBS. If you branch out into other meats, companies such as Smithfield, Hormel, and Perdue are big players as well.

The Big Four beef companies are responsible for about 70 percent of total U.S. beef production. The reason for the consolidation is economies of scale. Larger facilities are able to slaughter more cattle at lower cost than smaller facilities.

More consolidation means fewer options for farmers, however, and they may have no choice but to accept prices for their meat that they deem too low. More meat used to be priced through public auction, which allowed for greater transparency and gave farmers more power. Now, more meat is priced through exclusive contracts, with terms set by the processing companies that farmers then take or leave.

Farmers are upset about this, which is nothing new. There has always been and will always be tension between farmers and the companies that purchase their goods and bring them to market. Sellers (farmers) will always want prices to be higher, and buyers (marketers and processors) will always want prices to be lower.

As an exercise, work out the welfare implications of a seller's oligopoly that has oligopsony control of a primary input. For extra credit, identify the incentives producers of that input might have to bypass the oligopsony.

Now consider the populist impulse.  If ranchers get paid more, under what circumstances will consumers pay less?

What’s curious here is that Biden is implicitly taking the sellers’ side while complaining that prices are too high. Note that the attorneys general are writing on behalf of producers, not consumers. Farmers want the prices to be higher because they make more money that way. That makes perfect sense for them, and they have every right to ask for it. But Biden wants prices to be lower, so taking the farmers’ side in this dispute is counterproductive for him.

More fundamentally, emphasizing repeatedly that there are “only four” major beef companies raises the question: How many major beef companies should there be? Biden’s answer, implicitly, is “more than four,” but it’s not really clear why or how we should go about increasing the number of companies.

Particularly, as the article notes, if there are substantial economies of scale in packing and shipping beef.